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The Use of Common Ground in Students' Graffiti at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria

Babatunde Ibraheem Azeez

Department of English, University of Ilorin, Ilorin

Fatai Ismaeel

Department of Languages, The Federal Polytechnic, Offa

Abstract

Graffiti, over time, have been observed as a means of communication among students which allows them to vent their pent up feelings, thoughts, ideas, displeasure, grievances, religious beliefs, etc. The aim is to investigate what constitutes common ground in students' graffiti at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. The method adopted in this study is descriptive, using qualitative mode of analysis. Twelve samples of purposively selected strands of graffiti on university and staff affairs, morals and religion, general theme constituted the data for the study. The samples were subjected to tools of common grounding like presupposition, implicature and context, among others. The findings present graffiti as effective channels of communicating displeasure, pent up feelings, grievances, religious beliefs, etc. This means that graffiti do not always convey bad intentions as revealed with the aid of the grounding tools. Rather, graffiti sometimes give specific details via appropriate descriptions of referent for better understanding irrespective of the absence of the both the graffitist and the audience. In conclusion, given the nature of graffiti, paying the deserved positive attention to them can result in positive transformation of the society