Ewata Thompson | Federal University of Technology Akure (original) (raw)

Papers by Ewata Thompson

General extenders (GEs) perform different functions in discourse and have been studied diversely,... more General extenders (GEs) perform different functions in discourse and have been studied diversely, based on scholars’ foci. Viewed as universal vague informal spoken discourse markers in some studies, this study argues that the elements are deliberate vague discourse-pragmatic elements, in newspaper editorials of nine countries with different language situations of the English Language. Focusing on an aspect of the English GEs, the adjunctive GEs, and using the corpus-based and corpus-driven approaches of the corpus linguistics methodologies, the study purposively sampled five-month online newspaper editorials from the nine sampled countries to compare native and non-native speakers’ use of the English GEs. The corpus was subjected to AntConc® Concordance Tool to identify and examine, the occurrence of the linguistic items in the newspaper editorials as well as their similarities, variations and their functions in the editorials. The study provided statistical evidence in probing int...

This study focused on the use of vague linguistic approximation elements in discourse with refere... more This study focused on the use of vague linguistic approximation elements in discourse with reference to time, amount and/or distance/location in words like: about, almost, approximately, around, between, nearly, or, roughly, some, and up to. Adopting Sperber and Wilson (1985) relevance theory framework and drawing on Corpus Linguistics methodologies, the study subjected a specialised corpus of the editorial genre of the West African Anglophone journalistic writing of 250 editorials (between 2017 and 2019) from five purposively sampled Anglophone online newspapers to AntConc® Concordance Tool. The approximating elements in the editorial corpus were: identified, classifiedinto types and their functions in the editorial discourse determined as well as compared the differences in usage between the countries; to prove that the use of the linguistic approximating elements in the editorials is an interactional strategy used by editorial writers for discourse approximating purposes. The stu...

Language Teaching Research

Multi-word expressions are formulaic language universals with arbitrary and idiosyncratic colloca... more Multi-word expressions are formulaic language universals with arbitrary and idiosyncratic collocations. Their usage and mastery are required of learners of a second language in achieving naturalness. However, despite the importance of multi-word expressions to mastering a second language, their syntactic architecture and colligational possibilities have received little attention in English language teaching (ELT). This study examined lexical bundles, a type of multi-word expressions, to understand their structure and co-occurrence possibilities with other syntactic elements. It was aided by an automated frequency-driven approach using two corpora, the British component of the British National Corpus – a first language (L1) corpus – and a purpose-built Nigerian Media Discourse corpus – a second language (L2) corpus. Two items of lexical analysis software were used to extract three-word lexical bundles with a minimum of 50 frequencies per corpus. The syntactic structures of the identi...

Focusing on the Nigerian academic discourse, the paper argues that scholars, universally, deliber... more Focusing on the Nigerian academic discourse, the paper argues that scholars, universally, deliberately employ linguistic hedging as a conflict management stratagem to manage conflictual situations in the course of their work. Using corpus linguistics methodologies, the work examines inaugural lectures of the Nigerian academic discourse to establish the usage of linguistic hedging devices in analysing the data. Working with 40 purposively sampled inaugural lectures from 10 faculties/schools, from the Nigerian university, the study categorises the hedging devices into typologies to determine their frequency of usage in analysing the data. Four objectives and four research questions were drawn for the work. The study provides an awareness into the working and understanding of academic discourse generally and helps in the development of technical input in designing teaching materials for academic writing.

Fela Anikulapo-Kuti used Yabis, his style of music and the Pidgin English to address the politica... more Fela Anikulapo-Kuti used Yabis, his style of music and the Pidgin English to address the political, economic, and social conditions of the common man, the black race and the world. To him, music serves the multidimensional purposes of entertaining as well as educating the masses on the shortcomings in the society; and healing the state – ultimately, the world. The song, Beast of no nation (Anikulapo-Kuti, 1989), analysed in the paper, describes a state of betrayal of the innocent citizens by officers of the state and government of the day. It also takes a swipe at the United Nations. As a social commentator, Fela employed the medium of satire through the means of parody to ridicule the Nigerian judicial system; the government and comment on the vanity of the United Nations. Using the discourse analytical tool of conversation analysis, the paper adopted the concepts of adjacency pairs, turn taking and turn switch in analysing the sequencing of turns in the Beast of no nation as an interaction and as a real language element that communicates meaning to the intended audience. The paper discovered the song used different interaction devices, among which are: discourse markers (46, of 5 types, 2 universal and 3 localised), silence or short pauses (10), turns (150), adjacency pairs (54) as well as turn switches other transitional devices. The most significant finding of the paper is the extent to which Fela has used the Pidgin English to effectively communicate his message to his audience using the discourse elements of the pidgin.

Deixis (the use of this, that and other pointing devices) in English has its discursive and refer... more Deixis (the use of this, that and other pointing devices) in English has its discursive and referential values which are determined by the context of situation. In this study, I examined the use of the (English) deixis, as a discourse pointing device, to argue that the language situation in operation, could determine deictic usage. Using corpus linguistics methodologies, the study purposively sampled three consecutive months' editions (January 1– March 31, 2017) of four online newspaper editorials from: Canada, Jamaica, Nigeria and the UK, where different language situations exist. In analysing the data, the newspaper editorials corpus was subjected to AntConc Concordance Tool, to identify and classify the deictic markers into types and through simple statistics determined the frequency of use on paper and country bases to show variation (if any). The major significance of the study is to help in understanding the working of language in its environment of operation and in presupposing the usage of language in the different contexts of situations.

Previous studies (Overstreet 1999 and Carroll 2008, for example) established that the general ext... more Previous studies (Overstreet 1999 and Carroll 2008, for example) established that the general extenders have been part of the English language's development. Based on this assertion, this study investigates the use of the general extenders in the 18 th century English novels. The choice of the novel genre and literature is because both are reflections of the sensibilities of the age and society that produced them. This study will give us the opportunity to see how the use of language has been enhanced and preserved through writing. Three English novels, Robinson

Drafts by Ewata Thompson

In the human interaction, nonverbal communication tends to carry the extra meaning, whether used ... more In the human interaction, nonverbal communication tends to carry the extra meaning, whether used alone or concurrently, with verbal communication, to complement or reinforce the primary meaning. It is natural that humans, irrespective of age, gender, creed, status, role, culture, or mode to show acceptance, rejection, satisfaction, deception, surprise, nervousness, control, etc. when conveying meaning, (un)intentionally. The ability to deploy the nonverbal cues gives a communicator an edge over their interlocutor(s) and enhances or weakens human relationship. This study is concerned with the use of nonverbal communication, in films. Using two purposively selected sampled scenes from two films – Saworoide (Kilani, 1999), a local production that satirises the Nigerian socio-political scene and White men can't jump (Shelton, 1992), an American sports comedy), as data, this study analysed the roles of nonverbal communication, in conveying intercultural meaning. The study proves nonverbal communication as meta-communicative in the portrayal of the actions and voices in communicating with different audiences and cultures. It also establishes that actors use multimodal nonverbal communication cues of tone, gesture, facial expression, etc., concurrently to convey meaning to other characters and their audiences. However, the study also discovers that nonverbal cues can be counterproductive if not handled properly.

Language Teaching Research