Linguistic Factors as Influence on Evangelization: A Case Study of Selected Christian Churches in Nigeria

Abstract

The centrality of language in human existence defines the human society. The problems in society can therefore not be resolved without recourse to the medium of world-hood realities because the transmission of human social values and control are determined by the competences and performances of language and its enabling capabilities. It is also through the subtle use of language (with the inherent words) and its persuasive techniques that one can make others think, act and change their worldviews towards an intended direction. This can only be achieved through appropriate knowledge and use of the codes of language in use and their social implications which exposes communicative competence. Evangelization is a social phenomenon that demands appropriate language use, as such the thrust of this paper is to establish the linguistic factors that can enhance or retard evangelization. To do this effectively, a questionnaire with ten linguistic factors was used to solicit the people’s view on the retardation or enhancement of this communication act of evangelization by linguistic factors. For the purpose of this, Enugu metropolis (Nigeria) was used. A sampling technique was used to select two churches from the ten identified clusters of the metropolis and same sampling technique used to select thirty (30) respondents from each of the churches to make six hundred respondents. It was revealed that majority of the respondents (85%) accepted the propositions while only 17% of the respondents rejected them.

Keywords: Evangelization, Linguistic factors, Sermons, Competence, Churches