VEJOH - VERITAS JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES

This paper explores the differences in the conveyance of intended meaning of messages of the selected Catholic, Protestant and Pentecostal hymns. This is hinged on the assumption that the doctrinal disposition of any denomination is often expressed in the language of the hymns. The hymns are categorised on the premise that the content message in each hymn is easily identifiable with the denomination. The Pragmatic analysis of selected Christian hymns is carried out with the intent of showing further the similarities and dissimilarities in language use of the hymns. The theoretical frame work for the paper is derived from a synthesis of Austin’s (1962) and Seale (1969) Speech Acts theory which holds that language users make meaningful sounds in order to produce actions. He distinguishes five types of acts performed through speech namely; verdictive, expositive, exercitives, commissive and behabitives. Hence, in line with Austin’s Speech Acts, hymns perform various acts whose illocutionary forces and perlocutionary effects would make them more appealing. The study confirms that hymns like other discourse events have the advantage of performing simultaneously all the components of Speech Act in one utterance. Based on the data for analysis, the finding shows that Catholic hymns have one area of non-performance in language use, which is verdictive. It is only the hymns from the Protestant Church that have an index performance in all the five illocutionary acts. Therefore, Protestant hymns have the tendency to be more elaborate in content and lyrics. Pentecostal hymns rank least in the analysis because they have three areas of non-performance in language use, which include, verdictive, behabitive and expositive. This could mean that Pentecostal hymns are short, have less content, short and simple lyrics, and therefore more entertaining.

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