Agbedo said this whereas delivering the college’s 255th inaugural lecture, titled “WordMatters: Sociolinguistic Calculus as Praxis for Interrogating Linguistic Banditry and Banditisation of Nigeria,” on the Princess Alexandra Auditorium and Theatre, UNN.
The event attracted a big gathering of dignitaries, together with members of the college administration, tutorial and non-teaching workers, college students, authorities functionaries, conventional rulers and different outstanding personalities.
Agbedo launched what he known as Sociolinguistic Calculus, SLC, an analytical framework for analyzing how meanings change throughout contexts, how language serves explicit pursuits and the way repeated patterns of linguistic manipulation grow to be normalised in society.
He distinguished between linguistic banditry, which he described as “the deliberate distortion or appropriation of meaning to mislead and advance certain interests,” and banditisation, which refers back to the course of by way of which such practices grow to be widespread, normalised and institutionalised.
Using examples from political and governance discourse, the lecturer defined how public officers and different influential actors may deploy language to shift accountability, disguise failures and legitimise questionable actions.
He additionally introduced the Sociolinguistic Liberation Thesis, Universal Appropriation Grammar, UAG, and Governance Optimality Theory, GOT, as further frameworks for analyzing the connection between language, energy, institutional decisions and accountability.
According to him, governance outcomes may stay faulty when competing pursuits and institutional constraints had been managed in ways in which prioritised slender political pursuits over the widespread good.
Moving from analysis to potential options, Agbedo proposed Remedial Sociolinguistic Calculus, RSLC, as a framework for restoring readability of which means, reclaiming linguistic company and difficult the manipulation of public discourse.
He additionally disclosed that the Krisagbedo Linguistic Engine, KLiEN, a multilingual, synthetic intelligence-enabled platform, was designed to determine, analyse and make clear linguistic manipulation.
He defined that the platform would assist residents interrogate public claims and perceive the use of language with out imposing censorship or changing particular person judgment.
The professor additional launched Visual Pragmatics as an rising space for analyzing how pictures, cartoons, memes and different visible supplies talk which means, ideology and energy.
He maintained that the corruption of which means may precede and facilitate the corruption of establishments, noting that constitutions may exist with out constitutionalism, elections with out democracy, and courts with out justice when the language and functions of such establishments had been distorted.
Earlier, the UNN Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Simon Ortuanya, represented by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Academic, Prof. Kamoru Usman, mentioned the college’s inaugural lecture was a major tutorial custom that offered a platform for students to showcase their analysis contributions, share information, and advance mental discourse on points of societal significance.
