Preliminaries

Abstract

Editorial

On behalf of the Assistant Editors and the Governing Board of the Journal of the Linguistic Association of Nigeria (JOLAN), I am delighted to inform our teeming readers of the publication of Volume 25, December (2022) of our respected journal. This is the first 
edition of JOLAN for which I served as the General Editor. First and foremost, let me appreciate the commitment and dedication of the editorial team, who have made enormous sacrifices to facilitate the publication of this issue of the journal. I acknowledge the 
intellectual generosity of all the contributors coupled with their cooperation and enthusiasm  during the processing of their manuscripts which made this issue see the light of day. I greatly value our relationship with our reviewers who have helped to engender quality, validity, and reliability in the content we publish in JOLAN. I express my gratitude to all the reviewers for their excellent contributions.

JOLAN is the official publication of the Linguistic Association of Nigeria (LAN) which is a global platform for scholars and researchers in all areas of linguistic exploration to publish high-quality research. In this era of technology in information dissemination and transfer, we have taken advantage of speed and accessibility to expand the reach of JOLAN to make a greater impact on citations and be available to readers at no cost. We are also proud to publish high-profile articles in this open-access platform without charging 
processing or publication fees from the authors. We believe that access to quality research output is vital and timely hence, we aim to advance scientific knowledge, increase visibility and contribute to better quality assurance. Furthermore, we aim to promote new 
collaborations and strengthen research integrity and transparency.

JOLAN is committed to publishing high-quality and cutting edged scholarship, and we are on our way to cataloging JOLAN in other important indexing and abstracting services beyond AJOL and Google Scholar. We aspire to increase the impact factor and citations 
for articles published in JOLAN in the near future. Because of our drive and commitment to publishing only quality and highly innovative research, only about 25 percent of submissions are eventually accepted for publication. Our resolve is to rebrand JOLAN as a platform that guarantees the reputation your research deserves. We also aim to reposition JOLAN with a secure footing as an international destination for high-quality linguistic research. We are working on introducing a book review section where literary and linguistic materials within the African continent would be criticized evaluated and analysed to identify their theses, strengths, and weaknesses. This will help our esteemed readership to get a valuable impression of the quality of such books and their relevance to the field. The collection of articles in this volume cuts across the entire spectrum of language and linguistic research ranging from structural linguistics, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, and literary studies which have made original and significant contributions to linguistic and humanistic development. The articles are based on reproducible and replicable data and have made tangible suggestions for future research directions.

Our primary focus in JOLAN is an aspiration to further understand the complex and intriguing problems of humanity, think creatively and critically, and adapt to a rapidly changing world. In an attempt to navigate the new research environment and diverse voices accentuated in JOLAN, we continually engage the past, evaluate the present and anticipate the future. This volume brings intriguing insights into current debates in linguistic research and explains certain phenomena that are central to the complexity of human language. It is hoped that new findings and discoveries in this issue will be invaluable resources to colleagues, researchers, and readers with a general interest in language.

Eyo Mensah
General Editor, JOLAN
Guest Professor of Anthropological Linguistics
Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA)
University of Ghana, Legon