Discourse Analysis Of Selected Five Sermons Of Pastor W.F Kumuyi
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Preamble
From the time immemorial, language has been with human beings. To some scholars, the origin of language can be traced to an ultimate language model which predates humans i.e. spoken before the creation of humans in heaven. Language, in E. Finegan (2012:6), “is often viewed as a vehicle of thought, a system of expression that mediates the transfer of thought from one person to another.” This definition can be allusively linked to the „transactional medium‟ in which the serpent subtlety conveyed its thought to convince Eve in the Biblical Garden of Eden. Also, language, which one of its most important functions is to communicate, has made humans to be at the centre of the universe.
Language is a means of communicating thoughts and social control. It is a means of individual self-expression, which makes it possible for individuals to live in a society. Language has been described by various scholars as the core of the communication process and is the pivot around which man’s social, political, economic and environmental endeavours revolve (Sadiq, 2011:12). This shows that human beings have language to achieve virtually all they desire on earth, as long as, communication is involved.
Also, language is a system that speakers, writers, and signers exploit purposefully. It is worth noting that language will just be an abstraction without being rooted in the society. Thus, the society and language are co-dependent on each other. Language is a social tool in the society. This means that society determines significantly how language is put to use in different social domains.
Discourse Analysis Of Selected Five Sermons Of Pastor W.F Kumuyi
Oyeleye (2004:171) posits that “without communication, man cannot perform organized group processes that help to coordinate our activities in the society.” This communicativeness of language amongst humans has been the concentration of functional linguistics. Interestingly, linguists are researching extensively into different aspects of linguistics; some focusing on the form of language while others concentrate on the functions of language. Functional linguistics covers a wide range of language use above the sentence level, bringing into linguistic analysis the important of context and the intricacies involved in language use.
Discourse Analysis Of Selected Five Sermons Of Pastor W.F Kumuyi
Discourse analysis, as one of the core areas of functional linguistics has contributed and is still contributing significantly to the understanding of language use above the sentence level. However, in spite of the tremendous effects of discourse analysis, its application has been limited to some aspects of the society or language use like text analysis, political discourse, classroom discourse, doctor-patient discourse etc., and by extension, this can be applied and greatly utilized in the understanding of religious texts in which the long essay intends to do and provides some illuminations into though conspicuous, but at the same time hidden.
1.1 Background to the Study
The belief in the otherworld influencing the material world is very predominant in our society. This belief is precipitated by the inadequacies of human beings to fathom or decipher some phenomena in the world. These inadequacies have made humans to try as much as possible to „reach‟ the otherworld. Interestingly, this belief and the quest to „reach‟ the other world are always and constructively expressed in language. This quest has brought about a concept that human beings cannot dispense with, which is “religion”.
Right from the ancient primitive societies to the modern civilized societies, religion has occupied a focal position in the lives of mortals. It has been claimed that „man is naturally religious‟. Humans, therefore, build the concept of religion around some other sub-concept like God, heaven, hell, damnation, redemption, etc. For humans, the purpose of religion is solace seeking from the vicissitude of problems they continually face on the planet earth and to escape some eternal doom that cannot be unexplained scientifically.
Although different rulers of the world in the past have tried to obliterate any form of religious belief but ironically, religion has „outlived‟ them. They had gone, buried and even rotten in the graves but religion has continued to thrive boundlessly. Since human nature is dual, in the sense that, the composition of human beings is both good and evil (Genesis 3:22), religion cannot be said to be completely free of its attendant negative connotations. This has snowballed into different religious crises in the whole world in general and particularly in Nigeria and the aftermath of these crises is inexpressible.
Thus, an understanding of the workings of language in one of the major religions in the Nigeria, which is Christianity, is the focus of this research work. Particularly, the focus is delimited to concentrate solely on the understanding of the Bible Study Outline of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry by using linguistic tools to unravel it.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Since the importance of religious practices cannot be overlooked in our society, thus religious leaders try to instruct, admonish, chide, reprove, persuade, etc., on any issue that concerns their audience or congregation. In order for them to achieve their intended purpose, they Systematically and constructively organize their messages with the aim of having colossal effects on their listeners/readers as the case may be. Although for the past 10 years, language scholars, particularly in Nigeria, have begun paying attention to language use in religious circles, but none, as far as this research is concerned, has investigated into the language use in Bible Study. Therefore, this study is necessary to fill the gap and to serve as a step forward in the unravelling of religious language. Hence, this study will attempt to answer the following questions:
- How does Pastor Kumuyi construct his message?
- What are the discursive and stylistic features used to convey the message?
- How do the features help to effectively project the intended meanings?
1.3 Aim and Objectives
This study aims at investigating the discourse and stylistic features in the selected sermon of Pastor W.F Kumuyi.
The objectives are:
- to reveal how Pastor Kumuyi construct his message;
- to identify prominent discursive/stylistic features in Pastor Kumuyi‟s message:
- cohesive devices,
- pragmatic devices,
- foregrounding, etc;
- to show how these features help to effectively project the intended
1.4 Significance of the Study
Misrepresentation, misunderstanding and contradictions abound in most religious settings because of the eclectic use of language. These contradictions always result into crises of various dimensions in our society. It is therefore expedient to research into the workings of language in religious domain for a better illumination.
Following Karl Marx, the German philosopher, who strongly opines that „religion is the opium of the masses‟ and since the human beings cannot do without religion, it is important to have an in-depth knowledge of religion through its language deployment. The study is very significant also because one of the focal aspects of the Christian faith which is the bible study has not been researched into by language scholars. This research is hence important because its findings will be significant in the understanding of Christian religious discourse particularly the bible study.
1.5 Scope of the Study
The study is the analysis of Bible Study Outlines of Pastor Kumuyi of the Deeper Life Bible church, a very significant aspect of the Christian faith. The study is limited to some selected copies of the Bible Study Outline in which 3 are randomly chosen for analysis. The analysis will concentrate on analysing the discursive and stylistic features of the outlines.
This study is also limited to only the written outlines without any consideration to the spoken medium in the delivery of the message although the Bible Study combines both the written and the spoken media. Consequently, issues related to the supra-segmental aspects of phonetics and phonology are outside the scope of this study. This implies that categorical generalization cannot be made because of the sole concentration on the written medium although
some phonological observations, as seen in the data, will be made. Another limitation to the study is that no consideration is given to the utterances of congregation in the analysis since the data is in written form with a sole speaker.
Discourse Analysis Of Selected Five Sermons Of Pastor W.F Kumuyi
1.6 Expected Contribution to Knowledge
The study is expected to:
- shed more light on the use of language in achieving the intention of the speaker and how Pastor Kumuyi has selectively and distinctively used some linguistic features for utmost result;
- Foster the understanding of religious texts of the reader through the explication of significant features that manifest