Appraising the Effectiveness of Bilingualism in Preaching: The Experience of Living Water Baptist Church, Ibadan, Nigeria.

Favour Olayinka Seun Ogundiran & Ezekiel Adewale AjibadeORCID iD

Issue: Vol.6  No.3 June 2020 Article 6 pp. 200-26
DOI : https://doi.org/10.38159/erats.2020066    |   Published online 26th June 2020.
© 2020 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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Bilingualism in preaching is adopted by Living Water Baptist Church, Ibadan where Yoruba and English languages are used. In a heterogeneous congregation, is there usually a language barrier? This study appraised the data collected through questionnaires, whether bilingualism in preaching has effectively solved this problem. As practiced by Living Water, the forms of bilingualism in preaching are code-mixing, code-switching and the use of an interpreter. The highest factor responsible for bilingual preaching is to accommodate different tribes as attested by 98.7% of respondents. Challenges of bilingual preaching among others are lack of exact words in other languages to convey what a preacher intends as supported by 82.4% and 81.1% of the respondents agreed that most interpretations do not give details but a summary of the preacher’s expression. On the effectiveness of bilingual preaching, 85.3% of respondents preferred the use of an interpreter to code-mixing or switching by 51.3%. Preachers should adopt bilingualism in preaching in a heterogeneous society, speak simple vocabularies and use an interpreter who is proficient.

Keywords: Bilingualism, Preaching, Code-mixing, Code-switching, Interpreter

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Favour Olayinka ‘Seun Ogundiran holds a Master of Divinity in Theology from the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary, Ogbomoso, and currently pastors a Mission Church of Bodija Ashi Baptist Church, Ibadan, Nigeria.

Ezekiel Adewale Ajibade holds a PhD in Christian Preaching and is a Lecturer in the Department of Theology, Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary, Ogbomoso, Nigeria. Email: revzikky@gmail.com

Ogundiran, Favour O. S. and Ajibade, Ezekiel A. “Appraising the Effectiveness of Bilingualism in Preaching: The Experience of Living Water Baptist Church, Ibadan, Nigeria.” E-Journal of Religious and Theological Studies 6, no.3 (2020): 200-206. https://doi.org/10.38159/erats.2020066

© 2020 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Publishers. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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