A Lexico-Semantic Analysis of Selected Speeches of Honourable Patrick Obahiagbon

Abstract

Language plays many roles in human society. One of these roles is its use to express content or protest unfavourable conditions, laws, policies and systems. This is because language controls human behaviour and is a medium used to communicate ideologies, messages, ideas and to react to existing social order. This study examines the language of Honourable Patrick Obahiagbon, a Nigerian parliamentarian, through an analysis of his selected speeches. Four of his speeches were selected, studied and analysed using Systemic Functional Linguistics as a theoretical guide. The study concludes that Obahiagbon’s grandiloquent style is characterised by his use of coinages, compounding, archaisms, borrowed registers, irregular collocations, alliterations, intertexuality, grammatical and lexical deviations in a peculiar manner to express himself on social and political issues bothering on societal corruption, violence, indolence, partiality and inequality in the country. A combination of these features constitutes his style and identifies him as an idiolect. The study reveals that his verbose overuse and concatenation of words act as a distraction from his messages thereby hindering rather than enhancing the effectiveness of his speeches.

Key Words: Idiolect; Stylistics; Political Speeches; Patrick Obahiagbon; ESL