Language Use and Pain-relieving Strategies in Christian Funeral Sermons and Services in Nigeria

Abstract

The Christian religion sees death as a means of transportation to  another world and life beyond the reach of the living. The eternal  separation between the dead and the living, as caused by death, often  brings about feelings of pain, sorrow and regret in the hearts of the  bereaved. However, as pain-relieving strategies, preachers and pastors  at Christian funerals make recourse to certain Christian ideologies  embedded in shared Christian doctrinal belief about death in their  sermons to calm and console the bereaved. This phenomenon has not  been given due attention in scholarship. This study, therefore, although  draws inputs from the sociolinguistic tenets of Adegbija ' s pragmasociolinguistic  theory, is a descriptive analysis of Christian funeral  sermons and services in selected Pentecostal, Orthodox, and  Evangelical churches in Ibadan, Nigeria. The findings of the study  reveal Christian ideological principles are strategically employed by  Christian preachers/pastors in their language use at funerals in Nigeria  as pain-relieving strategies to proffer a soothing balm to heal the pain  in the hearts of the bereaved.Key words: language use, pain-relieving strategies, funeral sermons and services, Nigeria