CHAPTER ONE                                    1.0 INTRODUCTION  

This study investigates the features of Discourse in the interaction Among Market Women in Oba market, Benin with their customers. Language is made up essentially of written and spoken modes. There are formats and methods of analysis attached to each of the modes.

The written language has a long history of analysis while the spoken form has

only recently gained attention in Linguistic analysis. Our interest in carrying out

this research is to further the development of the analysis of the spoken language. In this introductory chapter, some key concepts, sub - themes and terminologies

used in the study will be presented.

1.1 Background to the Study

Many linguists describe language as the most important attribute of man.

Allenton (18) in his own view defines language as;

-----the fully developed natural human communication involved           in transmitting ideas or information from person to person.  

He sees language as a tool for information transfer.

Thomas and Wareing (6-9) in their book Language, Society and Power, postulate

that one of the obvious ways of thinking about language is that;

It is a systematic way of combining smaller units into larger units for  the purpose of communication, for instance, we combine the sound segments of our language (Phoneme) to form words(Lexical items) According to the rules  of language we speak. 

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