A Pragmatic Analysis of Verbal Offers by Vendors

This study is a pragmatic investigation of verbal offers by vendors of consumer products in Jos Metropolis. An attempt is made to analyze data at the semantic and syntactic levels. Findings provide empirical to the view adopted by Levinson (1983) with regard to the Cooperative principle and its four maxims of quantity, quality, relation and manner. It is justified that the maxims are not absolute rules that have to be strictly obeyed in order to make a verbal interaction go smoothly. Rather, they should be deemed as common assumptions shared by both the speakers and the hearers when they are engaged in a verbal interaction.