When language is used to communicate to an audience, the listeners are given an insight into the intention of the speaker. This study analyses the concession speech made by President Goodluck Jonathan. It adopts the speech act theory in the classification of the illocutionary acts which are contained in the speech. The simple percentage is used in computing the frequency of the various illocutionary acts. Our findings show a preponderance of the representative speech act and the absence of the directive.

The traditional view of idioms suggests that they are expressions with arbitrary meanings. The cognitive linguistics view however, has it that the meanings of idioms can be interpreted by some cognitive operations. This study, using Igbo idioms pertaining to body-parts, attempts to ascertain the cognitive operations that apply in Igbo idiomatic meaning interpretation. Data for the study were extracted from Igbo textbooks and analysed based on the cognitive linguistics framework. The study shows that the figurative meanings of the selected body-part idioms are generally achieved by Copyright © IAARR 2016: www.afrrevjo.net/ijah Indexed African Journals Online (AJOL) www.ajol.info conventional knowledge, metaphor and metonymy. It equally reveals that conventional knowledge is a basic tool in idiomatic meaning interpretation as it can solely account for the meaning of an expression. Finally, it can be concluded that a single cognitive mechanism or a combination of two or more of such mechanisms can be employed in the figurative meaning interpretation of Igbo body-parts idioms.

Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic in the world as a terminal disease, different lexical items have been adopted by Nigerian News Editors in rendering news reports on the pandemic. Certainly, power and significance are embedded in these news reports and these headlines help to reveal hidden sociocultural ideologies. Thus, the present study investigates selected Covid-19 newspaper headlines in order to ascertain how newspaper headlines have been used to illuminate hidden sociocultural ideologies. The study adopts Fairclough's (1995) theory of Critical Discourse Analysis as a sociocultural practice where emphasis is made on the three dimensions (3Ds) of discourse analysis namely description, interpretation and explanation.Covid-19 newspaper headlines selected from five Nigerian Newspapers namely the Guardian, Daily Trust, Nation, Tribune and Punch newspapers are analysed thematically in a bid to ascertain how the choice of words by the editors have been used to reveal hidden ideologies. A critical analysis of the headlines reveals a covert underlying social and cultural motivation for the readers’ consumption. The study further shows that covid-19 newspaper headlines perform myriads of functions from the perspective of the readers as they have implications on the social, political, economic and religious life of the readers. It can be concluded that these headlines reshape the readers’ mind-set.

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This study explores language shift and proposes ways of reversing it in Etulo, a language spoken by a minority group in Benue State, Nigeria. Data for the study were collected by means of questionnaires containing Lewis and Simons five key questions for language diagnosis and evaluation. The study applies Lewis and Simon's Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS) for reversing language shift to the Etulo language situation. The findings show that Etulo is at EGIDS level 7. Following from this, the study suggests training Etulo native speakers as teachers and creating teaching devices as ways of reversing language shift. The devices (books, audios) shall be used in teaching Etulo language as a subject in the school curriculum or as an after school program. The study opines that these strategies, apart from encouraging literacy in Etulo, will further endear Etulo native speakers to their language thus disrupting the shift to Tiv, which is the dominant language in Benue.