Style in Religious Communication in Nigeria

Akin Odebunmi and Adeyemi O. Babajide (eds)
University of Ibadan, Nigeria

The book, which contains twelve well-developed chapters, explores different aspects of style in the contexts of Christianity, Islam and traditional religion in Nigeria with insights from such disciplines as linguistics, literature and music. The goal is to facilitate access to the meaning intended in the communication and reveal the stylistic distinctiveness of this communication as projected through such media as advertisements, sermons, scriptural language, the internet, home videos, music, orature and poetry.

The various chapters examine the forms and functions of the expressions and other communicative tools (such as musical instruments, non-verbal cues, etc) engaged by the religious communicators to describe and exemplify their messages; situate, clarify and magnify their points; and assure, reassure, challenge and satirise their audience.This approach promises better appreciation and interpretation of religious discourses in Nigeria and the world as a whole.

Contents:

The Stylistics of Religious Electronic Media Advertisements in Nigeria AKIN ODEBUNMI

A Stylistic Study of Muslim Sermons in Southwestern Nigeria K.K OLANIYAN & A.G. OYEKOLA

A Speech Act Analysis of Christian Religious Speeches SOLA BABATUNDE

Tenor in Electronic Media Christian Discourse in Nigeria ROTIMI TAIWO

Thematic Structures in Isaiah 49 KAYODE OGUNLEYE & SADE OLAGUNJU

Phonological Features of Electronic Media Christian Sermons S.A. ALADEYOMI

Structural and Syntactic Differences in Selected Verses of Three Versions of the Holy Bible E.T. BABALOLA

The Poetics of Songs: An Analytical Stylistic Study of Solomon’s The Song of Solomon and p. Bitek’s Song of Lawino ADEYEMI O. BABAJIDE

The Praise ‘n’ Worship Musical Style of the Contemporary Nigerian Avant Garde (Charismatic) Christian Church FEMI ADEDEJI

Style in Christian Home Videos in Nigeria AKIN ADETUNJI

ISBN 9783895864964. LINCOM Studies in Communication 01. 284pp. 2007.

Perspectives on Media Discourse

Rotimi Taiwo
Akin Odebunmi
& Akin Adetunji (eds.)

This book explores the use of language and other discourse-related segments of the print and electronic media in Africa, South America, North America and Asia.

The fifteen chapters of the book examine discursive strategies in media interviews, ideology and power relations in headlines, values and truth in international news, explicatures and implicatures in editorials, representation of people in the news, the pragmatics of newspaper headlines, the religion contents of newspapers, the portrayal of women in news reports, phonological features of newscasts, the use of humour in media discourse, speech acting in cigarette advertising, media arts and techniques of writing advanced and specialized news and the representation of public opinions in newspaper reports.

The internationality of the scope of the book and the impressive depth of the treatment of the topics easily recommend it to general readers and scholars all over the world who are interested in media discourse.

Contents:

Constructing Identity and Alterity in TV Autobiographical Interviews: Analysis of Argentinean Popular Artists’ Discursive Strategies
- Maria Palmira Massi (Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Patagonia, Argentina)

Language, Ideology and Power Relations in Nigerian Newspaper Headlines
- Rotimi Taiwo (Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Nigeria)

Values and Truth in the International New: A Case Study
- Françoise Nunn (Kochi University, Japan)

Explicatures and Implicatures in Magazine Editorials: The Case of the Nigerian TELL
- Akin Odebunmi (University of Ibadan, Nigeria)

Representation of People in the News in the Nigerian Print Media
- Moses Alo (University of Ibadan, Nigeria)

Pragmatic Functions of Newspaper Headlines in Nigeria
- Olatunde Ayodabo Ajayi (Crowther University, Oyo, Nigeria)

The Religious Essence of Indigenous Press in Nigeria
- Abiodun Salawu (University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria)

Playing Unfair: The Synergy of Culture and Sexism in Nigerian News Discourse
- Kate Azuka Omenugha (University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, United Kingdom)

Errors of Segmental Phonemes in the Spoken English of Nigerian Television Newscasters
- S. A. Aladeyomi (Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria)

Meaning Death Mediation: A Pragmatic Study of Obituaries in Nigerian Newspapers
- Akin Adetunji (Oyo State College of Education, Oyo, Nigeria)

Discourse Features of the Language of Nigerian News Magazines
- Innocent Chiluwa (Covenant University, Otta, Ogun State, Nigeria)

Humor in Media Discourse
- Alleen Pace Nilsen and Don L. F. Nilsen (Arizona State University, Tempe, USA)

A Speech Act Analysis of Cigarette Advertising in the Nigerian Media
- Mafhouz Adedimeji (University of Ilorin, Nigeria)

Media Arts and Techniques of Writing Advanced and Specialised News in Nigerian Weekly Magazines
- Godwin Eliareklian Oboh (Ben Idahosa University, Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria)

The Mass Media and Public Opinion: A Content Analysis of Newspaper Coverage of Alamieyeseigha’s Bail Jump Saga
- Oni Olawale & Oluseye Abiodun B. (Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria; Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, Ogun State, Nigeria)

ISBN 9783895864759. LINCOM Studies in Communication 02. 345pp. 2007.

Arabic Rhetoric

The Pragmatics of Deviation from Linguistic Norms

Basil Hatim
American University of Sharjah, UAE

The rhetorical traditions of a nation are an important part of the linguistic and thought processes which characterize the intellectual make-up of its people. This has perhaps never been more evident than in the case of the Arabic language and those who speak it. Such an interrelationship between language and thinking has been at the heart of serious misunderstandings of the perceptions and attitudes of the Arabs on the part of those who interact with them via culture, trade and more recently politics.

The aim of Arabic Rhetoric: Norms & Deviations is thus to provide a core text on Arabic Rhetoric (balagha) for semi-specialist and generalist readers with professional interest in the Arabic language and culture. In an accessible manner, the reader is presented with a comprehensive, albeit brief, account of the salient features of Arab rhetorical thinking. Such accounts aim to familiarize the reader with the major themes, what these mean to the modern user of Arabic in fields such as translation and how they compare and contrast with recent trends in modern text linguistics. The focus of the book is not so much on the chronology and historical ramifications as on the conceptual map which highlights milestones in the development of Arabic rhetorical thought.

ISBN 9783929075731. LINCOM Studies in Communicaton 04. 271pp. 2009.

Languages in the Integrating World

Marie Krčmová (ed.)
Masaryk University

The book is devoted to one particular aspect of a problem which is quite topical in these days: how the integration of today’s world manifests itself in various languages. Integration is a reflection of relations between cultures, often additionally backed up by economical relations and also influenced by historical and political factors. Tendencies to disintegration parallelly taking place can lead as far as to the constitution of new languages or to the revival of cultural languages.

Contents:

LANGUAGES AND THEIR FATES
Marie Krčmová Trends of Sociolectal Integration and Disintegration: The Case of the Brno Sociolect - Peter Kosta The Problem of Language Minorities in the European Council - between Protection, Revitalization and Necessity of Saving Costs: The Example of the Sorbs/Wends in Germany - Anna Maria Perissutti The Friulian Language in Italy: Paths to a Value-Added Position - Susana Vilarchao Fragueiro A General Approach to the Situation of the Galician Language in Spain - Grażyna Balowska Óndra Łysohorsky and His Idea of the Lachian Language - Lilia Schürcks The Multi-Level Identity of Pomaks in Bulgaria as a Mirror of the Subtlety of Their Code-Switching.

INTEGRATION IN LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION
Petr Karlík Intralanguage and Interlanguage Integration - Jiří Gazda Integration Tendencies in Word Formation in Current Slavonic Languages: Focussing on the Situation in Russian and Czech - Natália Kisel'ová Integration from the Viewpoint of Areal Linguistics - Jiřina Malá Aspects of the Stylistic Analysis of Film Reviews with respect to Linguistic and Cultural Integration - Anna Mikulová Emotionality, Expressivity and Evaluation - Integration in Languages and Linguistic Concepts - JitkaVlčková Matchmaking Advertisements and Societal Values - Jan Chovanec Linguistic Integration within European Integration:Czech and English Versions of Tobacco Product Health Warnings - Jana Chamonikolasová Discourse Markers in Czech and English Conversation - Milena Krhutová The Influence of English on the Czech Speciflc Texts on Electrical Engineering - Neil Bermel A Pilot Study on the Relationship between Corpus Data and Acceptability Judgments of Competing Forms - Sandra Birzer & Holger Nath Yiddish: A Thousand Years of Language Contact - Helena Karlíková Language Contacts of the Slavic and Arabic World (from the perspective of Czech).

ISBN 9783862902002 (Hardbound). LINCOM Studies in Communication 05. 294pp. 2010.

Oracy and Literacy

Their Autonomy and Complementation in Language Communication

Petr Zima, Editor
Radovan Síbrt and Vladimír Tax, Assistant Editors in cooperation with Thomas Bearth, Norbert Cyffer, Petr Komers, Jitka Slezáková, Anne Storch

This is the second volume presenting the results of a research project on Continuity and Discontinuity in Communication granted by the Czech Science Foundation (Grantová agentura České republiky) under Reg. No 405-07-0277. While the first volume (published as volume 77 of LINCOM Studies in African Linguistics) was oriented towards intra-disciplinary linguistic horizons of Sprachbund and related areal features, this second volume is more focused on communication as an inter-disciplinary problem.

It is in this light that the autonomy and mutual complementation of oracy and literacy appears as a critical topic related to continuity and discontinuity in communication. The rapidly spreading new communication media bring with them broader, if not global, characteristics of usage, acceptance and consequences. Hence it is not only possible, but desirable, that our case studies on the interrelationship of oracy and literacy of the Vietnamese/Czech language interference in varieties used by the Vietnamese minority speakers and writers/readers in contemporary Czech Republic, are presented here alongside our case studies of selected African languages interfering with English and French in oracy and literacy of contemporary West Africa.

Table of Contents

Editor's Preface

Continuity and Discontinuity of Contacts in Communication - General Remarks
Petr Zima et alii

Studying Czech Vietnamese and Vietnamese Czech – The Context
Jitka Slezáková & Petr Komers

Vietnamese Czech: Unity and Variation in Second Language Acquisition
Jitka Slezáková

Czech Vietnamese: Twenty Years of Czech Context’s Influence on Vietnamese of the ‘Xu’
Petr Komers

Continuity and Discontinuity of Oracy and Literacy in West Africa
Petr Zima, Thomas Bearth

Orality, Literacy and Digital Competence – a Package Deal for Demarginalizing Remote African End Users
Thomas Bearth

Orality and Literacy in the Kanuri Society
Norbert Cyffer

Oracy in Literacy – Encounters of Two Communication Codes in the Written Litterature
Petr Komers

Failing Literacy? On the Meaning of Writing
Anne Storch

Hausa between Oracy and the Digraphia of Literacy
Petr Zima

ISBN 978 3 86288 026 3. LINCOM Studies in Communication 07. 320pp. 2010.

Géneros discursivos institucionales

Heraclia Castellón Alcalá
Universidad de Almería

Los poderes públicos adoptan una tonalidad específica para formular sus directrices. Abordar las formas discursivas de los mensajes del ámbito de los poderes públicos es a lo que apunta este trabajo. Se trata de comprobar los rasgos caracterizadores de los géneros discursivos ligados al poder y las instituciones.

Se registran las confluencias entre estos tipos discursivos por pertenecer al género de la comunicación del poder. Algún apartado se dedica a reconocer la existencia de subgéneros discursivos específicos (el discurso regio), o también a abordar los trazos fundamentales de la amplia variedad de mensajes considerados como “lenguaje político”.

Otro asunto abordado es la torpeza expresiva que aqueja a determinados mensajes normativos, hasta arrastrarlos al fracaso comunicativo; sus consecuencias son de considerable calibre, como los casos deplorables aquí recogidos.

Se destaca finalmente el entrelazamiento textual de algunos mensajes, donde la intertextualidad aflora como factor constitutivo.

Heraclia Castellón Alcalá (Almería) es Catedrática de Lengua y Literatura Españolas de Educación Secundaria, tutora UNED y miembro de un grupo de investigación lingüística de la Universidad de Almería. Sus publicaciones giran en torno al análisis del lenguaje administrativo, el funcionamiento de la argumentación en algunos textos y la descripción de ciertos subgéneros discursivos (el monólogo, la copla).

ISBN 9783862883806. LINCOM Studies in Communication 08. 128pp. 2012.

Christians against the Ethnics

Georgios Alexandropoulos
University of Athens

Georgios Alexandropoulos’ new bookChristians against the Ethnicsis based on the idea of defining and studying the rhetorical and linguistic practice of three speakers, Athenagoras, Tatian and Justin Martyr, who express their disagreement with the Ethnics. Until now in literature review we can find several traditional studies concerning byzantine classical texts, which are based on the Aristotelian concept of rhetoric.

In this book the author tries to define some elements of their rhetorical practice as the most frequent words, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, lexical bundles, rhetorical structure and intertextualistic sources using linguistic theories, models and computational tools.This can give us the chance to learn more about byzantine rhetoric.

ISBN 9783862885596. LINCOM Studies in Communication 09. 154pp. 2014.

The epitaphs of Gregory  of Nazianzus: a stylistic approach

Georgios Alexandropoulos
University of Athens

Georgios Alexandropoulos examines the rhetorical style of the epitaphs of Gregory of Nazianzus through the application of contemporary linguistic theories, models and mechanisms in classical texts. In this book the author defines the style of the certain speeches focusing on elements as the most frequent words, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, exclamatory sentences, lexical bundles, rhetorical relations and intertextuality. This book is structured in six chapters.

Chapter 1 includes a brief overview of relevant stylistic, discourse and corpus-based approaches; it also presents the data and our methodology. Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5 describe the data and inform us about the linguistic practice of Gregory of Nazianzus. Finally, the book closes with a critical review, some concluding remarks and recommendations for further research.

ISBN 9783862885985. LINCOM Studies in Communication 10. 180pp. 2014.

Aitor Rivas

Universidade Federal de Viçosa

O traballo que desenvolve Aitor Rivas neste libro céntrase na análise quinésica da gravación en vídeo dun relato dun narrador semi-profesional. Trátase dun monólogo onde o narrador conta unha historia persoal. O autor estabelece un sistema de transcrición e de quinegrafías propio que lle serven para describir e analizar os principais trazos quinésicos do narrador. Aitor Rivas preséntanos un traballo analítico e interpretativo do comportamento non verbal nunha situación real de comunicación, analizando a relación existente entre os niveis paralingüístico, quinésico e lingüístico do narrador a través de doce fragmentos escollidos pola súa riqueza xestual. Finalmente, o autor presenta as conclusións da súa investigación.

Aitor Rivas naceu en Vigo en 1979. É licenciado en Filoloxía galega pola Universidade de Vigo e ten un mestrado en Contacto lingüístico e sociolingüística galega na mesma universidade. As súas investigacións están relacionadas coa comunicación non verbal, especialmente coa descrición e análise quinésica de narracións orais e co humor. Nos últimos quince anos traballou como profesor de lingua galega e castelá en escolas e universidades de Galiza, Alemaña, Cataluña, Rusia e Brasil. Alén diso, é un gran viaxeiro, xogador de billarda e casteller de Sants.

ISBN 9783862886340. LINCOM Studies in Communication 11. 146pp. 2015.