Sola Timothy Babatunde, a professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Ilorin has said for Nigeria to grow literally and develop nationally, there is a need to adopt a progressive live-and-let-live attitude to national and individual language planning.
The Don stated this while delivering the University’s 215th inaugural lecture titled “Dethroning silence and installing meaning: The burden of applied linguistics”.
He said “Nigeria must be functionally literate in as many indigenous languages as possible. Our studies have revealed that persuasive communication can thrive even in the environment of dissuasive forces.
“God recognised the need for man to have self-expression at the beginning because it gives meaning to life as such nothing should be done to muffle human beings by denying them this opportunity,” he said.
Babatunde explained that silence is the metaphor for language problems while meaning is the ability to use language for effective communication.
The professor pointed out that the English Language alone cannot function to handle the volume and varieties of communication challenges being confronted in a multilingual society like Nigeria, adding that structuring meanings through lexical choice and collection has continued to determine the success or failure of linguistics interaction.
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“As such knowledge of clause structuring and the logico-semantic import of the structure can profoundly enhance effective encoding and decoding of linguistics communication: that is, in addition to shared contextual information. I suggest that we should be mindful of the literary text recommended for teaching literary application.
“Also, discourse analysis should be in the mainstream of literary analysis so that students can easily perceive the necessary linguistic feature that will enhance the effective understanding and appreciation of the writer’s intentions,” he added.
To bring individual and societal fulfillment to bear on the global various agenda, Babatunde suggested that training in every discipline should be interested in developing the human mind for creative imagination.
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