Between Assertion and Submission:

Speech Acts and Gender Discourse in Adichie’s Americanah

Abstract

The study examines gendered discourse in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah (2013). Itemploys speech acts theory Searle (1969) and Feminist pragmatics Lakoff (1975) and Tannen (1990) to analyse 15 utterances from the novel through a qualitative discourse paradigm. While previous studies addressed race, identity, and diaspora in the novel, no study has conducted systematic utterance-level pragmatic analysis of how gendered power has  enacted in its dialogue.  The analysis shows how directives, assertives, commissives and suppressed speech acts distribute illocutionary authority in gendered discourse. The findings demonstrate that male characters claim epistemic authority through unhedged assertions and indirect commands, while female characters habitually hedge, suppress, or retract their speech acts. Ifemelu's pragmatic deference is situational rather than essential. These patterns are shaped by race, class, and cultural location. The study implies that feminist pragmatics offers a productive methodological bridge between literary analysis and linguistic inquiry. Future research should extend the corpus to other Adichie's novels.