AN INVESTIGATION OF THE SYNTACTIC DEVICES IN SELECTED NIGERIAN PREACHERS' SERMONS

The dynamic phenomenon of language and the idea that it shapes human actions and decisions is what creates different forms of usage. This feature of Language makes it accommodate different thoughts, terminologies and usages, and allows situations to influence the choice of language use. For instance, religion is one major social factor that has over the years influenced the use of language; English in specific, in Nigeria. This work exammes two sermons by Pastor Paul Enemche of Dunamics International Gospel Centre and Pastor Chris Oyakilome of Christ Embassy, with the view to x-ray their use of /inguzstic devices in order to outline how the use of such devices affects meaning and fulfils the goals of their messages. It also seeks to assess the ways that such linguistic devices may have formed the basic characreristics of language use by Nigerian Pentecostal Preacher. Within the framework oJ HallidaJ 's ( 1985) ystemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), which is a distinct approach in the study and description of language use m the society, the study identifies repetition, syntactic parallelism, rhetorical questions, imperative sentences and dependent clauses followed by independent ones as the distinguishing linguistic dzaracteristics of sermon in the Pentecostal context