Abstract
The data for this study was extracted from the quarterly edition of Our Daily Bread (December 2007, January, February 2008) owing to its graphological layout. The aim of the study is to examine how a major stylistic meaning inducing technique in text composition manifests at the graphological level. John 3:16 in this devotional edition had been re-arranged by Anne Cetas to carry a lot of stylistic significance. The graphological study of this text featured the use of gothic printed letters, re-arrangement (verse paragraph), capitalization, and punctuation marks. Gothic printed and capitalization were graphically fussed together to coin VALENTINE out of this verse of the Scripture. Speech acts, presupposition, inference, implicature and mutual contextual beliefs (MCBs) were used to interpret the meaning of the text.The present analysis has widened the scope of knowledge in the area of stylistics and even that of pragmatics. The graphic representation of John 3:16 and the obvious images contained in it are a clear testimony to the fact that stylistics study and practice could be more than an academic gymnastics. The study validates the thesis which states that both style/form and context contribute in equal measure to any knowledge gained in the course of reading a text.
Highlights
John 3:16 is the world’s greatest promise and it states : For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.Ordinarily, there is nothing stylistically attractive or even significant in this verse of the scriptures either as stated in the foregoing or even as stated in the Bible, the very book containing this wonderful promise of God to the world
The present analysis has widened the scope of knowledge in the area of stylistics and even that of pragmatics
The graphic representation of John 3:16 and the obvious images contained in it are a clear testimony to the fact that stylistics study and practice could be more than an academic gymnastics
Summary
John 3:16 is the world’s greatest promise and it states : For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. There is nothing stylistically attractive or even significant in this verse of the scriptures either as stated in the foregoing or even as stated in the Bible, the very book containing this wonderful promise of God to the world. Whenever the verse is stated prosaically as done above, there is little or nothing therein to analyse stylistically. If literature is defined in line with Egudu (1979: 1) as “a mode or method of expression. It is not a subject that expressed something; but rather, it is the way, manner, or method in which something is said or written”
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