NJOMACS

This study investigates pragma-contextual nuances in Bilkisu Abubakar’s The Woman in Me. It aims at analysing the various contexts that shape the negotiation of meaning in the text. The research adopts a qualitative design, utilising descriptive and analytical methods to perform a systematic close-reading and pragma-contextual analysis of nine purposively sampled excerpts. The study is underpinned by Lawal’s (2012) Aspects of Pragmatic Theory, specifically the background structures, which filters communicative acts through six hierarchical layers. The findings reveal that non-linguistic contexts; situational, psychological, social, sociological, and cosmological, significantly influence the interpretation of the text and character interactions. The analysis highlights how the situational context of displacement of Ibrahim and Rosamond from the UK to Kurmin Dusa impacts the narrative, while psychological contexts drive the internal emotional states of these characters. Furthermore, the study identifies that the narrative conflict is rooted in the failure of Mutual Contextual Beliefs (MCBs), where Western individualistic orientations clash with traditional Northern Nigerian communal values regarding marriage and gender roles. The study concludes that the characters’ inability to reconcile these disparate worldviews leads to the conflicts, thereby, establishing context as the ultimate arbiter of meaning in literary discourse.