A Lexico-Semantic Analysis of A Nigerian Professor's Inaugural Lecture

Professor Stephen Owa's inaugural lecture is a complex system of significant meaning which requires lexico-semantic approach for comprehensive understanding. The lexico-semantic approach attempts an account of some words and their meaning in the inaugural lecture. It also evaluates the uses of these features in terms of their relevance to the theme of the lecture. The study is meant to afford African writers the opportunity to appreciate and understand the purpose of feature transfer and coinage of a bilingual person in a bilingual speech fellowship. Also, the research is meant to influence the perception of some scholars about the existence of Nigerian English and the ability to create or coin lexical words for the purpose of communication and comprehension. Furthermore, the research emphasises that Nigerian English is a reality. It also shows that Nigerian English is a variation which reflects Nigerians' 'ownership' of the English language as it reveals the aesthetic creation of new English words drawn from the rich repertoire of the Yoruba lexicon.