Analysis of Linguistic Items Used as Presupposition Triggers in Selected Internal Memos of Tertiary Institutions in Bauchi State

This paper investigates the linguistic items used as presupposition triggers in encoding common background information in organizational memos using Yule’s and Levinson’s theories of presupposition. Since memos are designed to pass institutional information, memo writers write with the objectives of achieving conciseness and informativeness. Organizational memos often serve as concise instruments for internal communication, relying on shared knowledge to convey messages efficiently. The paper analyses a corpus of memos from purposively sampled memos from tertiary institutions in Bauchi state, Nigeria. The analysis reveals that the memo writers use linguistic items to encode presupposition. The triggers that are frequently used in writing memos are definite descriptions, factive verbs and change of state verbs. Definite descriptions are mostly used in memos that send announcements; memos that give directives employ factive triggers and structural presuppositions while memos that give administrative updates employ change of state triggers. These triggers help in reinforcing shared understanding among recipients, thereby streamlining communication and minimizing redundancy. In addition to the encoding assumed knowledge, the triggers also perform strategic functions in aligning organizational members’ cognitive framework. To understand how presupposition affects memo interpretations, this paper looks into and evaluates the presupposition triggers found in the memo. The paper concludes that presupposition emerges from the interaction between linguistic encoding and the pragmatic inferencing that allows recipients to treat presupposed content as part of the accepted common background.