Linguistic Revolution: The New Face of Register

Abstract

The paper investigated linguistic revolution with regard to the new face of register. It observed that there is a sort of metaphorical and ironical mantra in the speeches of the New Generation Christians in Rivers State, Nigeria. Data collected from the members of some Pentecostal churches were analysed using the Social Identity Theory. The Social Identity Theory defines the individual in an in-group setting and promotes the norms, culture, agreement and boundaries of the members. The norms are identity markers for the members, while the responds of the members are forms of solidarity. We observed that the New Generation Christians are dynamically very slangy. Different words, phrases and diatype sentences evolve from time to time. The speech forms, which to some extent are church-dependent, are patterns of religious identity constructs. We concluded by noting that even though these patterns of language use are matters of Faith advocacy, care must be taken in order to balance Faith with reason and reality.

Key words: Identity, linguistics, Pentecostal, revolution, slangy, social and solidarity