63 research outputs found
The loss of personal privacy and its consequences for social research
No full textThis article chronicles more than 30 years of public opinion, politics, and law and policy on privacy and confidentiality that have had far-reaching consequences for access by the social research community to administrative and statistical records produced by government. A hostile political environment, public controversy over the decennial census long form, media coverage, and public fears about the vast accumulations of personal information by the private sector were catalysts for a recent proposal by the U.S. Bureau of the Census that would have significantly altered the contents of the 2000 census Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS). These events show clearly that science does not operate independently from the political sphere but may be transformed by a political world where powerful interests lead government agencies to assume responsibility for privacy protection that can result in reducing access to statistical data
Language Preference and Selection during Nurse-Patient Service Encounter at Adeoyo Teaching Hospital, Yemetu, Ibadan
No full textThis study examines language preference and selection during nurse-patient service encounters as well as the motivations and effectiveness of such selection by nurses at Adeoyo Teaching Hospital, Ibadan. The study adopted quantitative and descriptive research using a self-designed questionnaire administered to a sample population of fifty (50) nurses selected using stratified random sampling. The data assessing the four phases of nurse-patient service encounters was analyzed using simple percentages and then subjected to a descriptive analysis using Peplau\u27s (1997) Theory of Interpersonal Relations and Giles\u27 (1991) Communication Accommodation Theory. The study finds that language preference at the orientation phase of the nurse-patient service encounters was Yoruba (20%), Yoruba and English Language (56%), while only (24%) opted for the use of the English Language. During the identification and exploitation phases, (86%) adopted the Yoruba language, while (4%) and (10%) adopted English and Nigerian Pidgin English (NPE), respectively. During the resolution phase (80%) adopted the Yoruba Language, while (16%) and (4%) used the English Language and NPE, respectively. Language preference by nurses at the different phases of service encounter, therefore, is Yoruba followed English and then NPE during healthcare provision. Nurses’ motivations for converging or diverging to and from the patients’ preferred language were on the grounds of faster healthcare delivery (96%), emotional stability of the patients (96%), level of education (100%), prestige (64%), ease of communication and comprehension (99%), detailed information (88%), language preference (62%), and patient’s language competence(62%). The Yoruba language was found to be effective during orientation, identification, exploitation, and resolution phases of nurse-patient service encounters as it was considered to depict nurses as emphatic (80%), achieve delivery of patient-centred healthcare (88%), a more coordinated service delivery (84%), effective patient evaluation as well implementation of treatment (98%). Yoruba was also found to keep patients emotionally stable (96%) and ensure effective follow-up of healthcare delivery (100%). The study has shown that linguistic affiliation by the selection of patient’s language preference, which is often the use of the Yoruba language, was found to be effective in ensuring effective health care before, during, and the follow-up care of patient-nurse service encounters at Adeoyo Teaching Hospital. It is suggested that linguistic orientation for better healthcare delivery should be mandated in the healthcare sector. Research on language preference during service encounters among nurses and their patient interaction in the hospital from the viewpoint of the patients is also suggested
Slangs as Registers: A study of Academic Slang Register use by Undergraduates
No full textAn extensive body of studies exist on the origin, occurrence, classification, functions as well linguistics and morphological properties of slangs. The focus of this study however is to justify slanguage as a variety of register using Mattiello’s (2008) sociological properties of slangs. This is premised on the fact that slangs can be categorized by its nature and function which can be either speaker or hearer-oriented depending on the activity engaged in. This study therefore reviewed undergraduates’ slangs used to describe academic activities. That is, academic slang register, the motivations for its use and generate a corpus of academic slang register used by undergraduates.The study adopted a quantitative and descriptive research design using a self- designed online questionnaire titled Survey on Academic Slang Register Use by Undergraduates (SASRU) which sought information on the age, institution, slang use, list of academic slang register as well as motivation of use of slangs from 230 undergraduates. Respondents were drawn from 8 higher institutions comprising of 5 federal and 2 private universities, as well as 1 federal college of technology. The data was thereafter subjected to statistical and descriptive analysis. Findings reveal that slanguage is a regular occurrence among undergraduates while engaging in academic activity generating a corpus of academic slang register grouped under academic ability, study habit, study techniques, examination malpractice, absenteeism, enrolment status, moral conduct and other daily in and out of class activities. The motivation for academic slang register amongst undergraduates were found to be social media influence, to generate a sense of comradeship with fellow students and exclude non-students or lecturers. Slanguage is also found to be used in and attempt appeal to emotions, achieve brevity and as a result of youthful exuberance. It is recommended that further studies should document slanguage registers of other student activities ranging from friendship, romance and life style generating a corpus of slanguage registers for these activities.
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Old Words, New Meanings: A Survey of Semantic Change Amongst Yoruba-English Bilingual Undergraduates
No full textLanguage functions best when it serves the communicative intent of its users, even if such isachieved by adding, removing or modifying the existing meanings of words. This developmentand change of the semantic structure of a word usually brings about qualitative and quantitativedevelopment of the vocabulary. The focus of this paper is to review semantic change that hasoccurred with some Yoruba words, its types and the motivations of such especially amongstundergraduates using Blank Andreas’s principles and motive for semantic change as theoreticalframework.The tool used for the study is a self-constructed questionnaire administered to YorubaEnglish Bilingual and a corpus of words that have undergone semantic change frequently usedby them. The findings reveals that using words that have undergone meaning change is afrequent occurrence amongst Yoruba-English Bilingual undergraduates, a habit motivated bylinguistic, psychological, sociocultural and cultural/encyclopedic forces. Also, it was foundthat the principles similarity, contiguity and contrast. as highlighted by Blank underlie all thetypes of semantic changes identifie
Tweet me slangs: A study of slanguage on twitter
No full textSocial media users are estimated at over 3.4 billion netizens known for digitally-mediated language innovations and revolutions on cyberspace referred to as internet language of which slangauge is a subset. Slanguage is incorporating slangs which may be incomprehensible without prior knowledge of their meaning irrespective of language competence during communication on and off cyberspace. Research concerns on internet language has described its forms, motivations, functions as well as impact on English language. Drawing its data from the twitter platform, the concern of this study is to identify popular slangs, domain of use and effect of slanguage on academic and speech performance of university undergraduates. 44 tweets, a self-developed questionnaires administered to 40 randomly selected students from the purposively selected Department of Computer Science, Lead City University, Ibadan, and a three-question twitter poll from 94 participants were subjected to statistical analysis and discussed. Findings shows that slanguage is frequently used amongst undergraduates a habit which is not limited to the cyber space but transferred to both formal and informal domains of communication. Slanguage is used during face-face conversation with friend, formal situations and sometimes during academic writing. Although slanguage is believed to have a negative impact on written English it doesn’t impacts undergraduate academic performance negatively. It is recommended that slanguage should be incorporated in the curriculum as a variety of English to be studied at the secondary and higher institution levels. This will teach origin, meaning, appropriate domain of use as well as when slanguage should be considered errors.
Key words: Internet language, Slang, Slanguage, Twitte
Appearance as Social Code in Commercial Bank Service Encounter in Ibadan, Oyo State
No full textFor service organizations like banks, the interaction between bankers and the customers is crucial as it can enhance the quality of service encounter and minimize service breakdown. Using four purposively sampled banks and Chandler’s framework for code types, the study explores physical appearance as social code explored by bankers in commercial banks during service encounters in Ibadan, Nigeria. Still life photographs were taken of appearance codes employed during banker- customer service encounters and discussed along the framework of Chandler’s typology of social codes. Findings reveal that appearance as non-verbal social code is used by commercial banks as a way of projecting the credibility, professionalism, trust worthiness and authority of the service provider which is particularly important in the corporate banking sector. This is done through the use of formal attire, same colour code, bank logo lapel badges and visual uniformity. 
Social scientists at work on the electronic network
No full textThe purpose of this article is to contribute to our stock of knowledge about who uses networks, how they are used, and what contribution the networks make to advancing the scientific enterprise. Between 1985 and 1990, the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) ACCESS data facility at the University of Wisconsin-Madison provided social scientists in the United States and elsewhere with access through the electronic networks to complex and dynamic statistical data; the 1984 SIPP is a longitudinal panel survey designed to examine economic well-being in the United States. This article describes the conceptual framework and design of SIPP ACCESS; examines how network users communicated with the SIPP ACCESS profect staff about the SIPP data; and evaluates one outcome derived from the communications, the improvement of the quality of the SIPP data. The direct and indirect benefits to social scientists of electronic networks are discussed. The author concludes with a series of policy recommendations that link the assessment of our inadequate knowledge base for evaluating how electronic networks advance the scientific enterprise and the SIPP ACCESS research network experience to the policy initiatives of the High Performance Computing Act of 1991 (P.L. 102-194) and the related extensive recommendations embodied in Grand Challenges 1993 High Performance Computing and Communications (The FY 1993 U.S. Research and Development Program)
Grammatical Exclusivity In English Communication Situations; The Case Of Adjective “only” Misplaced As Adverb
No full textThere is a strong connection between syntactic structures and the meanings they generate in the English language. A word’s syntactic environment determines its grammatical and communicative name and function. Therefore, the word “only” can be an adjective or an adverb, depending on what word it is placed near. The current survey investigated the extent and frequency of misplacement of what is meant to be a focusing exclusive adjective “only” in sentences as an adverb and its communicative consequences. A total of 51 instances of such misplacement were obtained through accidental sampling. Syntactic-semantic analyses of 20 of them are presented. Also, the ability of 200 English speakers to identify the errors of misplacement and their semantic disruption was tested. The findings show that the misplacement defies racial boundaries and, strangely, results in no communication breakdown
Pragmatic Acts in Selected Sermons of Bishop David Oyedepo: A Jacob Mey’s Approach
No full textThis study carried out a review of selected sermons of Bishop David Oyedepo in order to highlight the contexts and pragmatic acts deployed in the sermons, as no scholarly work has been done on Oyedepo’s sermons using Jacob Mey’s pragmatic act theory. The objectives are to ascertain the underlying contexts of the themes in the selected sermons and to examine the pragmatic acts performed. Using exclusively Jacob Mey’s pragmatic act theory as a theoretical framework, the methodology is qualitative in its approach. The design is content analysis. From an average of eleven thousand eight hundred and eight sermons, four sermons spanning varying human endeavours are purposively selected. Data was sourced and collected online, employing the top-down analytical approach to revealing the context and pragmatic acts deployed. Findings reveal the contextual constraints of history and war employing the practs of assuring, informing, and re-enlightening. The summary of the findings reveals that ten excerpts were analysed from the data, two pragmatic contexts were established, and three practs were classified, all interjected with pragmatic tools of REL, INF, REF, SSK, VCE, M and conversational acts which runs through the entire data. Through this study, a framework has been provided for the interpretation of Bishop Oyedepo’s sermons which religious scholars and teachers would find a veritable tool for advancing pedagogical skills in mission schools and churches. The study recommends further studies on the phonological acts performed in sermons
Sociolinguistic Analysis of Lexical Reduplication in Undergraduates’ Utterances in Lead City University, Ibadan
No full textReduplication is a product of interference, a major phenomenon in the interlingual study. Lexical Reduplication deals with a situation whereby a particular lexical item is repeated side-by-side in a sentence to express the speaker’s feelings or thoughts. Reduplication, often occasioned by interference, occurs mostly among speakers of English as a Second Language (ESL or L2), irrespective of their level of education, status and proficiency in the English Language. This paper, under the purview of socio-semantics, undertook to analyze lexical reduplication in Nigerian English in the utterances of Lead City University, Ibadan undergraduates. Using Alsamadani and Taibah’s framework of the typology and functions of reduplication, data were collected from two (2) departments, each across five (5) faculties. Using a voice recorder, structured interviews and focused group discussions of Ten (10) students were sampled from the selected departments. The findings show the occurrence of full reduplication in the forty-four (44) transcribed utterances where lexical reduplication was realized. Words, groups and clauses were reduplicated for emphasis/iteration purposes 6 times (54.55%), for pluralisation purposes 4 times (36.36%) and 1 time (9.09) for nominalisation purposes. There was, however, no instance of reduplication for the function of the distribution. Furthermore, asides from the functions identified by the framework guiding this study, the data analysis shows that educated speakers of Nigerian English also use reduplication for the purposes of hesitation, affirmation and disapproval
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