“My mother and I were taken to Boko Haram members in the bush by my biological father, whom I believe has been a member, though not to my knowledge. And since then, we have remained under the custody of Boko Haram.” The above is an excerpt from the Leadership Newspapers record of the confession of Zahrau, a 13-year old girl who - the Kano State Police (Nigeria) claims - was arrested in connection to the twin bomb blasts at Kwari market in the state. She is said to claim that her father forced her to execute one of the fatal missions, hers which failed. I have read the newspapers report of the confession. And as a pragmaticist, I clearly do not take the quoted words as those of a 13-year-old who is under the close, interrogative eyes of unquestionably unsmiling police detectives. The purpose of Professional Vision in such a forensic instance is the deeper examination of what can be examined on the surface by everyone. And mine, at its best, has done this. Based on the above excerpt, the points highlighted below are my linguistic bases for my disagreement with the report. Tis impractical that a girl of that age, who is also under a tense condition, would do the following. a) Structure her subject-phrase as MY MOTHER AND I as opposed to ME AND MY MOTHER; b) See the need - if she at all knows its relevant meaning - to qualify such a common, common noun as FATHER with an uncommon adjective BIOLOGICAL; c) The relative pronoun WHOM is questionably one of the most confusing pronouns in English. Tis so confusing that many speakers would use WHO or even more annoying THAT in its grammatical space; d) The entire relative clause, WHOM I BELIEVE HAS BEEN A MEMBER is a clearly rewritten or made-up clause. In an ideal, spoken variety of itself, it would occur as an independent sentence (say I THINK HE HAS BEEN A MEMBER [BEFORE THEN]); e) Tis apparently unlikely to use the string, AND SINCE THEN in the already established situation; and f) I will not go into discussing the word, CUSTODY. But I must state that, for whoever is interested, the phrase UNDER THE CUSTODY, as opposed to IN [THE] CUSTODY, deserves some attention. The cases of Rodney King (1991), Michael Brown (2014) and a lot of others give a pragmaticist the urge to look deeper into these things. And that urge must be satisfied, even if not recognised. Sometimes, the things we are told are lies. Even if they are not lies but merely appear so, one should still ask why and not simply be satisfied with an answer to how. But people do not care. Many politicians, media outlets and even investigation agencies give us loads of crap, and people just take it like hungry puppies. Then when the end arrives, we blame the writer/speaker, leaving ourselves, the culprits who claimed to have read/listened, when afterall we only glanced/heard. While Professional Vision goes a long way, not everything is professional. Many things can be seen by our proverbial inner eye.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 10:32:42 +0000
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