GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.1
INTRODUCTION
Generally,
it is accepted that language is the means by which people in a community
interact and express feelings, thoughts and emotions. It is a system of
voluntarily produced symbols which include signs, letters and words.
According
to Udofot (2004) “language is normally organized into patterns – phonic and
graphic and each has specific characteristics”. The purpose of language is for
communications effective communication is based on a person’s linguistic
ability to produce, pronounce and use words, ability to construct sentences and
on the meaning of the individual words and sentences. Hence, people communicate
meaning with pieces of language.
There
are different levels of language study, namely – morphology, which is the study
of words formation and structure; syntax which deals with the arrangement of
words to form sentences, phonology which studies speech sounds and how they are
organized into a system in a given language, semantics which deals with the
study of meaning on a language and pragmatics which is the study of language in
use.
This
study will mainly concern itself with lexicology and semantics as parts of the
levels of language. These levels will in turn be used in analyzing our data.
The notion of the word is central in the study of lexicology and semantics.
Lexicology deals with the study of the form meaning, use and behavior of words.
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (2011) says “lexicology studies words, their
nature and meaning, word elements, relation between words (semantic relations),
word groups and the whole lexicon”. According to Saeed (1997), semantics is the
study of meaning communicated through language. Semantics is the part of
linguistics that is concerned with meaning (Lobner 2002). It shows how words
and sentences including non-verbal behaviors are understood, interpreted and
related to objects and situations in the world. Semantics also relates
syntactic saturations to writing as a whole.
Words
and sentences are carefully selected and well-ordered to convey intentions.
These words and sentences form themselves into coherent texts or news reports.
News is packaged information about current events happenings especially as
reported by newspapers, periodicals, radio or television.
News
by American journalist, Kurt Loder (1945), is anything that is interesting that
relates to what is happening in the world, what’s happing in areas of the
culture that would be of interest to your audience.
There
are several languages through which news can be diseminted to the public. It
could be in English, Yoruba, French, Igbo, Pidgin, Swahili and so on, but this
research work will focus on the use of pidgin as a language of news reporting.
Decamp
(1987, p. 175) describes pidgin as an incidental commutative language within a
multilingual setting which is the native language of nobody. Pidgin is
therefore amalgam of the main foreign or superstrate language and the
indigenous or substrate language. It’s superstrate is English while any of the
three major languages is used as a substrate language. Ihimere (2006, p. 296)
reports that, Nigerian pidgin has be came the native language of approximately
3 to 5 million people and a second language for at least another 75 million.
Several
works have been done on pidgin which focus on its effectiveness in new reports
but none to the knowledge of the researcher has focused on how pidgin words are
created and used in news reports on Wazobia FM.
1.1
PURPOSE
OF THE STUDY
This
research work intends to look at how pidgin words are use to give information
to the public which is convenient to the speaker and understandable to the
people. This research work will also attempt to bring to light how words are
created and used in Nigerian pidgin as a
medium of news reporting.
1.2
JUSTIFICATION
So
many researches by different scholars have been carried out on lexico-semantic
analysis. Notably, Odebunmi (2006) focuses on the semantic features of
Osundare’s “the universe in the University: a scholar Poet’s look from
inside-out”. Similarly, Alabi (2009) focuses on the syntactical and
lexico-semantic structures of proverbs in Achebe’s and Adimora-Exeigbo’s
trilogies. She examines these proverbs by comparing their syntactic and
lexicon-semantic structures.
The
study is embarked upon because to the best of my knowledge, a lexico-semantic
analysis of news reports in pidgin on Wazobia FM, has not been done.
1.3
SCOPE
OF THE STUDY
This
essay entitled “A lexico-semantic study of selected news reports in Nigerian
pidgin on Wazobia FM”, will mainly be concerned with how pidgin words are
created and how they are used as a medium for news reporting. 15 news reports
delivered on Wazobia FM in the year 2011 will be analyzed.
1.4
METHODOLOGY
Fifteen
(15) news reports given on Wazobia FM will be analyzed. The selection of the
news reports were gotten from the online page of Wazobia FM in year 2011. The
selection of news report will focus mainly on politics. Each of the news
reports will be examined using lexico-semantic devices.
1.5
DATA
DESCRIPTION
Mafeni
(1971, p.97) says that Nigerian pidgin comprises a base language – English,
which has been and cantinves to be modified by indigenous languages. Decamp
(1987, p.175) describes pidgin as an incidental communicative language within a
multilingual setting which is the native language of nobody. It is a simplified
language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups
that do not have a language in common in situations such as trade, plantation,
agriculture and mining. Nigerian pidgin can be used as a language of news
reporting.
News
according to Kurt Loder (1945) is anything that is interesting that relates to
what is happening in the world, what is happening in areas of the culture that
would be of interest to your audience.
The
Wazobia FM radio station in Lagos, exclusively anchor all their programmes,
from news reporting to public sensitization and entertainment in Nigerian
Pidgin.
1.6
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, we have given a general introduction
of our research, stating the introduction, the purpose of the study,
justification, scope of the study, methodology, data description and brief
history of Wazobia FM is also include.
We
shall proceed to the next chapter which is the review of our literature, where
we shall look through what some scholars have said about English lexicon,
lexemes, word meaning, word class, meaning relation, pidgin, origin of pidgin,
Nigerian pidgin English and lexico semantic festures of Nigeria pidgin.
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