Pragmatics, Linguistics, Language and Literature

Prof. Emmanuel Efurosibina Adegbija was, at the time of his death in 2005, the first and the only Professor of English Language in the Department of English in the University of Ilorin in Nigeria. As a lecturer, researcher and professor, he had mentored many students and academics and had made a mark in international scholarship. Adegbija had been the acclaimed forerunner of the pragmasociolinguistic approach to the study of language; his publications on language attitudes in sub-Saharan Africa as well as on aspects of the lexico-semantics of Nigerian English, have continued to be regarded as basic texts in the disciplines. This volume of essays celebrates his scholarship and legacy. Contributed by language, linguistic and literary scholars, the essays in the collection cover a wide range of issues in core and applied linguistics. Some of the essays pick up the discussion on issues relating to colonial language dominance and language attitudes in Africa, while some examine syntactic, semantic and rhetorical aspects of indigenous Nigerian languages and African literatures. The book’s thrust is interdisciplinary. It will undoubtedly appeal to a cross-section of scholars in pragmatics, linguistics, applied linguistics, language and literature.