Endong Floribert Patrick Calvain - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
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Papers by Endong Floribert Patrick Calvain
The Nigerian gospel music industry has, over the years, become a veritable site of creativity, in... more The Nigerian gospel music industry has, over the years, become a veritable site of creativity, inventiveness and innovation. This is seen in the remarkable and artful incorporation by contemporary gospel singers, of hitherto forbidden cultural artifacts into their artistic compositions. In line with this, the tendency of incorporating glossolalia (speaking in tongues) in the lyrical text and performance of gospel songs is notable, particularly among popular Pentecostal musicians. This paper explores the structure and artistic values of this spiritual component (glossolalia) in selected pieces by Nigerian Pentecostal singers. It argues that, glossolalia in gospel music composition and performance is more an instrument of song spiritualization than it is an aesthetic feature. This is in line with the fact that the phenomenon primarily helps the artist to assert his Pentecostal identity. From an aesthetical view point, the practice of glossolalia contributes to the " barbarization " of gospel music composition and performance. The practice visibly has potential of distorting the message of songs given the fact that it is typically " esoteric-like " , sacred and secret in nature. Further, glossolalia is in general, largely unintelligible/ meaningless to the majority of audiences who humanly receive the song.
The SMS discourse is generally known to be hybrid in nature, as it very often combines features o... more The SMS discourse is generally known to be hybrid in nature, as it very often combines features of both orality and literacy. In line with this, numerous labels – such as oral-written text, netlish, netspeak and the like – have been employed in reference to the phenomenon. These appellations point to the hybrid nature of the phenomenon. This article attempts to show to what extent orality shapes the content of Nigerian SMS discourse. It probes into the various linguistic features observable in 2000 SMS texts messages generated by both literate and semi-literate texters from 5 Nigerian towns (including Lagos, Enugu, Calabar, Uyo and Oweri), in view of evaluating the extent to which features of orality may be found in the Nigerian SMS discourse. It argues that the Nigerian SMS discourse has more literacy features than it has characteristics of oral language. These literacy features are dominantly observable in SMS messages composed by literate Nigerian texters. On the other hand, orality features are dominantly present in SMS texts generated by semi-educated texters. The principal orality features observable in these SMS texts (from both literate and semi-literate texters) include graphones, vowel deletion, initialisation, onomatopoeic expressions, truncation among others.
The Nigerian gospel music industry has, over the years, become a veritable site of creativity, in... more The Nigerian gospel music industry has, over the years, become a veritable site of creativity, inventiveness and innovation. This is seen in the remarkable and artful incorporation by contemporary gospel singers, of hitherto forbidden cultural artifacts into their artistic compositions. In line with this, the tendency of incorporating glossolalia (speaking in tongues) in the lyrical text and performance of gospel songs is notable, particularly among popular Pentecostal musicians. This paper explores the structure and artistic values of this spiritual component (glossolalia) in selected pieces by Nigerian Pentecostal singers. It argues that, glossolalia in gospel music composition and performance is more an instrument of song spiritualization than it is an aesthetic feature. This is in line with the fact that the phenomenon primarily helps the artist to assert his Pentecostal identity. From an aesthetical view point, the practice of glossolalia contributes to the " barbarization " of gospel music composition and performance. The practice visibly has potential of distorting the message of songs given the fact that it is typically " esoteric-like " , sacred and secret in nature. Further, glossolalia is in general, largely unintelligible/ meaningless to the majority of audiences who humanly receive the song.
The SMS discourse is generally known to be hybrid in nature, as it very often combines features o... more The SMS discourse is generally known to be hybrid in nature, as it very often combines features of both orality and literacy. In line with this, numerous labels – such as oral-written text, netlish, netspeak and the like – have been employed in reference to the phenomenon. These appellations point to the hybrid nature of the phenomenon. This article attempts to show to what extent orality shapes the content of Nigerian SMS discourse. It probes into the various linguistic features observable in 2000 SMS texts messages generated by both literate and semi-literate texters from 5 Nigerian towns (including Lagos, Enugu, Calabar, Uyo and Oweri), in view of evaluating the extent to which features of orality may be found in the Nigerian SMS discourse. It argues that the Nigerian SMS discourse has more literacy features than it has characteristics of oral language. These literacy features are dominantly observable in SMS messages composed by literate Nigerian texters. On the other hand, orality features are dominantly present in SMS texts generated by semi-educated texters. The principal orality features observable in these SMS texts (from both literate and semi-literate texters) include graphones, vowel deletion, initialisation, onomatopoeic expressions, truncation among others.