Digital Discourse and Neighborliness: A Pragmatic Analysis of WhatsApp Interactions in Selected Abuja Communities

Abstract

The emergence of digital communication technologies has transformed patterns of social interaction and community engagement, making WhatsApp an important platform for neighbourhood communication, information sharing, conflict management, and collective action. It is against this backdrop that this paper examines the pragmatic acts embedded in WhatsApp discourse of residents of Abuja communities. Specifically, it seeks to determine how pragmatic acts function in promoting or undermining neighbourliness and to identify the contextual and linguistic resources deployed in performing socially consequential actions in digital interactions. The study is a qualitative-content analysis research anchored in Jacob Mey’s Pragmatic Act Theory (PAT). Data were collected from the WhatsApp platforms of two Abuja-based residential communities: Custom Axis Community, Phase 3, Gwagwalada, and GodsOwn Estate, Apo. The data comprised naturally occurring WhatsApp messages, including text posts and relevant voice-note transcriptions generated within a three-month period. Messages relating to community support, conflict resolution, security concerns, social solidarity, suspicion, and collective action were purposively sampled and analysed. Findings reveal that WhatsApp functions, simultaneously, as a platform for promoting and hindering neighbourliness. On the one hand, community members employ pragmatic acts of appreciation, encouragement, welcoming, blessing, coordination, negotiation, and solidarity-building to foster cooperation, communal support, religious tolerance, and collective identity. On the other, pragmatic acts such as warning, accusing, blaming, criticizing, and suspicion-building contribute to fear, distrust, conflict, digital surveillance, and social tension. The study concludes that WhatsApp discourse serves as a dynamic arena where trust, solidarity, fear, and suspicion are continually negotiated through language. The paper contributes to the growing field of digital pragmatics by demonstrating how Pragmatic Act Theory can be effectively applied to understanding neighbourly relationships and social cohesion in digitally mediated Nigerian communities.