Socio-stylistic analysis of Nigerian gospel music

Abstract

This paper examines the socio-stylistic analysis of Nigerian gospel music. The qualitative research design was adopted in analyzing the  data collected using descriptive content analysis. The source of data for this paper is primarily two lyrics of selected Nigerian gospel  musiciansMercy Chinwo and Amaka Okwuoha. The findings of this paper reveal that the Nigerian gospel musicians' code-switch and that  the codes in most cases are English, Indigenous languages, and Nigerian Pidgin. This paper further establishes that Nigerian gospel  musicians code-switch to show solidarity, express their happiness, surprise, and excitement and share their identity with their audience.  Finally, the paper establishes that Nigerian gospel musicians use some other stylistic features such as simile, hyperbole, rhetorical  questions, metaphor symbolism, apostrophe, onomatopoeia, slang, and repetition to draw the attention of their audience and    communicate their feelings and emotion more effectively.