The Sociolinguistics of Congratulatory Messages in Nigerian Newspapers (Published)
Congratulatory messages are a type of greeting in which members of a society express their joy and happiness to one another as a result of an accomplishment, success, or good fortune. Several studies have been conducted on oral greetings from both pragmatic and sociolinguistic perspectives, with little attention paid to written forms. The goal of this paper is to look into the connections between the sociolinguistic behaviours of Nigerian (L2) English speakers in newspaper congratulatory messaging and the specific social norms, values, and beliefs they convey. The paper will investigate the structural patterns as well as the functions of these messages, to determine what kind of sociolinguistic information they attempt to communicate. The framework for the paper is Ethnography of Communication. Data were subjected to sociolinguistic analysis. Findings reveal that English has a distinct cultural element in relation to the society where it is adopted as official or additional language. Social interactional norms in the Nigerian context emphasised status and power instead of solidarity. The sociolinguistic import of these messages conveyed sociocultural orientations to spirituality, adulations, and veneration of the aged, and solicitation. The results discussed in this paper have implications on how people think about the value of studying language as a communicative instrument in relation to the society in which it is used and the sociocultural function it tries to perform.
Keywords: Ethnography of communication, Greetings, Society, Sociolinguistic behaviours, sociocultural norms
Literature as Instrument for Development: A Survey of Sembene Ousmane’s Guelwaar (Published)
That there is a relationship between literature and a society, which produces it, is no longer news. However, the extent of the perceived interconnectivity between literature and its milieu remains a serious argument among literary theorists, historians and other practitioners of creative arts generally. In an attempt to contribute to the debate on the meeting point between literature and the environment which paves the way for its creation and production, we examine Sembène Ousmane’s Guelwaar with the view that Art is not only for its own sake and purpose but also for the development of the society, which it claims it is a product of. This paper therefore is premised on the pragmatic approach which stresses that literature performs certain functions. The paper concludes that literature is a potential tool for sustainable developments in various human societies.
Keywords: Corruption, Culture, Development, Empowerment, Literature, Society, Woman Emancipation