Generic structure potential analysis of Christian street evangelism in Southwestern Nigeria

Christian street evangelism is one of the Bible-based doctrinal practices found among Nigerian Christians, especially in Southwestern Nigeria. Studies have examined language use in Christian activities, including sermons in church services, at funerals and in marriage ceremonies. However, no scholarly attention has been paid to a linguistic description of language use in Christian street evangelism, which, although sit hares some features with other contexts of Christian activities, manifests some elements that characteristically define it within the series of Christian evangelistic activities. This study, therefore, is a generic structural potential analysis of Christian street evangelism in Southwestern Nigeria. Data were gathered using ethnographic techniques. Data comprised fifteen observed street evangelism activities randomly sampled in different cities in Southwestern Nigeria. Data were subjected to discourse analysis within the purview of Halliday and Hassan’s (1985) Generic Structure Potential (GSP) theory. Findings reveal Christian street evangelism features five obligatory elements: songs, greetings, sermon, prayer and finis; and three optional elements: declaration of purpose, call for confession, and welcome to the fold.

With the return of civilian rule in 1999 to the Nigerian democratic landscape, electoral litigation has become an integral part of Nigerian history. The advent of Electoral litigation has become a defining feature of Nigeria's democratic landscape since the return to civilian rule in 1999. This study investigates the generic structure potential of Nigerian Supreme Court judgements on gubernatorial election petitions from Southwestern Nigeria between 1999 and 2023. With systemic functional linguistics as theoretical framework, this study analysed ten Supreme Court judgements in this context to arrive at ten distinct elements. These elements are divided into the obligatory elements, namely: Case Overview, Review of Court of Appeal Proceedings, Reference to Law, Application of Law, and Appeal Verdict, and the optional elements, namely: Production of Issues, Grounds of Appeal, Assessment of Preliminary Objection, Analysis of Cross Appeal Issues, and Summary and Conclusion. The elements formed the generic structure potential formula as: [CO^ RCAP^ (PI) ● (GA)^ (APO)^ {RL^ AL}^ AV^ {(ACAI)^ (SC)}]. This study contributes to legal literacy by bridging a communication gap by crafting a road map for individuals outside the legal profession to understand these judgements and contribute to democratic conversation.

This study examines the Universities’ Anthems in Nigeria as a distinct Genre. The present study analyzes a corpus composed of ten (10) anthems texts belonging to six federal Universities, two State owned Universities, and two private Universities in Nigeria. This study seeks to establish University anthems in Nigeria as a sub-genre of anthems by identifying the Generic structure Potential (GSP) of the selected university anthems as permitted by their contextual configuration (CC) following the theory of Halliday and Hasan (1985) as a theoretical framework for the study. The analysis in this study intends to come up with the total range of optional and obligatory elements in the University anthems analysed which are the possibilities of text structure for every text that can come up under the Genre of University anthem. The analysis revealed two obligatory elements -Identity/ Orientation IO* and Mission /Vision MV*- and five optional elements- Ideology (ID), Evocation/Eulogy (EE), Prayer (PR), Exhortation (EX), and Pledge/Allegiance (PA). The study concludes that even though University anthems, as a form of poem seemingly appear in different structures, there is a certain pattern of a Generic Structure that construes the purpose the anthems are intended to serve for the institutions; that is to communicate the identity of the institution.

Systemic Functional Linguists introduced Generic Structural Potential (GSP) that can be used to distinguish different social activities of a text. A variety of researches have been conducted on Generic Structural Potential of the editorials of other countries. However, no research has been conducted about the editorials of Myanmar newspaper. Therefore, The Myanmar Times newspaper, written in English, is chosen to carry out a research. The aim of the research paper is to identify the schematic structural elements of the editorials in The Myanmar Times newspaper. The materials are measured using Generic Structure Potential proposed by Halliday and Hason (1985). The result of the study shows that there are two obligatory elements and five optional elements. Heading (H), and Contributing the Writer’s Opinion (O) are obligatory while Picture (P), Caption(C ), Addressing the issue (AI) , Background Information (BI), and Discussing the issue Raised (D) are optional elements. The sequence of the elements follows the procedure H^ (P)^{ *(BI) *(AI) *(D) }^O.


 
 
 Exposure to e-waste either by occupation or through the environment have been implicated in cancer development. The growing influx of e-waste to Nigeria and inadequate recycling, part salvaging, distribution and disposal of discarded or obsolete electronic devices is creating new sets of environmental and public health challenges. This study investigated the effect of exposure on vitamin D (25(OH) Vit D), total and ionized calcium levels in workers and individuals environmentally exposed to e-waste in Lagos, Benin and Ibadan cities in Southwestern Nigeria. Six hundred and thirty-two participants from three major cities in Nigeria were recruited for this study. They included e-waste workers, environmental e-waste exposed individuals and age matched unexposed individuals. 25(OH) Vit D was determined using ELISA, while total and ionized calcium by colorimetric method. Total calcium (tCa) in e-waste workers was significantly different from environmental exposed groups (p=0.000) while ionized calcium (iCa) was significantly increased for both e-waste exposed groups when compared with the unexposed group. 25(OH)Vit D level was significantly increased in e-waste workers compared with environmental and unexposed populations (p<0.001). Optimal levels of tCa, iCa and vitamin D in the e-waste exposed population may offer some forms of defense against the severity of existing and undiagnosed cancers or reduce the risk of cancer development in the e-waste exposed participants. However, e-waste may unfavourably modulate these expected beneficial roles in the e-waste exposed populations with continued exposure.
 
 

Radium equivalent activity concentrations in concrete building blocks in eight cities in Southwestern Nigeria

This study describes the generic structure potential (GSP) of sexually transmitted infection (STI) consultations in Nigeria. It is a further effort from previous studies not only in its consideration of the phase structure of consultations in a specific medical context, but also in its exploration of both the broad and narrow generic structure potential of the consultations. Fifty audio recordings of mixed-visit doctor-patient interactions in hospitals in three states in southwest Nigeria constitute the data. The data were analysed using Halliday and Hasan’s (1985) Generic Structure Potential theory (GSP). The analysis revealed four broad stages in the structural organisation of STI medical interactions, namely Opening (O), Diagnostic Interactions (DI), Treatment Recommendations (TR), and Closing (C). The obligatory elements in the broad catalogue are the diagnostic interactions and treatment recommendations, while the narrow GSP of the phases revealed the doctor’s problem elicitation as the obligatory element in the opening phase, the patient’s problem presentation activity was solely obligatory in DI, and the doctor’s treatment procedure, the only mandatory activity of the TP phase. The study concludes that the diagnostic interaction and treatment recommendation phases define medical consultations in STI (and HIV) encounters in Nigeria.

This paper investigated the generic structure potential of feature articles in four Nigerian newspapers: The Punch, The Nation, Vanguard and Nigerian Tribune. Halliday and Hassan’s concept of Generic Structure Potential served as the theoretical framework. The feature articles analysed had three obligatory elements: Headline, Orientation and Addressing the Issue, and three optional elements: Feature Lead, Proffering a Solution and Moral Lesson. A Nigerian newspaper feature article typically starts with a headline that may or may not be followed by a feature lead. This is followed by an orientation, an issue to be addressed, which is then followed by either a suggested solution or a moral lesson. The study posited that the GSP of feature articles in Nigerian newspapers can be catalogued as H^ [(FL) ^O^][AI^(PS).(ML.)].

This paper investigates the generic structural potential of admission notifications of four Pakistani universities: University of Central Punjab, University of Gujrat, University of Sargodha, and University of Education Lahore. Total forty admission notifications are selected for the genre analysis in light of systemic functional linguistics. Halliday and Hasan (1989 concept of “Generic Structural Potential (GSP)” for genre analysis, served as the theoretical framework for this study. This study highlights that the admission notifications analyzed has six obligatory elements: Logo, University Name, Announcement, Respective Department, Programs Offered, and Call info and five Optional elements: Admission Schedule, Instructions, Information desk, Why Choose Us? and Scholarship and Discounts. The study posits that the GSP of advertisements of admission notifications of universities in Pakistan could be cataloged as [L^UN^]A^RD^PO^[(AS)^(I).(ID).(WCU).(S)]^CI

This article explores the communicative acts employed in the creation of HIV/AIDS posters which focus on people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) and their relatives/friends and investigates the generic structure of these posters. Van Leeuwen’s multimodal communicative acts and Yuen’s Generic Structure Potential of printed advertisements serve as the theoretical framework for the study. The data include six purposively selected HIV/AIDS posters which focus on educating and counselling PLWHA, obtained from two state hospitals in south-western Nigeria. The multimodal communicative acts include those of instructing, advising, beckoning, encouraging, warning and informing. Lead, Emblem, Announcement and Enhancer are obligatory elements while Display, Tag and Call-and-Visit Information are optional elements. The study shows that there is heavy reliance on semiotic resources which signal the intended meaning of the producers of the posters.

This paper investigates the Generic Structure Potential (GSP) of Lati inu aka aka Biodun/Kayode (LIABK), a Nigerian secondary gatekeeping radio news programme, with the aim of indicating the stages of the genre where conversational humour typically occurs, and then it analyses humour types in the data through the neo-Gricean concept of untruthfulness and pragmatic act theory. The data for the study constitute a ten hour audio recording of Lati inu aka aka Biodun/Kayode from two radio stations in Ekiti and Ondo States, South-Western Nigeria. The GSP of LIABK is constituted by five obligatory elements: Opening (O), Advertisement (A), Pre-news Presentation (PnP), News Presentation (NP) and Closing (C). The genre-based expectations for O, PnP and C, and then NP are to provide entertainment and information to the listeners respectively. Thus, humour typically occurs in the O, PnP, and C stages of the programme, and rarely occurs in NP. Four humour types are indicated: song-as-humour, absurdity, joint fantasising and speaker-meaning-telic humour respectively. While song-as-humour resists being neatly categorised as autotelic humour, absurdity and joint fantasising are easily characterised as thus. The pragmatic act analysis reveals the incremental, sequential and co-constructed nature of the humour types. Furthermore, the pragmemes of entertainment and offering of opinion by the news presenters constitute the affordances or genre-based expectations that constrain the social activities that constitute LIABK. The study contributes to the scholarship on secondary gatekeeping in Nigeria broadcast media, conversational humour and pragmatics.

The increase in electricity consumption, population, and land use has now forced high voltage transmission lines (HVTLs) either to pass or be installed around or through urban cities. This increases the level of human exposure to electromagnetic field radiation as this field produced around the HVTLs extends outwards covering some distance. This may cause a number of health hazards. It is even dangerous to a human who touch any metallic object in proximity of the HVTL, as it may have an appreciable voltage induced on it due to inductive, capacitive or resistive interference from the line. This paper evaluates the magnetic field produced at mid-span by a 132kV, and a 330kV, 50Hz adjacent HVTLs with horizontal and vertical configuration in Akure, a city in South Western Nigeria using analytical method from electromagnetic field theory. This is then compared to the recommended standard limit of public exposure to magnetic field. The results of the computation showed that currently, the general public exposure to the magnetic field along the HVTLs is safe. However, right of way (ROW) along the power lines is being violated as buildings and work places exist within the ROW.

Purpose: To evaluate the opinions of community pharmacists on the usefulness and reliability of drug package inserts (DPI) as drug information source, and necessary modifications needed to improve theircontents.Methods: A prospective cross-sectional study using a pretested questionnaire was administered to sixty-one superintendent community pharmacists (CP) across two cities in southwestern Nigeria. Descriptive statistics was used to summarize the data and evaluate respondents’ opinion. Kruskal-Wallis test was used to evaluate the rank variables with p < 0.05 considered significant.Results: A majority of CP believed that information from DPI was precise and may be helpful in achieving therapeutic success (n = 42; 72.8 %). CP believed there is need for the modification of DPI content with respect to patient-related information (n = 52; 92.8 %) and health provider-relatedinformation (n = 52; 94.5%), non-uniformity of information on the same generic medicines (n = 31; 50.8 %), and ambiguity of content (n = 29; 47.5 %). Years of experience in practice significantly influenced respondents’ perception of precision and satisfaction with DPI as source of information.Conclusions: Community pharmacists in southwestern Nigeria believed that a properly modified drug package insert could be a useful and reliable source of drug information in daily practice.Keywords: Community pharmacist, Drug information, Drug package insert

Involvement of Pharmacists in designing practice standards for pharmaceutical care and effective implementation of agreed practice standards will assure optimal and proper outcomes in pharmacy practice. The purpose of this study was to identify standards of pharmaceutical care that are practicable and applicable in the hospital settings. A crosssectional survey was carried out between March and June 2008 among Hospital pharmacists working in 2 cities in South-Western Nigeria. Using a questionnaire modified from fifty –two standards suggested by the Delphi Panel of Pharmaceutical care experts, information was obtained on feasibility, relevance, current application and intention to apply standards of pharmaceutical care. Response rate was 47.93%. Average positive response +standard deviation for the parameters were; Feasibility 62.23%+8.89%, Relevance 62.76%+7.25%, currently applied 41.6%+19.69% and intention to apply 11.32%+6.67%. Twenty seven and 47 standards were found to be both feasible and relevant based on 60% and 50% average positive responses respectively and there was no significant difference between the average positive responses of being feasible and relevant(P=0.1028). The most accepted standard based on feasibility was „the pharmacist should be prepared to re evaluate and modify therapeutic plans on subsequent patient visit and consult with necessary physician(s)‟ 46(79.3%). Thus pharmaceutical care standards that can be implemented in hospital settings were identified. However there is still a suboptimal level of intention to practice these standards. Keywords: Pharmaceutical care; Practice standards; Hospital settings; South-Western Nigeria.

This study was carried out to determine the prevalence of multiple antibiotic-resistant faecal indicator bacteria in streams and wells which serve as major sources of water for inhabitants of Ile-Ife City in Southwestern Nigeria. Water samples from 2 streams and 10 wells situated at different parts of the city were collected over a 6-month period. The total heterotrophic bacteria, faecal coliform and enterococci counts were performed using standard procedures, and the sensitivity of the isolates to antibiotics was tested. The study indicated high faecal indicator concentrations exceeding quality standards for drinking and recreational waters according to World Health Organization (WHO) and United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). All the faecal coliforms and enterococci isolates presented multiple antibiotic resistances. The water sources pose a threat to human health due to the danger of waterborne diseases and potential for the transfer of antibiotic resistance genes to pathogens. Effective public health education aimed at creating awareness of the implications of consumption of contaminated and untreated water is imperative. Antibiotics should only be administered based on physicians’ prescription. Key words: Antibiotic resistance, faecal indicator bacteria, Southwestern Nigeria, stream water, waterborne diseases, well water.