Focusing on grammatical rules and structures is deeply rooted in the prescriptive tradition which held sway for many years. The world has since moved from the prescriptive teaching methods to a more descriptive and functional method that focuses on meaning and communication. This movement has, however, not been well felt in the teaching of ESL (both in curriculum and practice) in Nigeria. This study takes up an experimental investigation of teaching the English lexical verb to two sets of learners – the experimental and controlled group to prove that the descriptive method of teaching grammar is more productive than the prescriptive method. Two groups of first year undergraduates, one from the Faculty of Arts and Education and the other from the Faculty of Basic and Applied Sciences of the University of Africa, Toru-Orua, Bayelsa State, Nigeria formed the study groups. The first group, the experimental, was taught with Larsen-Freeman’s (2016) three dimensional grammatical model while the second, the controlled, was taught with the traditional teaching method. The study used the Independent t-Test as the statistical tool to determine the differences in the two pedagogical methods. The study reveals among others that grammatical forms and structures are not there in isolation but for the purposes of communication. The study concludes that the tripod approach of form, meaning and use to grammar is a more illuminating method of teaching grammar in an ESL context compared to the traditional method of focusing on forms on the basis of the learners’ high level of performance to specific grammar tasks and related language use.

There are greater possibilities for a language utterance to have more meanings than what is stated. It is also possible for the hearers/audience to interpret what the speaker has in mind beyond what the speaker has put out in words. These meanings derived in this form are echoic and they are arrived at by choosing meanings that contextually relevant involving the least effort. How echoic relevant definitions are achieved has been studied using different language instances. Still, none in the researchers' knowledge has investigated how the COVID 19 social media memes, as used by Nigerians, communicate deeper meanings that are contextually relevant and how the echoic interpretations reveal the users' attitude. On this basis, therefore, the present study investigated the echoic nature of COVID 19 related social media memes as used by Nigerians. The study used Sperber and Wilson (1986) relevance theory as the theoretical framework and qualitatively analyzed Ten (10) purposefully selected memes. In the end, the study found out that interpretations of memes are significantly linked with the shared cognitive background knowledge which the speaker/meme creator and the hearer/audience have. Also, memes could echo the attitude of concern, disdain and fear while also harboring deeper meanings that contextually relevant and implicit.

A good number of studies in the past have examined the language of sexism from the feminist perspectives, gender segregation and degradation, among others, using semiotics resources, discourse analysis, multimodal discourse, among other theories. This study looks at the linguistic and non-linguistic language features of sexist language as choices available to language users on the Facebook social media platform. Using the multimodal theory as the framework, the study examines 10 randomly selected Facebook posts with texted pictures and comments posted by Nigerians with elements of sexism. The study also engaged the descriptive research design to examine the ‘textedpictures’ used as sampled data. These sampled data were given in-depth analysis to reveal their usually hidden and laughed-about sexist messages. The analysis of data was considered by determining the existence of sexist communication on Facebook platform, examining the meaning making elements in sexist languages posts. This is precipitated on the discovery that less attention is paid on the signification of the communicative elements deployed to convey sexism on the Facebook platform. From the analysis, the study finds out that Facebook users engage linguistic and non-linguistic elements symbolising sexist language on Facebook postings; that the posts on Facebook rely predominantly on both written texts and pictures, combined to make the tagging or stereotyping concrete; that the sexist posts on Facebook platforms rely heavily on hasty or intentional generalisation in order to demean the sex they chose to target through texts, pictures and the combination of texts and pictures.

ESP English language Nigerian universities Use of English Engineering ESL TESOL New undergraduates frequently puzzle over why they must take the Use of English course, which is usually inconsistent with their discipline. This study aims at a remodeling of the mandatory Use of English course in all Nigerian universities by implementing the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) model, ensuring its relevance to the various disciplines offered; this would replace-General English‖ that is not specific to any field and thus too vague to interest new students mindful of their chosen discipline. To prove ESP should be the approach taken to teach English to undergraduates from another discipline, the researchers designed two questionnaires for 50 final-year engineering undergraduates and 10 top managerial staff from a Nigerian engineering firm. The findings reveal that a large number of the students cannot efficiently write a technical report or execute other communication needs of an engineering firm, despite studying the Use of English course for two semesters. This study recommends the development of new and improved course outlines specific to the different fields and faculties in Nigerian universities. Contribution/Originality: This study aims for a remodeling of the mandatory Use of English course studied in all Nigerian universities by applying the English for Specific Purposes (ESP) model, which would ensure its relevance to the various disciplines offered by universities. This would replace the concept of-General English,‖ which is not specific to any field and is too vague to interest new students mindful of their chosen discipline.

Communication is not done in isolation. Ideas, opinions, beliefs etc. shared during communication are presented as strands in a larger dialogue unit with other discourse participants and subjects. For a language user to communicate his/her opinion in a larger dialogue unit containing different subjects or opinions, the linguistic stance is deployed to either evaluate, position or align with the existing subject matters. However, how this is achieved has not been made sufficiently explicit by linguists. It is on this basis therefore that this study focuses on the deployment of linguistic stance in the editorials of the Vanguard Newspaper with a view to underlining the nature of communication through conjunctional adversatives. The study adopted the stance triangle framework of John Du Bois (2007) as the theoretical framework. The study used ten (10) editorials (from February, 2018 to April, 2018) of the Vanguard Newspaper as the population of the study. The editorials chosen were found to have deployed linguistic stance through adversative conjunctions. Each of these instances were analysed in line with the stance triangle. At the end, the study presents as part of its findings that linguistic stance helps the language user to implicitly communicate explicit messages of evaluation, position and alignment with the subject matter raised in a discourse. The adversative conjunctions enable editorials to shift or change focus from subject 1 to subject 2 before making the decision to align with any of them. Also, the subject 1 in the stance triangle is usually the popular opinion in the discourse but with the use of adversative conjunctions, the editorial is able to present another opinion of the discourse that might not be too popular. This second opinion then forms the basis for the subject 2 and a possible alignment.