European Journal of English Language and Literature Studies Vol.10, No.4, pp.1-12, 2022 Print ISSN: 2055-0138(Print) Online ISSN: 2055-0146(Online) 1 @ECRTD-UK https://www.eajournals.org/ Stephen's Martyrdom in the Holy Bible: Investigating His Defense Speech Using Conversation Implicature and Language Expectancy Theory Samuel Adebayo Omotunde 1 Department of English and Literary Studies,Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, Nigeria Omolade Bamigboye* Department of English and Literary Studies, Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, Nigeria Olumide Ogunrotimi Department of English and Literary Studies, Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, Nigeria Citation: Samuel Adebayo Omotunde, Omolade Bamigboye and Olumide Ogunrotimi (2022) Stephen’s Martyrdom in the Holy Bible: Investigating His Defense Speech Using Conversation Implicature and Language Expectancy Theory, European Journal of English Language and Literature Studies, Vol.10, No.4, pp.1-12 ABSTRACT: The paper examines Stephen’s defense to the 'false charges' brought against him in the Bible vis-a-vis his death through stoning. Although few scholars have written some things on Stephen and his defense speech, none has linked his death to the content of the speech itself and his linguistic choice but rather to the beliefthat he was killed based on his religious belief. Using Grice’s conversational implicature and Language Expectancy Theory, the authors discovered that Stephen violated Grice’s maxim of relevance by not addressing the substance of the question posed to him by the High Priest with the implicature that he might have said those things he was accused of which were blasphemous. Also, towards the end of the defense, Stephen employed verbal aggression which is a clear case of negative violation of expectations of language use, hence another probable reason for Stephen’s death. KEYWORDS: Stephen, defense speech, language expectancy theory, implicature, sanhedrin INTRODUCTION Human beings in all areas of human endeavor make use of language to realize their mission and vision to a large extent. Also, through the instrumentality of language (written or spoken), people more often than not portray the kind of person they are, that is, whether they are respectful, proud, kind, intelligent, compassionate, stubborn, remorseful, rigid, flexible, and so on. Apart from somebody’s appearance and dress which are the first windows through which people or interlocutors can judge somebody outright (rightly or wrongly) at first contact, what somebody says and how he/she says it is the next available means by which people are immediately judged or evaluated with either negative or positive consequences. In every human society, certain occupations require more of spoken language than the written form. For example, teachers/lecturers, lawyers, and ministers of God (both Christian and Muslim) use more of spoken language than the written form to carry out