Chapter 12: Recreating Beliefs Through Inscriptions on Body Panels of Commercial Buses in Lagos

Whenever human beings use language, they do so to communicate, to make meaning and to recreate beliefs in a being or thing. This chapter investigates the language–use of commercial vehicle operators through an analysis of 200 inscriptions obtained from the body panels of commercial buses in Lagos, Nigeria. The author examined these inscriptions for hidden meaning— concealed emotions, vociferous protest and probably defiance against an agent. Two concepts (Presupposition and Mutual Contextual Beliefs–MCBs) were considered relevant to analyzing the language–use by this set of people—commercial vehicle operators. In all we were able to find out how people use language to mean more than is actually stated. We were able to probe the deep from the surface and arrive at the submission that a strong link exists between the language and mind of an individual.