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Akinola Odebunmi

University of Ibadan Nigeria, English, Faculty Member

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Akin Odebunmi is a Nigerian Professor of Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis in the Department of English, University of Ibadan. He studied at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria for his Bachelor’s and Master's degrees. He also holds a PhD in English (Pragmatics) [on the pragmatic features of English usage in Southwestern Nigerian hospitals from] the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Nigeria. As an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Georg Foster Experienced Research Fellow, he worked with Prof. Dr Peter Auer at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, an international research centre of excellence of the University of Freiburg, Germany between April 2010 and March 2011. He has also worked and is still working with the Peter Auer Research group at the Hermann Paul Centre of Linguistics, University of Freiburg. He is a member of professional bodies such as the English Scholars Association of Nigeria (ESAN) (formerly Nigerian English Studies Association - NESA), the Reading Association of Nigeria (RAN) and the International Pragmatics Association, Belgium (Wikipedia). He is currently the pioneer president of the Nigerian Pragmatics Association (https://pragmaticsng.org). His research interests are located in pragmatics, discourse analysis and medical discourse/clinical pragmatics.
Supervisors: Professor Adewale Adegbite (PhD supervisor); Professor Dr Peter Auer (German advisor)
Phone: +2348033786713
Address: Department of English, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria

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Papers by Akinola Odebunmi

ENGLISH STUDIES IN NON-NATIVE ENVIRONMENTS

Journal of English Scholars Association of Nigeria 19 (1): 1-25., 2017

This paper extensively reviews studies on the concept of and approaches to non-native English. Ex... more This paper extensively reviews studies on the concept of and approaches to non-native English. Exploring both deviationist and variationist angles to the discourse, it commentates on the English studies, sociolinguistic, applied linguistic approach, lexicographic approach, populariser approach and futurology approaches. It recommends three levels of English language teaching to address the question of glocalisation of the language in Nigeria and other non-native English settings: a. National non-native English (NnE) (e.g. Nigerian English, Ghanaian English), b. Intra-regional non-native English (IrnE) (e.g. West African English, East African English) and c. International English (ItE) (e.g. American English, British English).

Introducing Cognition Pragmatics 1

Awiye: Journal of Language, Literature and Communication Studies, 2024

In this research, I situate the biblical concept of "my father's house" with reference to words o... more In this research, I situate the biblical concept of "my father's house" with reference to words of English in a single 'nature' cognition of all categories of speakers (native, non-native, educated and uneducated) and locate the processing of their meaning within 'nurture', which operationally presupposes nature in the first language speaker sense. Consequently, I propose the model/theory of Cognition Pragmatics (CosP) whose current conceptualization is based only on examples and illustrations from the lexicon of English relatively distinctive to Nigeria.

Semantic calculus and poetry

Semantic calculus and poetry

Semantic calculus and poetry

Not to be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Interactivity is ... more Not to be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Interactivity is a universal of the human species and world cultures, but the linguistic and discursive means of achieving it are sometimes specific to particular speech communities. For example, while most cultures have formulae for greeting, appreciating and complimenting, the way these are executed varies by societal expectations, preferences and realities. The ability of the individual members of society to orient properly to these relational formulae determines the rating of their actions as acceptable or not to the societal norms. More often than not, people's interactive orientation to societal values is coordinated by their dynamic and or pragmatic selection of linguistic or nonlinguistic resources. Most of these resources which ensure social harmony are indexes of politeness. Humans get engaged more in interactional than transactional communication (Brown and Levinson 1983), and being polite or otherwise constitutes the biggest chunk of such activities. Saying 'good morning' or 'good afternoon', though ritualistic, matters a good deal in promoting good human relations. But beyond this, who says it and how it is said also constitutes a significant factor. This modedependent linguistic performance, however, assumes varying dimensions in world cultures. In some, for example, most socalled highcontext cultures, it strictly defines the cultural identity of the people, and determines their interactive associations. In some others, especially most so called lowcontext cultures, the degree of attachment to the relative status and societal standing of interactants is comparatively small. Ọmọlúàbí, a highcontext cultural concept, encapsulates the idea of a good Yorùbá person, and is thus impactful in determining the Yorùbá identity. It rests on the principles of good behaviour, social harmony and integrity (cf. Awoniyi 1975), which form the approximate size of the notion of politeness, itself defined as a demonstration of socially appropriate manners. Ọmọlúàbí is grounded in the linguistic expression of respect and social warmth, which is manifested in greetings, morallyinduced encounters and socially ingrained exchanges. These qualities are interpreted as indices of love, hospitality, communality and good upbringing among the Yorùbá in all areas of life. The wide range of applicability of ọmọlúàbí separates it, in part, from the Japanese aisatsu, for example, which takes as its primary domains greetings and farewell (Ide 2013). Given the broad nature of ọmọlúàbí, this essay is, at best, an overview of the concept. In Section 2, it describes its anthropological and sociological manifestations; in Section 3, its discursive indexes; in Section 4, its pragmatic roles; and in Section 5, its intercultural network. Section 6 concludes the essay. The Yorùbá, who number about 20 million across several parts of the world, with approximately 18 million 12/3/2015 Ọmọlúàbí* 2/13

 Peer review of funding applications  Decision committee member for the Science for Africa Foun... more

Трэкинг и идеология в политических новостях СМИ

Политическая лингвистика, 2008

Discursive Construction of Synonymous Relations in Political Speeches

Ahyu: A Journal of Language and Literature

Existing studies on political discourse have investigated the role of language in propaganda, the... more Existing studies on political discourse have investigated the role of language in propaganda, the emotive use of language by politicians, the ideological undertone of modal verbs in political speeches, often ignoring the discursive use of synonyms, especially in the Nigerian context. This paper thus examines the discursive construction of synonyms in selected speeches of former Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo with the aim of identifying the ideological implication of the synonymous construction in the speeches. His speeches are worth studying as he was the first military head of state to be elected a civilian president, thereby leading the country on two good occasions. Twelve speeches were purposively sampled comprising those he made as a military head of state and as a civilian president. These periods are important in Nigeria’s political history. The study adopted evaluative semantics and sociocognitive approach of critical discourse analysis as theoretical basis. The form...

Nigerian hospital setting discourse

Handbook of Pragmatics Onine, 2021

Discourse in hospital settings or hospital setting discourse (HSD) signifies a relatively broad a... more Discourse in hospital settings or hospital setting discourse (HSD) signifies a relatively broad area of communication among different professionals involved in medical care and hospital visitors. Its scope over the relationship between doctors and patients, doctors and other professionals (for example, nurses, pharmacists, laboratory techni cians, physiotherapists, etc.), between patients and other medical professionals, between patients and other hospital visitors (for example, relatives and heath service inquirers) and among patients themselves, represents a wide array of engagements which demands varying layers of orientation to institutional and social contexts. This broadness pre cludes the possibility of any exhaustive treatment of “discourse in hospital settings” in a single handbook contribution – not only because, barring some general similarities in interactional or language use patterns, the binary relationships exhibit role-related pecu liarities and, therefore, distinctive discourse manifestations – but also because the con texts of the encounters between the groups impose different communicative constraints. Thus, for a relatively complete (but not exhaustive) account, the focus, in this entry, is on the discourse features of the interaction between doctors and patients (representing a cross-section of medical interactions) in Nigerian hospital settings.

Nigerian hospital setting discourse

Handbook of Pragmatics, 2022

Discursive Repetitions and Voices in Nigerian Clinical Meetings

Ghana Journal of Linguistics, Aug 3, 2021

Previous studies on discursive repetitions have acknowledged otherrepetitions/reformulations in c... more Previous studies on discursive repetitions have acknowledged otherrepetitions/reformulations in consultative meetings but have neither focused on the occurrences of a combination of self and other repetitions nor connected them to the polyphonic dimensions of the interactions. Arguing that discursive repetitions sometimes work to demonstrate multiple voices on diagnoses and health state assessments in Nigerian hospital meetings, and that they consequently exert an influence on the negotiation of clinical outcomes, the paper analyses 100 repetitions in 30 doctor-patient interactions in OutPatient Department clinics in Southwestern Nigerian hospitals. The analysis shows that doctors repeat (non)-contiguous constituents of their turns in a way that superposes the conjectural voice of the doctor, the medical institutional voice, the voice of medical science and the voice of culture (parenting). Repetitive turns and voices are negotiated with consultative parties' common ground of medical procedures, previous joint/separate clinical encounters and patients' preferences, eventuating in three clinical outcomes: verdicts on patients' health state, commitment to adherence and admittance of noncompliance with regimens.

The Sociology of English in Nigeria

RECENT PUBLICATIONS This list acknowledges recent works (except offprints of single articles) that appear to bear on the scientific study of language. The receipt of individual books cannot be sep- arately acknowledged and no book can be returned to the publisher. Note especially that by acceptin...

Pragmatic Functions of Crisis - Motivated Proverbs in Ola Rotimi's The Gods Are Not to Blame

Linguistik Online

The paper examines the pragmatic functions that crisis-motivated proverbs play in Ola Rotimi'... more The paper examines the pragmatic functions that crisis-motivated proverbs play in Ola Rotimi's The Gods is not to Blame. It picks its inspiration from the little attention hitherto paid, in the linguistic literature, to both the specific proverbs that are spurred by crisis in the play and the pragmatic roles of such proverbs. For data, only the proverbs that are necessitated by the crisis-situations in the text are sampled, and these are analysed, using the recent theory of pragmatic acts (Mey 2001). The study reveals that crisis-motivated proverbs in The Gods are not to Blame, which are of two types: social and political, are characterized by practs such as those of counselling, cautioning, challenging, veiling, persuading, prioritizing, encouraging, threatening and admitting. These are psychological acts which exploit contextual features such as reference, metaphor, inference, shared situation knowledge, shared cultural knowledge and relevance. The paper concludes that studyin...

Language and Gender Perspectives in Nigerian Theo-religious Contexts

… online: Revista electrónica periódica de filología …, 2009

While some research has been carried out on gender and religion in some parts of Africa, studies ... more While some research has been carried out on gender and religion in some parts of Africa, studies are yet to attend to how gender perspectives are expressed in the Christian theo-religious context (in Nigeria). This paper addresses this gap by investigating the gender linguistic and discoursal resources deployed by Nigerian theological seminary students to orient to gender beliefs. Two orthodox religious institutions, the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary, Ogbomoso and the Dominican Institute, Ibadan were purposively sampled. Seventy eight essays, written by all the students (72 males, 6 females) in the two institutions, on "God and Humans" were collected. The essays were subjected to linguistic and pragma-discoursal analyses, with insights from dominance and postmodernist gender theories, discourse tracking and critical discourse analysis. Written communication in theo-religious contexts in Nigeria projects two terms: patriarchal and gender-neutral/balanced. Both male and female genders opt for patriarchal terms to refer to God and humans. Men employ the items subjectively to assert independence and, sometimes, gender superiority; women use them objectively to associate with the male group. Nominal and pronominal gender-neutral/balanced items are used by the two groups. Men either draw on the tokens exclusively to subsume women or inclusively to cover both men and women. Women engage the items inclusively by involving both groups and submissively by presuming presenting neutral tokens with patriarchal items. Gendered language used by seminary students largely reflects the traditional social and religious roles of men and women in the larger Southwestern Nigerian society. Future research can compare brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Repositori d'Objectes Digitals per a l'Ensenyament la Recerca i la Cultura ANGLOGERMANICA ONLINE 2010. Odebunmi, Akin: Language and Gender Perspectives in Nigerian Theo-religious Contexts ___________________________________________________________________________________ 66 anglogermanica.uv.es gendered language in the theo-religious institution with that in medical, academic or commercial institutions. It can also compare gender perspectives among male and female students in selected African and Western seminaries.

Negotiating/Managing Deresponsibilities in Nigerian Clinical Meetings

Taking reduced/weakened or avoiding responsibility with regards to a patient’s condition: medical... more

Pragmatics 21:4.619-645 (2011) International Pragmatics Association CONCEALMENT IN CONSULTATIVE ENCOUNTERS IN NIGERIAN HOSPITALS1

Although communication in medical practice is reputed for exactitude and objectivity, many doctor... more Although communication in medical practice is reputed for exactitude and objectivity, many doctors in several countries make equivocal, concealing utterances in certain situations when relating with clients. This phenomenon, despite its importance in doctor-client interaction, has received little attention from language scholars who have discussed concealment mainly as a strategy in news delivery. The present study examines concealment items in the interaction between doctors and clients in South-western Nigerian hospitals and their pragmatic implications for medical communication in Nigeria. Fifty (50) conversations between doctors and clients on several ailments were tape-recorded in the six states of South-western Nigeria. Structured and unstructured interviews were conducted with selected doctors and clients. The corpus was examined for the linguistic and pragmatic resources deployed by doctors in concealing information, and was analysed using Jacob Mey’s theory of pragmeme and ...

InLiSt no. 48 CODE SELECTION AT FIRST MEETINGS: A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF DOCTOR-CLIENT CONVERSATIONS IN NIGERIA1

2. Methodology and design........................................................................... more 2. Methodology and design.......................................................................................................... 4 3. Code selection and hospital interactions in Nigeria................................................................. 4 4. Consultation structure and linguistic situation in the Nigerian hospital.................................. 8

You didn’t give me to go and buy’: Negotiating accountability for poor health in post-recommendation medical consultations

Journal of Pragmatics, 2016

This research explores how doctors and patients discursively track responsibility for patients' p... more This research explores how doctors and patients discursively track responsibility for patients' poor health after treatment recommendations have been delivered in Southwestern Nigerian hospitals. Purposively sampling 10 audio-taped and five video-taped doctor-patient interactions in selected Nigerian hospitals, it takes a mid-course between aspects of the conversation analytic, exclusively bottomup, and the discourse analytic, mostly top-down, approaches to clinical conversations. It argues that the discursive treatment of postrecommendation poor health, situated in common ground and sequentiality, is construed by participants as either patient-or doctorinduced. When construed as patient-induced, poor health is anchored to a patient-designed therapy plan and is co-constructed as a clear patient responsibility, necessitating a re-negotiation of an existing recommendation by doctors and patients. When construed as doctorinduced, poor health is co-constructed as a physician error, but responsibility for it is sequentially refused by the doctor, who negotiates a fresh therapy plan to neutralise physician blame. While the analysis shows that doctors' simplified language which facilitates consultative exchanges proves useful in negotiating responsibility in poor health discourses and, consequently, instituting a more effective medical procedure on patients, it reveals doctors' occasional communication of inadequate and misleading information, use of suppressive interactive power and or nonacceptance of clinical errors.

ENGLISH STUDIES IN NON-NATIVE ENVIRONMENTS

Journal of English Scholars Association of Nigeria 19 (1): 1-25., 2017

This paper extensively reviews studies on the concept of and approaches to non-native English. Ex... more This paper extensively reviews studies on the concept of and approaches to non-native English. Exploring both deviationist and variationist angles to the discourse, it commentates on the English studies, sociolinguistic, applied linguistic approach, lexicographic approach, populariser approach and futurology approaches. It recommends three levels of English language teaching to address the question of glocalisation of the language in Nigeria and other non-native English settings: a. National non-native English (NnE) (e.g. Nigerian English, Ghanaian English), b. Intra-regional non-native English (IrnE) (e.g. West African English, East African English) and c. International English (ItE) (e.g. American English, British English).

Introducing Cognition Pragmatics 1

Awiye: Journal of Language, Literature and Communication Studies, 2024

In this research, I situate the biblical concept of "my father's house" with reference to words o... more In this research, I situate the biblical concept of "my father's house" with reference to words of English in a single 'nature' cognition of all categories of speakers (native, non-native, educated and uneducated) and locate the processing of their meaning within 'nurture', which operationally presupposes nature in the first language speaker sense. Consequently, I propose the model/theory of Cognition Pragmatics (CosP) whose current conceptualization is based only on examples and illustrations from the lexicon of English relatively distinctive to Nigeria.

Semantic calculus and poetry

Semantic calculus and poetry

Semantic calculus and poetry

Not to be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Interactivity is ... more Not to be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Interactivity is a universal of the human species and world cultures, but the linguistic and discursive means of achieving it are sometimes specific to particular speech communities. For example, while most cultures have formulae for greeting, appreciating and complimenting, the way these are executed varies by societal expectations, preferences and realities. The ability of the individual members of society to orient properly to these relational formulae determines the rating of their actions as acceptable or not to the societal norms. More often than not, people's interactive orientation to societal values is coordinated by their dynamic and or pragmatic selection of linguistic or nonlinguistic resources. Most of these resources which ensure social harmony are indexes of politeness. Humans get engaged more in interactional than transactional communication (Brown and Levinson 1983), and being polite or otherwise constitutes the biggest chunk of such activities. Saying 'good morning' or 'good afternoon', though ritualistic, matters a good deal in promoting good human relations. But beyond this, who says it and how it is said also constitutes a significant factor. This modedependent linguistic performance, however, assumes varying dimensions in world cultures. In some, for example, most socalled highcontext cultures, it strictly defines the cultural identity of the people, and determines their interactive associations. In some others, especially most so called lowcontext cultures, the degree of attachment to the relative status and societal standing of interactants is comparatively small. Ọmọlúàbí, a highcontext cultural concept, encapsulates the idea of a good Yorùbá person, and is thus impactful in determining the Yorùbá identity. It rests on the principles of good behaviour, social harmony and integrity (cf. Awoniyi 1975), which form the approximate size of the notion of politeness, itself defined as a demonstration of socially appropriate manners. Ọmọlúàbí is grounded in the linguistic expression of respect and social warmth, which is manifested in greetings, morallyinduced encounters and socially ingrained exchanges. These qualities are interpreted as indices of love, hospitality, communality and good upbringing among the Yorùbá in all areas of life. The wide range of applicability of ọmọlúàbí separates it, in part, from the Japanese aisatsu, for example, which takes as its primary domains greetings and farewell (Ide 2013). Given the broad nature of ọmọlúàbí, this essay is, at best, an overview of the concept. In Section 2, it describes its anthropological and sociological manifestations; in Section 3, its discursive indexes; in Section 4, its pragmatic roles; and in Section 5, its intercultural network. Section 6 concludes the essay. The Yorùbá, who number about 20 million across several parts of the world, with approximately 18 million 12/3/2015 Ọmọlúàbí* 2/13

 Peer review of funding applications  Decision committee member for the Science for Africa Foun... more

Трэкинг и идеология в политических новостях СМИ

Политическая лингвистика, 2008

Discursive Construction of Synonymous Relations in Political Speeches

Ahyu: A Journal of Language and Literature

Existing studies on political discourse have investigated the role of language in propaganda, the... more Existing studies on political discourse have investigated the role of language in propaganda, the emotive use of language by politicians, the ideological undertone of modal verbs in political speeches, often ignoring the discursive use of synonyms, especially in the Nigerian context. This paper thus examines the discursive construction of synonyms in selected speeches of former Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo with the aim of identifying the ideological implication of the synonymous construction in the speeches. His speeches are worth studying as he was the first military head of state to be elected a civilian president, thereby leading the country on two good occasions. Twelve speeches were purposively sampled comprising those he made as a military head of state and as a civilian president. These periods are important in Nigeria’s political history. The study adopted evaluative semantics and sociocognitive approach of critical discourse analysis as theoretical basis. The form...

Nigerian hospital setting discourse

Handbook of Pragmatics Onine, 2021

Discourse in hospital settings or hospital setting discourse (HSD) signifies a relatively broad a... more Discourse in hospital settings or hospital setting discourse (HSD) signifies a relatively broad area of communication among different professionals involved in medical care and hospital visitors. Its scope over the relationship between doctors and patients, doctors and other professionals (for example, nurses, pharmacists, laboratory techni cians, physiotherapists, etc.), between patients and other medical professionals, between patients and other hospital visitors (for example, relatives and heath service inquirers) and among patients themselves, represents a wide array of engagements which demands varying layers of orientation to institutional and social contexts. This broadness pre cludes the possibility of any exhaustive treatment of “discourse in hospital settings” in a single handbook contribution – not only because, barring some general similarities in interactional or language use patterns, the binary relationships exhibit role-related pecu liarities and, therefore, distinctive discourse manifestations – but also because the con texts of the encounters between the groups impose different communicative constraints. Thus, for a relatively complete (but not exhaustive) account, the focus, in this entry, is on the discourse features of the interaction between doctors and patients (representing a cross-section of medical interactions) in Nigerian hospital settings.

Nigerian hospital setting discourse

Handbook of Pragmatics, 2022

Discursive Repetitions and Voices in Nigerian Clinical Meetings

Ghana Journal of Linguistics, Aug 3, 2021

Previous studies on discursive repetitions have acknowledged otherrepetitions/reformulations in c... more Previous studies on discursive repetitions have acknowledged otherrepetitions/reformulations in consultative meetings but have neither focused on the occurrences of a combination of self and other repetitions nor connected them to the polyphonic dimensions of the interactions. Arguing that discursive repetitions sometimes work to demonstrate multiple voices on diagnoses and health state assessments in Nigerian hospital meetings, and that they consequently exert an influence on the negotiation of clinical outcomes, the paper analyses 100 repetitions in 30 doctor-patient interactions in OutPatient Department clinics in Southwestern Nigerian hospitals. The analysis shows that doctors repeat (non)-contiguous constituents of their turns in a way that superposes the conjectural voice of the doctor, the medical institutional voice, the voice of medical science and the voice of culture (parenting). Repetitive turns and voices are negotiated with consultative parties' common ground of medical procedures, previous joint/separate clinical encounters and patients' preferences, eventuating in three clinical outcomes: verdicts on patients' health state, commitment to adherence and admittance of noncompliance with regimens.

The Sociology of English in Nigeria

RECENT PUBLICATIONS This list acknowledges recent works (except offprints of single articles) that appear to bear on the scientific study of language. The receipt of individual books cannot be sep- arately acknowledged and no book can be returned to the publisher. Note especially that by acceptin...

Pragmatic Functions of Crisis - Motivated Proverbs in Ola Rotimi's The Gods Are Not to Blame

Linguistik Online

The paper examines the pragmatic functions that crisis-motivated proverbs play in Ola Rotimi'... more The paper examines the pragmatic functions that crisis-motivated proverbs play in Ola Rotimi's The Gods is not to Blame. It picks its inspiration from the little attention hitherto paid, in the linguistic literature, to both the specific proverbs that are spurred by crisis in the play and the pragmatic roles of such proverbs. For data, only the proverbs that are necessitated by the crisis-situations in the text are sampled, and these are analysed, using the recent theory of pragmatic acts (Mey 2001). The study reveals that crisis-motivated proverbs in The Gods are not to Blame, which are of two types: social and political, are characterized by practs such as those of counselling, cautioning, challenging, veiling, persuading, prioritizing, encouraging, threatening and admitting. These are psychological acts which exploit contextual features such as reference, metaphor, inference, shared situation knowledge, shared cultural knowledge and relevance. The paper concludes that studyin...

Language and Gender Perspectives in Nigerian Theo-religious Contexts

… online: Revista electrónica periódica de filología …, 2009

While some research has been carried out on gender and religion in some parts of Africa, studies ... more While some research has been carried out on gender and religion in some parts of Africa, studies are yet to attend to how gender perspectives are expressed in the Christian theo-religious context (in Nigeria). This paper addresses this gap by investigating the gender linguistic and discoursal resources deployed by Nigerian theological seminary students to orient to gender beliefs. Two orthodox religious institutions, the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary, Ogbomoso and the Dominican Institute, Ibadan were purposively sampled. Seventy eight essays, written by all the students (72 males, 6 females) in the two institutions, on "God and Humans" were collected. The essays were subjected to linguistic and pragma-discoursal analyses, with insights from dominance and postmodernist gender theories, discourse tracking and critical discourse analysis. Written communication in theo-religious contexts in Nigeria projects two terms: patriarchal and gender-neutral/balanced. Both male and female genders opt for patriarchal terms to refer to God and humans. Men employ the items subjectively to assert independence and, sometimes, gender superiority; women use them objectively to associate with the male group. Nominal and pronominal gender-neutral/balanced items are used by the two groups. Men either draw on the tokens exclusively to subsume women or inclusively to cover both men and women. Women engage the items inclusively by involving both groups and submissively by presuming presenting neutral tokens with patriarchal items. Gendered language used by seminary students largely reflects the traditional social and religious roles of men and women in the larger Southwestern Nigerian society. Future research can compare brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Repositori d'Objectes Digitals per a l'Ensenyament la Recerca i la Cultura ANGLOGERMANICA ONLINE 2010. Odebunmi, Akin: Language and Gender Perspectives in Nigerian Theo-religious Contexts ___________________________________________________________________________________ 66 anglogermanica.uv.es gendered language in the theo-religious institution with that in medical, academic or commercial institutions. It can also compare gender perspectives among male and female students in selected African and Western seminaries.

Negotiating/Managing Deresponsibilities in Nigerian Clinical Meetings

Taking reduced/weakened or avoiding responsibility with regards to a patient’s condition: medical... more

Pragmatics 21:4.619-645 (2011) International Pragmatics Association CONCEALMENT IN CONSULTATIVE ENCOUNTERS IN NIGERIAN HOSPITALS1

Although communication in medical practice is reputed for exactitude and objectivity, many doctor... more Although communication in medical practice is reputed for exactitude and objectivity, many doctors in several countries make equivocal, concealing utterances in certain situations when relating with clients. This phenomenon, despite its importance in doctor-client interaction, has received little attention from language scholars who have discussed concealment mainly as a strategy in news delivery. The present study examines concealment items in the interaction between doctors and clients in South-western Nigerian hospitals and their pragmatic implications for medical communication in Nigeria. Fifty (50) conversations between doctors and clients on several ailments were tape-recorded in the six states of South-western Nigeria. Structured and unstructured interviews were conducted with selected doctors and clients. The corpus was examined for the linguistic and pragmatic resources deployed by doctors in concealing information, and was analysed using Jacob Mey’s theory of pragmeme and ...

InLiSt no. 48 CODE SELECTION AT FIRST MEETINGS: A PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF DOCTOR-CLIENT CONVERSATIONS IN NIGERIA1

2. Methodology and design........................................................................... more 2. Methodology and design.......................................................................................................... 4 3. Code selection and hospital interactions in Nigeria................................................................. 4 4. Consultation structure and linguistic situation in the Nigerian hospital.................................. 8

You didn’t give me to go and buy’: Negotiating accountability for poor health in post-recommendation medical consultations

Journal of Pragmatics, 2016

This research explores how doctors and patients discursively track responsibility for patients' p... more This research explores how doctors and patients discursively track responsibility for patients' poor health after treatment recommendations have been delivered in Southwestern Nigerian hospitals. Purposively sampling 10 audio-taped and five video-taped doctor-patient interactions in selected Nigerian hospitals, it takes a mid-course between aspects of the conversation analytic, exclusively bottomup, and the discourse analytic, mostly top-down, approaches to clinical conversations. It argues that the discursive treatment of postrecommendation poor health, situated in common ground and sequentiality, is construed by participants as either patient-or doctorinduced. When construed as patient-induced, poor health is anchored to a patient-designed therapy plan and is co-constructed as a clear patient responsibility, necessitating a re-negotiation of an existing recommendation by doctors and patients. When construed as doctorinduced, poor health is co-constructed as a physician error, but responsibility for it is sequentially refused by the doctor, who negotiates a fresh therapy plan to neutralise physician blame. While the analysis shows that doctors' simplified language which facilitates consultative exchanges proves useful in negotiating responsibility in poor health discourses and, consequently, instituting a more effective medical procedure on patients, it reveals doctors' occasional communication of inadequate and misleading information, use of suppressive interactive power and or nonacceptance of clinical errors.

English Language and Communication Skills in Medical, Engineering, Science, Technology and Agriculture (MESTA) Students, 1996

The chapter coins the term, "abbronym" from "abbreviation" and "acronym" in the light of the defi... more The chapter coins the term, "abbronym" from "abbreviation" and "acronym" in the light of the definitional and characteristic overlaps between the two terms. It identifies simple and complex abbronyms and illustrates both with terms from medical, (natural) science, technology and agricultural (MESTA) texts. It concludes that abbronyms in MESTA texts occur in formal contexts, save efforts and space, and serve mnemonic purposes.

GRAMMAR, APPLIED LINGUISTICS AND SOCIETY: A FESTSCHRIFT FOR WALE OSISANWO

by Ayo Osisanwo, Akinola Odebunmi, Ayo Osisanwo, and helen bodunde

GRAMMAR, APPLIED LINGUISTICS AND SOCIETY: A FESTSCHRIFT FOR WALE OSISANWO, 2016

GRAMMAR, APPLIED LINGUISTICS AND SOCIETY: A FESTSCHRIFT FOR WALE OSISANWO is a collection of rese... more GRAMMAR, APPLIED LINGUISTICS AND SOCIETY: A FESTSCHRIFT FOR WALE OSISANWO is a collection of research output by seasoned scholars to commemorate the scholarship of Professor Wale Osisanwo, an icon of the Nigerian linguistics scholarship who has significantly impacted on the academic sphere of the Nigerian public, in celebration of his 70th birthday of June 30, 2016. The ten sections of the book address theoretical and empirical issues in the traditions of grammar, language teaching and learning, theories and applications of discoursal and pragmatic engagements, the acclimatization of English to the Nigerian environment and aspects of literary studies.