Department of English

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Department of English

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Open Access
Adverbial-Tense Relationships in the Written English of Selected University of Ife Students.
(Obafemi Awolowo University, 1986) Fabusuyi, Mojisola Ajibike; Aremo, Bolaji
Adverbial-tense relationships are an important area of English grammar. It is indeed generally felt that there is the need for learners of English as a second language to master these relationships adequately if they must use the language for effective communication. The present study is an attempt at examining the mastery of the relationships by Nigerian learners and users of English. It would seem clear from the findings that, compared with native speakers, the Nigerian students selected for the study were grossly deficient in their adverbial-tense usage. Thus, it was found that of the 48 temporal meanings identified by David Crystal in a study on adverbial-tense relationships in native English, only 18 were expressed by the students. In the light of the findings, suggestions are made for improvement in the teaching of the relevant areas of English to Nigerian students.
Open Access
Assessing the Quality of Translations into English as a Second Language
(1987) Adegbite, A. B.
This paper proposes a two-dimensional approach to describing translation texts from a mother tongue into a second language. The approach observes and describes the process(es) of message transfer from the source to the target language along one dimension and describes the reactions of interpretants to the source and target language messages along the other dimension. The binary-comparative approach is expected to explicate the intricate processes of transferring and interpreting messages in translation more than the unidimensional method of comparing source and target language forms, hitherto being used.
Open Access
Bilingual Competence and the Suppressive Influence of English on Yoruba
(2011) Adegbite, Adewale Bandele
The contact between English and Yoruba, a Nigerian language, is a typical example of the language contact situation that has existed between English and many other Nigerian languages since the middle of the 19th Century. The contact between the languages has yielded some linguistic and sociolinguistic features, which overlap bi-directionally in the contact languages as aspects of linguistic facilitation or interference.
Open Access
Bilingualism-Biculturalism and the Utilization of African Languages for the Development of African Nations
(2004) Adegbite, Wale
The slow rate of development of African nations vis-a-vis their counterparts all over the world has been a major concern throughout the 21st c. As we enter the century, it behoves African scholars and intellectuals and other non-Africans who have some goodwill for Africa to rise up and challenge this ugly situation. This paper argues that the lack of development of African nations can be mainly linked to the lack of recognition and underutilization of African languages and cultures. It has consistently escaped the attention of African policy-makers planners that language has the greatest potentials and capacity to enhance the development of human beings, as individuals or societies, hence their consistent neglect and silence about language when discussing matters of development. Using Nigeria as a point of reference, the study observes the patterns of social and language policies in Africa. It then examines the basis of government policies in order to identify the sources of socio-linguistic problems militating against national development. Lastly, it suggests the application of a bilingual-bicultural policy towards tackling the problems facing the nations of Africa. The key principles of bilingualism-biculturalism, viz (i) the conception of societal bilingualism-biculturalism, (ii) appropriate integration of tradition and modernity, and (iii) adequate utilization of mother-tongue and second language resources are explained and related to three key areas of national development -- politics, language choice and development, and education. The paper concludes by suggesting that new comprehensive language policies be formulated in African nations which will incorporate all features pertaining to the principles of bilingualism-biculturalism stated above.
Open Access
Book Review Guy Cook. Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989, vi + 165pp.
(1997) Adegbite, Wale
Discourse introduces the reader to the theories properties and presentation of the communication phenomenon known as discourse in language learning and teaching. The book is divided into three sections; theory and properties of the discourse, demonstration of discourse in language learning and teaching, and exploration of discourse development in the classroom. The first and second sections are equally developed in six chapters each while the third section has only one chapter.
Open Access
Cockroach in the Bath-Tub: Globalisation and the Trope of the Absurd
(Faculty of Arts, Obafemi Awolowo University, 2004) Adeoti, Gbemisola Aderemi
Using insights from dramatic literature, the paper seeks to enhance our perception of the ideals of globalisation vis-a-vis postcolonial African States. This is done through a fresh reading of Al hakim's Fate of a Cockroach, a play written from the perspective of the theatre of the absurd. Indeed from the suggestive nature of this theatrical approach, we can realise its relevance to our reflections on globalisation. What kind of philosophical and artistic temper does the theatre of the absurd articulate? What are the links between the dominant thought that inspired this theatrical approach in the 20th century and the current phenomenon of globalisation? What critical insights can we draw from the absurdist aesthetics toward the illumination of the new global order? What are the concrete lessons derivable from the textual exposition of the chosen play for contemporary Africa? What is Africa's contribution to and benefit from the "villagisation" of the globe? These are some of the pertinent questions that the paper addresses.
Open Access
Commitment to Criticism
(1998-03-21) Richard, Taylor
The nature of literary criticism and role of the critic is largely dependent on an acceptable definition of literature itself. One view which has been fairly widely held is that literature is the expression of intense and personal experience in a unique and original form which collectively reflects the values and aspirations of a given people in a particular time and place. An individual work externalizes and eternalizes the writer's perceptions of both the self and the world outside. The critic's role is to interpret works of literature to the public at large; not merely to describe or explain them, but rather to comment on and evaluate the quality of both the author's literary composition and his vision of, or insight into, human experience. In his or her quest for excellence and truth the critic should function as an educator, not as a popularizer or purveyor of culture. Serious criticism is evaluative, not descriptive, and the responsibility of the critic is to engage the artist in a public debate for the mutual benefit of all concerned. One of the more important arguments in this dialogue concerns the question of taste, the reader's apprehension and acceptance of style and structure as they change and evolve.
Open Access
A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Reporting of Some Niger-Delta Issues in Selected Nigerian Newspapers, 1999 – 2007
(2015-06-23) Ayoola, Kehinde Adewale
This study examined the setting, topics and participants that were projected in the content and context of reports on the Niger-Delta in selected Nigerian newspapers. It examined the salient linguistic features employed by the writers in their presentations and critically analysed the pragmatic and discourse strategies employed by the participants in the news reports. These were done with the aim of proposing an analytical framework for describing and interpreting Nigerian print media-political discourse. The data comprised reports that centred on Niger-Delta issues in three national newspapers, namely The Punch, The Guardian and The Vanguard; and three community newspapers. namely The Tide, Niger-Delta Standard and The Telegraph between 1999 and 2007. Five to ten reports per year were randomly selected for analysis from each of the publications resulting in a total of 273 samples. Field trips were undertaken to selected towns and villages in the Niger-Delta region for the purpose of familiarisation with the setting and a better understanding of the issues at stake. Photographs of significant places that support the topics of the discourse were taken. Both individual and institutional perspectives in the data were identified, classified and analysed using a three-layered pragma-linguistic theoretical framework. The results revealed that discourse participants from different sides of the Niger-Delta conflict often slanted their public pronouncements in a manner that promoted their positive sides, on the one hand, and the unflattering sides of their opponents, on the other hand. Discourse participants engaged one another on the pages of newspapers using adversarial lexical items and collocations to gain political advantage over one another. The findings also showed that the context of domination and its resistance could be seen in the morphological and grammatical choices of the discourse participants. Evidence of bias and partisanship in the news reports showed that journalists and the media houses they represented played active roles as participants in the conflict. In their quest to gain political advantage over their opponents, Niger-Delta discourse participants also resorted to several pragmatic and discourse strategies, such as the force of logic, the use of figures and percentages, the persuasion of science, interdiscursivity and intertextuality, rumour mongering, name calling, dysphemism, obfuscation and flattery. The study concluded that the pragma-linguistic analytical framework enhanced accurate description and interpretation of media political discourse and therefore could equip the reading public and discourse interpreters with the appropriate tools of identifying nuances of meaning that would otherwise have eluded them.
Open Access
Curriculum Development and English Studies in Nigerian Secondary Schools
(2005) Adegbite, Wale
This study points out some inadequacies in the English studies programme in secondary schools and suggests ways to collect them. The paper observes that in spite of the vital role that English plays in the lives of Nigerians, learners have not been able to use the language to communicate as effectively as they should. One reason for this is that there is yet to be a viable curriculum of English studies in the schools. Since the bulk of English learning takes place in school, it becomes essential to improve on the curriculum by identifying its inadequacies and suggesting ways of correcting them. The inadequacies pointed out in the work are mainly in respect of the syllabus and teaching methods. Suggestions are given in respect of the rectification of these and some other problems of the English studies curriculum in Nigerian secondary schools
Open Access
Determining the Determiners
(Centre for Language in Education and Development, 1994) Cook, David
David cook in his paper seeks to unravel the mystery behind the deep-seated problems for second language speakers of English in finally grasping the subtleties in usage of the basic English determiners - 'the', 'a'/'an' and 'zero'. His reasons for these problems are attributed to certain linguistic and non-linguistic sources, but certainly not to their level of intelligence. Having identified the problems, Cook tries to find a way of remedying them. his suggestions of solutions pertain to both linguistic and applied linguistic areas based on certain requirements; an adequate pedagogical grammar of English determiners for ESL learners, an appropriate textbook, a well-trained teacher, an appropriate learning environment, a superabundant supply of rich examples of data in different apt contexts, and an appropriate methodology.
Open Access
Devaluation Aesthetics in Soyinka's Requiem for a Futurologist
(1997) Adeoti, Gbemisola Remi
Quite a great deal, once is aware, has been written on Wole Soyinka's satiric corpus. Many more would still have to be written because like other great writings. Soyinka's works are such that rarely court exhaustive and decisive interpretations. It is observable from many available studies dealing with Soyinka's satire that not much attention has been given to the formal and constitutive elements of this literary mode. They are either ignored or accorded little significance.
Open Access
Discourse Features of Feminism in Some of Flora Nwapa's Novels
(2003) Adegbite, Wale; Kehinde, Ayo
This study describes the discourse features of feminism in some of Flora Nwapa's novels, while focusing on two of them. Efuru (1966) and Women are Different (1981). The study identifies the discourse features in the texts and describes them under relevant discourse categories. Lastly, it interprets the messages of the texts by relating them to the social context of the Igbo/African reader. The findings of the study reveal several features pertaining to narrative technique, interaction, transaction, presence/absence/silence, turn taking and contributions of characters, moves and acts. For example, they reveal the following features under the narrative technique: the third-person omniscient narrator, collective heroinism and documentation/historicization. The above features and others which present control, dominance, as well as sex and social roles in the texts are illustrated, and some of them are discussed in order to foreground the literary-linguistic and feminist consciousness of Nwapa.
Open Access
Discourse Tact in Doctor-Patient Interactions in English: An Analysis of Diagnosis in Medical Communication in Nigeria
(2006) Adegbite, Wale; Odebunmi, Akin
This study describes discourse tact in diagnoses in doctor-patient interactions in English in selected hospitals in South-western Nigeria. Using recorded conversations between doctors and patients in those hospitals as data, the mutual contextual beliefs of participants, speech act patterns, including linguistic patterns, and other pragmatic features are analyzed from the perspective of the pragmatics of discourse. The findings indicate the predominance of doctor-initiated spoken exchanges in which doctors elicit and confirm information and give directives to patients, while the patients give information and attempt to respond appropriately to the doctors' moves. It is also observed that conversation maxims are flouted and politeness maxims exploited in order to enhance successful diagnosis in the interaction. Finally, it is observed that doctor-patient interaction is only one out of many aspects of medical communication that require the attention of language scholars in order to gain insight into language as an act of social behaviour and action, especially with respect to the institution of medicine.
Open Access
Dissonant Harmony: Art and Social Reality in Literature Based on the Nigerian Civil War.
(Obafemi Awolowo University, 1987) Amuta, Chidi Nnanna; Jeyifo, Biodun
This dissertation is largely a survey of the relationship between art and socio-historical reality in representative sample of literature based on the Nigerian Civil War. (1967-70). The cardinal thesis of the study is that the Civil War has inspired a sizable body of literary works which in their wide range of thematic concerns and ideological standpoints portray the writers' perception of the dominant aspects of war-time Nigerian society. In addition, this socio-historical orientation of the literature in question conditions its artistic attributes and provides a framework for evaluating the specific literary works. The dissertation is divided into three broad sections with a total of five chapters. Part one is concerned with providing a theoretical framework and socio-historical background to the literary works under study. In Part Two, the relationship between content and form as the dialectical constants of the literary works under study is examined. Part Three concentrates on the question of ideology and social vision in Nigerian Civil War literature. The conclusion takes the form of an evaluation of the significance of the Civil War in the evolution of Nigerian national literature.
Open Access
Drama and the Quest for Democracy in Post-Military Nigeria
(Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa., 2005) Adeoti, Gbemisola Remi
This chapter focuses on the crucial intersection between the goals of politics and drama. While it identifies certain factors militating against the development of a genuinely democratic polity in postcolonial Nigeria, it highlights the prospects for a more democratically engaged dramaturgy and a reformed polity where democracy thrives and endures.
Open Access
English Idioms: A Review of Recognition Criteria
(Centre for Language in Education and Development, 1994) Jowitt, David
In this paper David Jowitt attempts to review the characteristics by which an idiom may be recognised. After exploring the various ways in which the term 'idiom' has been used by scholars and in dictionaries, he observes that the set of properties often used to define the idiom are insufficient. However drawing inspiration from the various terms, descriptions and classification of previous works, Jowitt goes on to list four necessary properties of idioms. These should form the basis for the compilation of a new dictionary of idioms, including particularly the dictionary that would meet the special needs of teachers and learners of English in Nigeria.
Open Access
English Language Testing: An Evaluation of the West African School Certificate English Language Objective Test.
(Obafemi Awolowo University, 1987) Adejare, Roseline Abonego; Afolahan, Adebisi
This thesis evaluates the West African School Certificate English Language Objective Test, using the 1982, 1983 and 1984 tests as data. The tests were administered on three groups of subjects made up of fifth formers as the experimental group, first formers and first year undergraduates as control groups. The tests' content was analysed within the framework of Systemic Grammar to ascertain its comprehensiveness and adequacy. The tests were then evaluated from the perspective of the syllabus, the relevant linguistic models and the objective technique. A statistical analysis of subjects' scores, using the Mann-Whitney U-test and Kruskal-Wallis test, was undertaken followed by a comparison of the performance of the undergraduate group in the tests with their performance in a set essay. The research leads to four major findings. Firstly the West African School Certificate English Language objective test does not cover all the necessary grammatical categories. Secondly, the content of the test reflects the content of the syllabus but not its specifications. Thirdly, the objective technique is suitable for testing the recognition of form and meaning but not necessarily the ability to use the English Language. Fourthly, the subjects' scores indicate that-the tests are of a moderate level of difficulty. It concludes that the test is only of average validity though an extremely high validity is expected. It therefore recommends that the test should be improved.
Open Access
Enlightenment and Attitudes of the Nigerian Elite on the Roles of Languages in Nigeria
(2003) Adegbite, Wale
This study describes the effect of enlightenment on attitudes of the Nigerian elite to the roles assigned to English and indigenous languages in Nigeria. From the results of a preliminary investigation into the attitudes of undergraduate students in a Nigerian University, it was presumed that enlightenment of citizens on the importance of indigenous languages vis-a-vis English in Nigeria might bring about a positive shift in their attitudes towards their mother tongues. The study then delves into available literature on enlightenment efforts and shifts in attitudes of Nigerians towards their indigenous languages and examines these issues in the wider context of language planning and national development. From all indications, it seems that, although a greater number of the elite class still do not have favourable dispositions towards their indigenous languages as they do towards English, the seed of the positive realisation of the complementary roles of indigenous languages and English in national development has been sown among a few Nigerians. What remains is for these few people to water this seed so that it can germinate and spread among all Nigerians in order to enhance collective participation towards national developmental efforts.
Open Access
Ethnography of Meaning Cues in Nonverbal Communication in South-western Nigeria
(2006) Ayoola, Kehinde A.
This study is a survey of nonverbal communication cues in the south-western Nigerian socio-cultural context. The paper's aim is to elicit features of nonverbal communication with unique cultural meanings in the context. The method of participant observation, often used by ethnographers of communication was employed for data collection and assigning of meaning cues to them. The writer, who resides in the Lagos metropolis, compiled a catalogue of nonverbal cues by observing the social and linguistic behaviours of the people in the area over a period of time. Categories and concepts of nonverbal communication such as kinesics, proxemics and chronemics were employed for the analysis of the data. It was discovered that, while several nonverbal cues observed have universal meanings, several examples have unique cultural meanings. It was also observed that nonverbal cues are frequently used both as complement to verbal communication and as alternatives to speech in the socio-cultural milieu studied.
Open Access
An Examination of Code-Switching among Itsekiri-English Bilinguals.
(Obafemi Awolowo University, 1985) Adokpaye, Thelma; Pariola, Goke
This study set out to examine the Socio-linguistic constraints on conversational code-switching among educated Itsekiri-English bilinguals living in Lagos. It was carried out with the primary aim being, to distinguish the social factors motivating the bilingual's code-switching and to establish the linguistic constraints on the code-switching. This study was carried out with the aid of a preliminary 4 weeks of field observation of participants in different settings and interactions followed up with 4 hours and 20 minutes of tape recordings of naturally occurring conversation between participants. A detailed analysis of the recorded conversations was carried out to establish the nature of Itsekiri-English bilingual code-switching. Constraints on the switching were attributed to both linguistic and social factors. From this exercise, the varieties of code-switching, the matrix language, word classes and categories of items, the grammatical rules and the number of grammars involved in the code-switching situation were determined. Finally, suggestions were given as to the possibility of establishing a universal grammar for code-switching by comparing the findings in this investigation with those or other people who have worked in this area of language contact.