UNIVERSITY OF UYO JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES

This current study entitled: 'Analysing Officialese in the Benue State Civil Service' aims at critically analysing the language used in file processing by civil servants, especially as it pertains to the Benue State Civil Service. The study therefore appraised the codes and language system used by Benue State civil servants in file processing, identified the difficulties in understanding such language system and provided clarification and explored how office language can be seen as an asset to its users. Language is used variously, but for the sake of this current study, the researcher limits the study to the style of language used in Benue State civil service, the challenges therein and clarifications. To successfully achieve the set goals for the study, the researchers adopted Conversational Maxims Theory by Grice (1969) and Foregrounding Theory by Leech (1969). The analysis of data in this current study was guided by the principles and parameters of the theories mentioned above. Data for this study was generated from both primary and secondary sources. The primary sources of data were files collected and examined at the different sections and departments of the Benue State Civil Service. The researchers subjected the documents collected at the Benue State Civil Service to diverse levels of stylistic analysis such as graphological, lexical and syntactic which covered sentences/clauses, passivation/pronominalisation, the formulaic adjunct and adverbials. It was then found that, officialese is polite, impersonal and formal; and is characterised by the preponderance of passive structures and the use of the personal pronouns 'I' and 'you'. It was also concluded that, the Benue State Civil Service has many channels through which it communicates with not only its members but also members of the public. Some of these are; written, oral, or non- verbal channels. The researcher then recommended that: Studies such as this current one should be sought by the government and made available to Benue State civil servants, in order to equip them with the knowledge of the ideal language to be used in file processing and how to use it

Open Full Text (PDF)