Tones and Commissives as Aspects of Oath-taking in NKST Priestly Ordination Ceremonies


Published in AKSUJEL - September, 2026

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Abstract

Priestly ordination ceremonies constitute signicant sites of ritual communication in which language functions not only as a medium of interaction but also as an instrument for enacting institutional and spiritual commitments. Despite the growing body of scholarship on the Nongo u Kristu u i Ser u sha Tar (NKST), linguistic investigations into the phono-pragmatic dimensions of its ordination discourse remain limited. This study examines the interaction between tonal patterns and commissive speech acts in oath-taking during NKST priestly ordination ceremonies. Adopting a qualitative phono-pragmatic approach, the study analysed thirty tone tokens extracted from audio-recorded oath-taking sessions using Halliday’s Systemic Phonology and Searle’s Speech Act Theory. The Tiv data were translated into English by three translation experts with due consideration for phonological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic equivalence. Findings reveal that tonal realizations of commissive force are language-specic. In the rst three oath-taking responses, Tiv employs rising tones to encode armation and commitment, whereas their English equivalents realize the same commissive force through falling tones. However, from the fourth to the ninth responses, both Tiv and English consistently employ falling tones to reinforce solemn vows, institutional obligations and irrevocable ministerial commitment. The study concludes that although tonal congurations dier across languages, they perform equivalent pragmatic functions within ritual discourse, thereby demonstrating the intricate relationship between prosody, commissive speech acts and oath-taking in ecclesiastical communication.

Keywords: Tones Commissives Oath-Taking NKST Priestly Ordination Systemic Phonology Phono-Pragmatics

Cataloging & Classification: Bi-annually , Vol.7(1) pp. 29-47

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