Public Awareness and Sensitization Campaigns on HIV/AIDS in Nigeria (Report)

Introduction Human beings usually employ language for the primary goal of communicating their messages and feelings among themselves. The receivers of the messages are often expected to understand the intentions of the senders through the choices of linguistic forms made by the senders. This expectation is a very important facet of communication. Whereas scholars have spent centuries discussing the nature and form of language, very little appears to have been done in analyzing the use of language to be able to bring out the successful or unsuccessful degree of its deployment and the consequences of each outcome. Until Austin (1962), Searle (1969, 1979) and Grice (1975) came to limelight, it would seem that the scrutiny of the pragmatic uses to which language is put in communication contexts was simply without any seat, not to talk of having a back seat in the journey towards unveiling the complex phenomena of language. Halliday (1978, 1980), Back and Harnich (1979), coulthard (1977) and Leech (1983), amongst others, have added their strong voices to the imperative to examine aspects of languages as a tool in use, rather than as mere "formal system" (Leech, 1983:10).