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ABSTRACT
This study attempts a pragmatic analysis of written inscriptions on vehicles at Surulere, Lagos. The purpose of the study is to examine the inscriptions, the language act they carry, and their communicative import. Data were collected using observation of writings on the vehicles and interview. The corpus was classified according to language use and language acts. The language acts were interpreted using Speech Acts Theory, to understand the communicative import of each language use such as religious belief, assertion of identity, rejection of poverty, etc. The findings from the study reveal the writers’ emotive import, adherence to Grice’ principles of cooperation, and that every inscription, no matter the language in which it is written, has communicative import and belongs to a particular language act. The researchers conclude that Speech Acts are language universal.
