Pragmatics of Shared Beliefs in Spousal Conflict Resolution Proceedings

This paper examines the pragmatics of shared beliefs held by interactants in the resolution proceedings on spousal disputes at the Justice Court, Nigeria. The data consist of twenty downloaded videos from the YouTube account of the Justice Court, Nigeria, transcribed using Jefferson’s transcription notations. The study draws insights from Odebunmi’s (2006) model of mutual contextual beliefs and Clark’s (1996) model of common grounds for data analysis. The findings show three categories of shared beliefs: shared socio-cultural beliefs on marital practices, shared knowledge of marital responsibilities, and shared knowledge of marital unfaithfulness; characterised by affirmative, validation, contrastive, negation, and reformulation markers. The study demonstrates that justice is culturally legitimate, socially restorative, and linguistically inclusive, thereby enhancing both the credibility of the justice system and the sustainability of conflict resolutions.