Language and Style in the Sermonic Discourse of selected Messages from Holy Ghost Service Sermons of Pastor Enoch Adeboye

Language and Style in the Sermonic Discourse of selected Messages from Holy Ghost Service Sermons of Pastor Enoch Adeboye

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

The ways in which language is used in the religious context have continued to draw the attention of linguists.  Religion, being a crucial aspect of any society, has always played and will continue to play an influential role in the society. Nations have gone to war at the instance of religion, peace treaties have been contracted on the platform of religion all made possible by language use in religious practices. When language use is examined, emphasis is placed on style, and style is dependent on context.

 Onoja (2010) notes that language style is usually brought to the fore if it is intrinsically and consciously examined in relation to the society in which language is used. Notable also is the observation that religion is at the core of communication; that is, in the sense that everything done in the practice of religion is in an effort to communicate either between mankind and the Supreme Being or among individuals (Beyer, 1994).

The field of religion therefore, provides language scholars a verse pool of data with which to study the continuous changes that occur in the use of language in relation to individuals, context and social norms, which are major variables in determining the appropriate variety of the language to use at a particular time using a specific medium Crystal (2001). For instance, a sermon, in which the clergy employ different linguistic resources to achieve their goals, such as salvation and guide to godly living, would be tailored towards the use of the language with consideration for certain socio-cultural practices within the society.

This study derives from a conviction that religious discourse can better be understood and appreciated in the context of language study. Halliday (1994) illustrates the possibility of variability in language use, using three aspects of context to show that language is influenced by a specific context in which it occurs: what the communication is all about (the field of discourse), the interpersonal relationship between the interlocutors in a discursive event (the tenor of discourse) and the symbolic organisation of the text, the status that it has, and its function in the context, including the channel-spoken or written (the mode of discourse). Thus, it can be deduced that three major factors make communication possible: the topic, the participants and the functions of language.

 The objective of this study is to provide an in-depth analysis of language use by Nigerian Pentecostals preacher; Pastor W, F. Kumuyi in their sermons, ‘’the mystery of the Blessing’’ and ‘’Spiritual Blessing ‘respectively. This is in order to identify the recurrent stylistic patterns inherent in their individual use of language, which will in turn provide more clues to the general description of language use by Nigerian Pentecostal Christian in general. The objective of this study is therefore to identity the recurrent patterns in the selected Nigerian Pentecostal sermons and to explore how such patterns aid in achieving the aims of the sermons, through their impact on sustaining meaning.

There is a general categorization of Churches into evangelical, Pentecostal and orthodox; evangelical churches believe in personal relationship with Jesus and a commitment to the demands of the New Testament. They particularly believe in preaching the ‘‘gospel’’ being commanded by the Bible (Taiwo, 2006). The central focus in Pentecostal churches is the belief in Holy Spirit and the manifestations of the Spirit through speaking in tongues, healing, prophecy and discernment of spirits.

They also believe in the casting out of demons. According to Engelsma (2001), it is known as the Pentecostal movement, because it claims to be a “second Pentecost” at the end of history. It is also known as the charismatic movement, because it claims to recover and practice the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit that are mentioned in Acts and in I Corinthians 12-14 (Greek: charismata).A notable feature that marks Pentecostals from all other Christian sects is found in their use of language; which is marked by diverse peculiarities in a bid to pass their message.

Language and Style in the Sermonic Discourse of selected Messages from Holy Ghost Service Sermons of Pastor Enoch Adeboye

Wertheimer, et al (1986), cited in Okediadi (1980), observes that  in addition to using language to communicate, people use language to control behaviour, as can be seen in command, orders and requests. People can indirectly be made to act in a particular way by providing factual information or evaluations. For instance, when preachers make reference to instances in the Bible, or when they make deductions from specific events, they are indirectly able to direct their listeners to behave in specific manner. This instance reiterates the rhetorical characteristic of religious language, which is primarily to persuade and enforce a change in behaviour.

Several studies have characterised the language use of Nigerian Pentecostals; highlighting the peculiarities. Onoja (2010) in examining the stylistic features employed by Bishop David Oyedepo of the Living Faith Church, in his sermon titled ‘‘Operating in the Supernatural’’, identifies the use of complex sentences, register, diction, anaphora, repetition, archaisms, tone and rhetorical questions as the stylistic resources that mark the language of sermon from every day or conventional speech forms. His work was simply to inform non-Christians of peculiar ways Christians use language.

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.

Language and Style in the Sermonic Discourse of selected Messages from Holy Ghost Service Sermons of Pastor Enoch Adeboye

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.

Ugot and Offiong (2013) in examining the non-verbal variety of communication, which is an inevitable device used by Nigerian Pentecostal pastors, observe that such variety of communication includes body movement or kinetics and the use of different parts of the body to aid communication (Nelson and Pearson 1990). From their observation of Pentecostal pastors, Nelson and Pearson (1990) as cited in Ugot and Offiong (2013) submit that these pastors use facial expressions, eye contact, emotional tears, regulators such as head nodding, hand gestures, wave of hand to emphasize a point, shift in posture, points to different directions, etc.

Ugot and Offiong (ibid:149) equally observe that Pentecostal preachers in Calabar violate all spatial proximity as they may begin their sermon at the altar and then move down to the audience, where they are able to talk or point directly to a person, or even touch or lay their hands on a person. This work is a continuation of such studies in the description of language use by Nigerian Pentecostal preachers. This is with the view that over time, a corpus of the patterns that make up the language of Nigerian sermons could be compiled to serve as a reference material.

Humans have communicated their expression, information, and news and conveyed their ideas and feelings to other people through their languages. In general, this basic communication is not based on words or isolated sentences, but we normally communicate in a discourse. The term discourse is the sequence of sentences or utterances which seems to hang together (Crystal, 1992; Nunan, 1993, cited in Kohkeaw, 1998). As Crystal claims, a text must be organized in order to create a coherent discourse. This organization can be achieved through what we called Discourse Forming Devices or Cohesion.

Every language has its own particular cohesive devices for creating links between textual elements. As James (1980: 190) states, “while every language has at its disposal a set of devices for maintaining textual cohesion, different languages have preferences for certain of these devices and neglect certain others.” In a descriptive approach to translation, one major concern is to identify these kinds of linguistic knowledge that are used by the translator in both the Source Languages (SL) and Target Languages (TL) (Bell, 1991, cited in Silveira, 2007).

Stylistics has always had a hard time of it. As an academic discipline it has always been seen, pretty much throughout the twentieth century, as neither one thing nor the other, or, much worse, as all things to all men and women, as sitting uncomfortably on the fence between the linguistic and the literary, and as a bit uneasy within either domain, building bridges that never quite stretch far enough across dividing waters and always, as here, resorting to retreat, repair and reconciliation metaphors of bridges, unfilled gaps and spaces, crossing contested territories, unhappy marriages and paths not taken.

Language and Style in the Sermonic Discourse of selected Messages from Holy Ghost Service Sermons of Pastor Enoch Adeboye

In the 1960s and 1970s this was in part to be expected for an essentially inchoate interdisciplinary endeavour. Linguists felt stylistics was too soft to be taken too seriously and tended to introduce irrelevant notions such as performance data and interpretation; literature specialists felt that stylistics was too hard, too mechanistic and too reductive, saying nothing significant about historical context or aesthetic theory, eschewing evaluation for the most part in the interests of a naïve scientism and claiming too much for interpretations that were at best merely text-immanent. And many linguists and literary critics continue to this day to give stylistics a hard time. But, for better or for worse, stylisticians have stayed together. Although, there have been few divorces or major disagreements within the family (G. Watson and S, Zyngier, 2007: R. Carter, 2007).

A sermon is a kind of speech delivered by clergymen to win souls for Christ. It is also known as preaching. Sermon serves as the communication of truth. Preaching or sermon features two elements, which according to Al-Aadilu (2018) are truth and personality. Truth and personality determine how the given sermon can convince the listeners or congregation to change from bad to good ones.

The sermon has its peculiar language which differentiates it from other genres of speech delivery. Generally speaking, sermon, as one of the characteristics of religious discourse, has a distinct language that sets it apart from other discourse. Crystal and Davy (1969) submit that the collocational idiosyncrasies which occur in religious English feature different collocations which set it different from the language used elsewhere. Religious language stands out from other discourses because of its uniqueness.

This corroborates Samarin’s (1975) submission that ‘religious communities are set apart linguistically, and this makes it interesting to reveal the uniqueness of their use of language. According to Akpowowo (2002, p. 16), the language of Christianity features different purposes ranging from communicating information to assessing religious truth. Here, the purpose of preaching is for the preacher to reveal the truth to the congregation, which will encourage them to change from their bad behaviours.

Sermon language features peculiar language, which according to Olanrewaju (2004, p. 93), is ‘a distinct form of the spoken language that is marked with some peculiar features such as the use of biblical quotations, theological terms, prophetic utterances, imperative statements, nterruptions, paralinguistic codes, repetitions, metaphors, paradox and euphony.’ Sermon plays a vital role in Christianity, and it occupies a central and strategic place in Christian services as it aims to reveal basic truths to humans (the audience) with the hope that they will accept and utilise these truths.

Sermons have been described as planned, formal speeches and public discourses that are a form of religious expression in the church (Longere, 1982; Larsen, 1989). Sermons are basically a persuasive discourse for preachers do not seek primarily to transmit knowledge but to transform persons and to call for modification of behaviour. The persuasiveness of religious discourse and the central goal of the preacher calls for his use of what Burton (1997) describes as ‘ornamentation’.

In his study of two sermons by Neal Maxwell, Burton points out that communication as serious as religion needs sufficient ornamentation to engage the listener. Burton further opines that if the matter were stated ‘baldly’ it would not have a motivating effect on the hearer. 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. It is on this background that this research work seeks to examine Language and Style in the Sermonic Discourse of Selected Messages from Holy Ghost Service Sermons of Pastor E. A Adeboye

Language and Style in the Sermonic Discourse of selected Messages from Holy Ghost Service Sermons of Pastor Enoch Adeboye

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The ways in which language is used in the religious context have continued to draw the attention of linguists. Religion, being a crucial aspect of any society, has always played and will continue to play an influential role in the society. Nations have gone to war at the instance of religion, peace treaties have been contracted on the platform of religion – all made possible by language use in religious practices.

When language use is examined, emphasis is placed on style, and style is dependent on context. Onoja (2010) notes that language style is usually brought to the fore if it is intrinsically and consciously examined in relation to the society in which language is used. Notable also is the observation that religion is at the core of communication; that is, in the sense that everything done in the practice of religion is in an effort to communicate either between mankind and the Supreme Being or among individuals.

1.3 Purpose of the study

This main Purpose of this study is to investigating language and style in the sermonic discourse of selected messages from Holy Ghost service sermons of Pastor E. A Adeboye. The objectives are:

(i)      to reveal how Pastor E.A Adeboye construct his message;

(ii)      to identify prominent discursive/stylistic features in Pastor E.A Adeboye message:

 (iii)    to show how these features help to effectively project the intended meanings.

1.3 Research Question

The following research questions were raised to guide the study

• How does Pastor E.A Adeboye construct his message?
• what are the prominent discursive/stylistic features found in Pastor E.A Adeboye message ?
• how does these features help to effectively project the intended meanings in his massage ?

1.4 Research Methodology

This research is based on library research; the primary source of information will be from Select Sermons by Pastor E.A Adeboye. The research shall also investigates secondary sources in the form of existing literature in several fields, books, magazines, e-journals, articles, newspapers, presentations, lectures, and unpublished works. The Library and the Internet will also be consulted for relevant data for this study.

1.5 Significance of the Study

The importance of style in any given write-up cannot be underestimated and this research work will be significant in the following ways:

1. First, it will contribute to the growing explorations on the interface between language and literature.
2. It will also explore how a linguistic framework can help us in understanding literary texts

iii. It will also reveal how literature can tell us about stylistic structure and function

1. It will also obviously contribute to our knowledge on the link between literature and style in academic disciplines.
2. It will serve as a mail stone for other researcher on stylistic this research is hence important because its findings will be significant in the understanding of Christian religious discourse particularly the bible study.
3. It will also explore how a linguistic framework can help us in understanding literary texts. It will also reveal how literature can tell us about stylistic structure and function.

vii. It will also obviously contribute to our knowledge on the link between literature and style in academic disciplines. It will serve as a mail stone for other researcher on stylistic

1.6 Scope and Limitation of the Study

The study is the analysis of Holy Ghost Service sermon of Pastor E.A Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, a very significant aspect of the Christian faith. The study is limited to some selected copies of the sermon June 2021 Holy Ghost Service. Topic: God bless you and January, 2022 Holy Ghost service. Topic: Fresh Air was selected for analysis. The analysis will concentrate on analysing the discursive and stylistic features of the sermons.

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 sermon combines both the written and the spoken media. Consequently, issues related to the supra-segmental aspects of phonetics and phonology is 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.

1.7 delimitation of the study

Particularly, the focus is delimited to concentrate solely on the understanding of the sermons of the Redeem Christian Church of God by using linguistic tools to unravel it

1.8 Definition of Terms

Sermons:  A sermon is an oration or lecture by a preacher or other member of clergy. Sermons address a scriptural, theological, or moral topic, usually expounding on a type of belief, law, or behavior within both past and present contexts. Elements of the sermon often include exposition, exhortation, and practical application

Style:a method of textual interpretation in which primary of place is assigned to language”. This shows that language is the key point in stylistic because a writer employs various forms and patterns of language while presenting his message.

Discourse: discourse is a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon, argument, joke or narrative.