Representing Actions/Events/States in Pastor Sam Adeyemi's Nigeria of My Dream

Abstract

Pastor Sam Adeyemi’s growing influence in national discourse through written motivational texts marks an underexplored area for applied linguistic inquiry. This study examined Representing Actions/Events/States, a critical stylistic tool, in Adeyemi's Nigeria of My Dream, a widely read text grounded in discourses of national transformation. Drawing on Lesley Jeffries’s Critical Stylistics and Halliday’s transitivity model from Systemic Functional Grammar, the study investigated the ideological stance embedded in the author’s choice of lexical verbs in relation to Nigeria’s challenges and prospects for transformation. Using a descriptive qualitative research design and criterion-based purposive sampling, sixteen excerpts were drawn across the book’s six chapters. The findings revealed four major transitivity process types. Material Action Processes, involving Actor and Goal, appeared in intentional (MAI), supervention (MAS) and event (MAE) subtypes. Verbalisation Processes, involving Sayer, Verbiage and Target, represent linguistic action. Mental Cognition Processes, involving Senser and Phenomenon, occurred as cognition (MC), reaction (MR) and perception (MP) subtypes. Relational Processes, expressing static relationships between Carrier and Attribute, appeared as intensive (RI), possessive (RP), and circumstantial (RC) subtypes. These processes construct Nigeria as a site of purposeful action, critical reflection and transformative possibility. The study demonstrated that Adeyemi’s verb choices are not ideologically neutral; they strategically situate leaders, citizens and the nation as actors in a moral economy of change, assigning responsibility, fostering aspiration, and emphasising the urgency of collective action. The study adds to scholarship on the stylistics of socio-religious motivational discourse in Nigeria, offering insight into how linguistic choices shape national imagination and civic responsibility.