Abstract

This article focuses on the analysis of enactment of speech acts of offer and acceptance and their commissive effects in carrying out Sulha informal legal processes. Sulha is a method of resolving disputes used in the Middle East. These processes of Sulha are understood to operate within traditions set by communities that use the process in solving disputes. Just as formal legal processes, the success of a Sulha process is dependent on legal performative of a language used to carry out Sulha tribunals. This is based on the fact that it is through language that informal legal acts are enacted. The study is grounded on the Jordanian Bedouin dialect used in conducting Sulha tribunals whose translation equivalences are given in English. Data are collected through audio-recording which is backed up with note-taking. The audio-recorded data are then played back to identify the speech acts of offer and acceptance. The identified acts of offer and acceptance are then analyzed within the framework of Searle’s (1979) classification of speech acts. In terms of methodology, the study adopts descriptive research design whereby the speech acts of offer and acceptance are described as they occur in the legal discourses used in the informal legal process, Sulha.

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