Foluke Unuabonah | Redeemer's University (original) (raw)

Papers by Foluke Unuabonah

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies

English Text Construction

The study investigates stance and engagement strategies of Nigerian Supreme Court judges in const... more The study investigates stance and engagement strategies of Nigerian Supreme Court judges in constructing arguments in their opinions. Fifty purposively selected judicial opinions were quantitatively and qualitatively analysed using Hyland’s stance and engagement model. The findings reveal that Nigerian Supreme Court judges used more stance than engagement features. Among the stance features found, the judges used more self-mention devices to establish authorial presence and distinguish their views from others. Prevalent among engagement markers, on the other hand, are directives, informed by the normative nature of the text and the judges’ keenness to owning such prescribed norms.

Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics

This paper explores the pragmatics of the comment clause, it is well, with a view to examining it... more This paper explores the pragmatics of the comment clause, it is well, with a view to examining its origin, frequency, structural features, and extended discourse-pragmatic functions in Nigerian English, from a grammatical-pragmatic approach. The data for the study are collected from the Global Web-based English corpus (Davies, Mark. 2013. Corpus of Global Web-Based English: 1.9 billion words from speakers in 20 countries (GloWbE). Available at: http://corpus.byu.edu/glowbe/) and questionnaires, and are analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results show that the origin of the clause in Nigerian English is the Bible. The clause occurs most frequently at utterance-final position, and collocates with other discourse-pragmatic features. The results also reveal that the clause performs both textual and interpersonal functions. Textually, it is used as a silence filler and to terminate discourse. Interpersonally, it is employed as a part of a prayer, to express hope, offer comfort...

This paper examines argumentation in doctor-patient interactions, with a special focus on antenat... more This paper examines argumentation in doctor-patient interactions, with a special focus on antenatal consultations between doctors and pregnant women, using the extended pragmadialectical theory of argumentation. The data comprise two case studies, extracted from forty doctor-pregnant women interactions which were purposively selected from a private hospital in Ibadan, Nigeria. The findings show that depending on the stage of the interaction, the doctor and the pregnant women have interchangeable roles as protagonists and antagonists. The interactants tend to use causal argumentation scheme while employing subordinative and complementary coordinative argumentation structures. The interactants also employ different strategic manoeuvres at different argumentative stages of the critical discussion. Thus, the study shows the influence of the medical communicative activity type on the argumentative activities that can occur in a critical discussion. The study also recommends that argument...

Intercultural Pragmatics

This study explores five Swahili discourse-pragmatic features – ati/eti, yaani, pole, sasa and sa... more This study explores five Swahili discourse-pragmatic features – ati/eti, yaani, pole, sasa and sawa – which are borrowed from Swahili into Kenyan and Tanzanian Englishes, with a view to investigating their meanings, frequencies, positioning, collocational patterns, syntactic distribution and discourse-pragmatic functions. The data, which are extracted from the International Corpus of English-East Africa and the Kenyan and Tanzanian components of the corpus of Global Web-based English, are analysed quantitatively and qualitatively, from a variational and postcolonial corpus pragmatic framework. The study reveals that the Swahili discourse-pragmatic features occur more frequently in the Kenyan corpora than in the Tanzanian corpora, except in the case of sasa, which occurred with the same frequency in the online corpus. The paper identifies ati/eti as an attention marker, a quotative marker, a hearsay marker, an inferential marker, and an emotive interjection, yaani as an emphasis and ...

English World-Wide

This study examines the use of general extenders in Nigerian English, from a variational corpus-p... more This study examines the use of general extenders in Nigerian English, from a variational corpus-pragmatic framework, with British English as a reference variety. The data are extracted from the Nigerian and British components of the International Corpus of English . The results reveal that Nigerian English has patterns of use of general extenders that differ systematically from British English. Overall, Nigerian English users employ general extenders less frequently than British English users, as a result of a low preference for disjunctive extenders; there are no significant differences in the frequency of adjunctive and other general extenders between Nigerian and British English users. The study also identifies variants of general extenders unique to Nigerian English such as and all that one, and and other things (like that). In all, the results indicate that register and regional differences play important roles in determining general extender usage among English users.

English Today, 2022

Nigerian English (NigE) is a second language (L2) variety of English that has been domesticated, ... more Nigerian English (NigE) is a second language (L2) variety of English that has been domesticated, acculturated and indigenised within the Nigerian socio-cultural and linguistic contexts (Adegbija, 2004). Based on Schneider's (2007) Dynamic Model of the Development of New Englishes, scholars have shown that NigE is currently at the late stage of nativisation (stage 3) and is on the verge of entering the stage of endornormative stabilisation (stage 4) (see Gut, 2012; Collins, 2020). Nativisation, which typically begins with the declaration of independence, is a very active and important stage in which there are large-scale linguistic changes, especially during a time when English is usually the only official language (see Schneider, 2007). Although previous studies have investigated the historical development of English in Nigeria (see Taiwo, 2009), there are limited studies on the particular linguistic features that have changed over time, especially from the time Nigeria gained i...

Linguistik Online, Sep 13, 2013

This study examines the organization of discourse in antenatal classrooms in southwestern Nigeria... more This study examines the organization of discourse in antenatal classrooms in southwestern Nigeria. Antenatal literacy classrooms are classes organized in hospitals and health centres for pregnant women to intimate them with the necessary health information needed in pregnancy. The data for this study were randomly selected from series of data recorded during some antenatal classes in some selected hospitals in Ile-Ife and its environs, all in southwestern Nigeria. The data consist of tape recordings of the classroom sessions and observational notes. The study reveals that three categories of discourse act were most prominent in the data-informative, elicitation and directive. This shows that the antenatal educators were more active in the classes than the students. They maximized the use of their power in discourse, which gives them the [+ HIGHER] role. They therefore had the privilege to talk while the mothers listened. This places the pregnant women at the disadvantage of being passive learners, who cannot see the knowledge being passed across beyond the context of the class. Despite that they have access to information, they are not adequately empowered to influence the society with what they are being exposed to. Their perception of their role in the discourse was that of listeners. The findings have significant implications for health literacy programmes in Nigeria. It clearly shows that health literacy programmes, as we have observed in antenatal classrooms exist only as an aspect of functional health literacy-the aspect that recognizes that pregnant women need to know about their health by listening to experts. This makes the practice, as it is essentially transactional. The study concludes that for antenatal classrooms to achieve their goal of health security of pregnant women and their foetus, they have to be more interactive. There must be a departure from the lecture method used now to a method that actually involves the mothers.

Discourse & Society, 2013

This article explores the communicative acts employed in the creation of HIV/AIDS posters which f... more This article explores the communicative acts employed in the creation of HIV/AIDS posters which focus on people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) and their relatives/friends and investigates the generic structure of these posters. Van Leeuwen’s multimodal communicative acts and Yuen’s Generic Structure Potential of printed advertisements serve as the theoretical framework for the study. The data include six purposively selected HIV/AIDS posters which focus on educating and counselling PLWHA, obtained from two state hospitals in south-western Nigeria. The multimodal communicative acts include those of instructing, advising, beckoning, encouraging, warning and informing. Lead, Emblem, Announcement and Enhancer are obligatory elements while Display, Tag and Call-and-Visit Information are optional elements. The study shows that there is heavy reliance on semiotic resources which signal the intended meaning of the producers of the posters.

A quasi-judicial public hearing is a public meeting which is created in order to obtain public te... more A quasi-judicial public hearing is a public meeting which is created in order to obtain public testimonies or comments about the legal rights of specific parties. Thus, the discourse structure of the hearings are important in revealing the discursive patterns used in collecting information necessary in the pursuit of justice. Past studies on the language of quasi-judicial public hearings have focused on rhetorical, sociolinguistic and critical discourse aspects of the hearings but have not carried out comparative linguistic studies of the hearings. This paper focuses on the comparison of the discourse structure identified in the quasi-judicial public hearing on the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) administration in Nigeria and the discourse structure identified in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearing, using centrally Halliday and Hassan‟s (1989) and Ansary and Babaii‟s (2005) Generic Structure Potential (GSP) models. The paper utilises ten hearing sessi...

This study examines the contextual beliefs held by interactants in the 2008 quasi-judicial public... more This study examines the contextual beliefs held by interactants in the 2008 quasi-judicial public hearing on the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja Administration in Nigeria, using Odebunmi’s (2006) model of context. The data for the study includes forty video recordings of the 2008 quasi-judicial public hearing on the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja Administration in Nigeria. The findings indicate that the shared contextual beliefs in the public hearing are based on shared knowledge of the public hearing aims and procedure, legal codes regarding landed property, government involvement and knowledge of Abuja metropolis.

International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 2021

This paper examines five bilingual pragmatic markers: oya, ke, ni, walahi, and ba, loaned from in... more This paper examines five bilingual pragmatic markers: oya, ke, ni, walahi, and ba, loaned from indigenous Nigerian languages into Nigerian English, with a view to investigating their sources, meanings, frequencies, spelling stability, positions, collocational patterns and discourse-pragmatic functions. The data for the study were obtained from the International Corpus of English-Nigeria and the Nigerian component of the Global Web-based English corpus. These were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively, using the theory of pragmatic borrowing. The results show that oya, ke, and ni are borrowed from Yoruba, walahi is loaned from Arabic through Hausa and Yoruba while ba is borrowed from Hausa. Oya serves as an attention marker, ke and ni function as emphasis markers, walahi serves as an emphatic manner of speaking marker while ba functions as an attention marker and agreement-seeking marker. The study highlights the influence of indigenous Nigerian languages on the discourse-pragmat...

Journal of Argumentation in Context, 2020

This paper examines defendants’ argumentative discourse in the 2008 Nigerian investigative public... more This paper examines defendants’ argumentative discourse in the 2008 Nigerian investigative public hearings on the Federal Capital Territory administration. The data, which consist of nine defendants’ presentations, are analyzed qualitatively, using a combination of the pragma-dialectical and extended pragma-dialectical theories of argumentation. The findings show that the hearing panel initially starts of as the institutional protagonist and defendants as the antagonists, and but later serve as the institutional antagonist and protagonists, respectively. The defendants tend to use analogy and causal argumentation schemes while employing subordinative and complementary coordinative argumentation structures. The defendants also employ different strategic maneuvers at different argumentative stages of the critical discussion. Due to the politico-forensic communicative domain and information-seeking genre of the investigative public hearing discourse, the concluding stage is suspended. ...

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies

English Text Construction

The study investigates stance and engagement strategies of Nigerian Supreme Court judges in const... more The study investigates stance and engagement strategies of Nigerian Supreme Court judges in constructing arguments in their opinions. Fifty purposively selected judicial opinions were quantitatively and qualitatively analysed using Hyland’s stance and engagement model. The findings reveal that Nigerian Supreme Court judges used more stance than engagement features. Among the stance features found, the judges used more self-mention devices to establish authorial presence and distinguish their views from others. Prevalent among engagement markers, on the other hand, are directives, informed by the normative nature of the text and the judges’ keenness to owning such prescribed norms.

Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics

This paper explores the pragmatics of the comment clause, it is well, with a view to examining it... more This paper explores the pragmatics of the comment clause, it is well, with a view to examining its origin, frequency, structural features, and extended discourse-pragmatic functions in Nigerian English, from a grammatical-pragmatic approach. The data for the study are collected from the Global Web-based English corpus (Davies, Mark. 2013. Corpus of Global Web-Based English: 1.9 billion words from speakers in 20 countries (GloWbE). Available at: http://corpus.byu.edu/glowbe/) and questionnaires, and are analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results show that the origin of the clause in Nigerian English is the Bible. The clause occurs most frequently at utterance-final position, and collocates with other discourse-pragmatic features. The results also reveal that the clause performs both textual and interpersonal functions. Textually, it is used as a silence filler and to terminate discourse. Interpersonally, it is employed as a part of a prayer, to express hope, offer comfort...

This paper examines argumentation in doctor-patient interactions, with a special focus on antenat... more This paper examines argumentation in doctor-patient interactions, with a special focus on antenatal consultations between doctors and pregnant women, using the extended pragmadialectical theory of argumentation. The data comprise two case studies, extracted from forty doctor-pregnant women interactions which were purposively selected from a private hospital in Ibadan, Nigeria. The findings show that depending on the stage of the interaction, the doctor and the pregnant women have interchangeable roles as protagonists and antagonists. The interactants tend to use causal argumentation scheme while employing subordinative and complementary coordinative argumentation structures. The interactants also employ different strategic manoeuvres at different argumentative stages of the critical discussion. Thus, the study shows the influence of the medical communicative activity type on the argumentative activities that can occur in a critical discussion. The study also recommends that argument...

Intercultural Pragmatics

This study explores five Swahili discourse-pragmatic features – ati/eti, yaani, pole, sasa and sa... more This study explores five Swahili discourse-pragmatic features – ati/eti, yaani, pole, sasa and sawa – which are borrowed from Swahili into Kenyan and Tanzanian Englishes, with a view to investigating their meanings, frequencies, positioning, collocational patterns, syntactic distribution and discourse-pragmatic functions. The data, which are extracted from the International Corpus of English-East Africa and the Kenyan and Tanzanian components of the corpus of Global Web-based English, are analysed quantitatively and qualitatively, from a variational and postcolonial corpus pragmatic framework. The study reveals that the Swahili discourse-pragmatic features occur more frequently in the Kenyan corpora than in the Tanzanian corpora, except in the case of sasa, which occurred with the same frequency in the online corpus. The paper identifies ati/eti as an attention marker, a quotative marker, a hearsay marker, an inferential marker, and an emotive interjection, yaani as an emphasis and ...

English World-Wide

This study examines the use of general extenders in Nigerian English, from a variational corpus-p... more This study examines the use of general extenders in Nigerian English, from a variational corpus-pragmatic framework, with British English as a reference variety. The data are extracted from the Nigerian and British components of the International Corpus of English . The results reveal that Nigerian English has patterns of use of general extenders that differ systematically from British English. Overall, Nigerian English users employ general extenders less frequently than British English users, as a result of a low preference for disjunctive extenders; there are no significant differences in the frequency of adjunctive and other general extenders between Nigerian and British English users. The study also identifies variants of general extenders unique to Nigerian English such as and all that one, and and other things (like that). In all, the results indicate that register and regional differences play important roles in determining general extender usage among English users.

English Today, 2022

Nigerian English (NigE) is a second language (L2) variety of English that has been domesticated, ... more Nigerian English (NigE) is a second language (L2) variety of English that has been domesticated, acculturated and indigenised within the Nigerian socio-cultural and linguistic contexts (Adegbija, 2004). Based on Schneider's (2007) Dynamic Model of the Development of New Englishes, scholars have shown that NigE is currently at the late stage of nativisation (stage 3) and is on the verge of entering the stage of endornormative stabilisation (stage 4) (see Gut, 2012; Collins, 2020). Nativisation, which typically begins with the declaration of independence, is a very active and important stage in which there are large-scale linguistic changes, especially during a time when English is usually the only official language (see Schneider, 2007). Although previous studies have investigated the historical development of English in Nigeria (see Taiwo, 2009), there are limited studies on the particular linguistic features that have changed over time, especially from the time Nigeria gained i...

Linguistik Online, Sep 13, 2013

This study examines the organization of discourse in antenatal classrooms in southwestern Nigeria... more This study examines the organization of discourse in antenatal classrooms in southwestern Nigeria. Antenatal literacy classrooms are classes organized in hospitals and health centres for pregnant women to intimate them with the necessary health information needed in pregnancy. The data for this study were randomly selected from series of data recorded during some antenatal classes in some selected hospitals in Ile-Ife and its environs, all in southwestern Nigeria. The data consist of tape recordings of the classroom sessions and observational notes. The study reveals that three categories of discourse act were most prominent in the data-informative, elicitation and directive. This shows that the antenatal educators were more active in the classes than the students. They maximized the use of their power in discourse, which gives them the [+ HIGHER] role. They therefore had the privilege to talk while the mothers listened. This places the pregnant women at the disadvantage of being passive learners, who cannot see the knowledge being passed across beyond the context of the class. Despite that they have access to information, they are not adequately empowered to influence the society with what they are being exposed to. Their perception of their role in the discourse was that of listeners. The findings have significant implications for health literacy programmes in Nigeria. It clearly shows that health literacy programmes, as we have observed in antenatal classrooms exist only as an aspect of functional health literacy-the aspect that recognizes that pregnant women need to know about their health by listening to experts. This makes the practice, as it is essentially transactional. The study concludes that for antenatal classrooms to achieve their goal of health security of pregnant women and their foetus, they have to be more interactive. There must be a departure from the lecture method used now to a method that actually involves the mothers.

Discourse & Society, 2013

This article explores the communicative acts employed in the creation of HIV/AIDS posters which f... more This article explores the communicative acts employed in the creation of HIV/AIDS posters which focus on people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) and their relatives/friends and investigates the generic structure of these posters. Van Leeuwen’s multimodal communicative acts and Yuen’s Generic Structure Potential of printed advertisements serve as the theoretical framework for the study. The data include six purposively selected HIV/AIDS posters which focus on educating and counselling PLWHA, obtained from two state hospitals in south-western Nigeria. The multimodal communicative acts include those of instructing, advising, beckoning, encouraging, warning and informing. Lead, Emblem, Announcement and Enhancer are obligatory elements while Display, Tag and Call-and-Visit Information are optional elements. The study shows that there is heavy reliance on semiotic resources which signal the intended meaning of the producers of the posters.

A quasi-judicial public hearing is a public meeting which is created in order to obtain public te... more A quasi-judicial public hearing is a public meeting which is created in order to obtain public testimonies or comments about the legal rights of specific parties. Thus, the discourse structure of the hearings are important in revealing the discursive patterns used in collecting information necessary in the pursuit of justice. Past studies on the language of quasi-judicial public hearings have focused on rhetorical, sociolinguistic and critical discourse aspects of the hearings but have not carried out comparative linguistic studies of the hearings. This paper focuses on the comparison of the discourse structure identified in the quasi-judicial public hearing on the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) administration in Nigeria and the discourse structure identified in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearing, using centrally Halliday and Hassan‟s (1989) and Ansary and Babaii‟s (2005) Generic Structure Potential (GSP) models. The paper utilises ten hearing sessi...

This study examines the contextual beliefs held by interactants in the 2008 quasi-judicial public... more This study examines the contextual beliefs held by interactants in the 2008 quasi-judicial public hearing on the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja Administration in Nigeria, using Odebunmi’s (2006) model of context. The data for the study includes forty video recordings of the 2008 quasi-judicial public hearing on the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja Administration in Nigeria. The findings indicate that the shared contextual beliefs in the public hearing are based on shared knowledge of the public hearing aims and procedure, legal codes regarding landed property, government involvement and knowledge of Abuja metropolis.

International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 2021

This paper examines five bilingual pragmatic markers: oya, ke, ni, walahi, and ba, loaned from in... more This paper examines five bilingual pragmatic markers: oya, ke, ni, walahi, and ba, loaned from indigenous Nigerian languages into Nigerian English, with a view to investigating their sources, meanings, frequencies, spelling stability, positions, collocational patterns and discourse-pragmatic functions. The data for the study were obtained from the International Corpus of English-Nigeria and the Nigerian component of the Global Web-based English corpus. These were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively, using the theory of pragmatic borrowing. The results show that oya, ke, and ni are borrowed from Yoruba, walahi is loaned from Arabic through Hausa and Yoruba while ba is borrowed from Hausa. Oya serves as an attention marker, ke and ni function as emphasis markers, walahi serves as an emphatic manner of speaking marker while ba functions as an attention marker and agreement-seeking marker. The study highlights the influence of indigenous Nigerian languages on the discourse-pragmat...

Journal of Argumentation in Context, 2020

This paper examines defendants’ argumentative discourse in the 2008 Nigerian investigative public... more This paper examines defendants’ argumentative discourse in the 2008 Nigerian investigative public hearings on the Federal Capital Territory administration. The data, which consist of nine defendants’ presentations, are analyzed qualitatively, using a combination of the pragma-dialectical and extended pragma-dialectical theories of argumentation. The findings show that the hearing panel initially starts of as the institutional protagonist and defendants as the antagonists, and but later serve as the institutional antagonist and protagonists, respectively. The defendants tend to use analogy and causal argumentation schemes while employing subordinative and complementary coordinative argumentation structures. The defendants also employ different strategic maneuvers at different argumentative stages of the critical discussion. Due to the politico-forensic communicative domain and information-seeking genre of the investigative public hearing discourse, the concluding stage is suspended. ...

Niyi Osunbade, Foluke Unuabonah, Ayo Osisanwo, Akin Adetunji & Funke Oni. 2021. Pragmatics, discourse and society: A festschrift for Akin Odebunmi. Volumes 1 & 2. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. , 2021

Pragmatics, Discourse and Society: A Festschrift for Akin Odebunmi is a two-volume ensemble of re... more Pragmatics, Discourse and Society: A Festschrift for Akin Odebunmi
is a two-volume ensemble of research articles written by established
and budding academics to celebrate Professor Akin Odebunmi’s
academic prowess and golden jubilee (December 21, 2017). The
articles in it, across the two volumes, consistent with the editors’
proposal, cover theoretical and empirical grounds in pragmatics, applied
linguistics, stylistics, literary discourse and various other genres with high contextual constraints, demonstrating Professor Akin Odebunmi’s
commitment to strict engagement with textual and discursive salience and pragma-discoursal properties at micro and macro levels of interpretation. The two-volume book is structured into seven sections (four in Volume 1 and three in Volume 2), comprising 52 chapters (1-24 in Volume 1 and 25-52 in Volume 2), to demonstrate Professor Odebunmi’s research engagement.