Abstract

This study investigated the discourse-stylistic information housed in the aspect of christian hymnology to examine the functionally dynamic processes often deployed in presenting hymns with a message. Lesley Jefferies' Critical Stylistics (CS) and Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) provided the theoretical framework in the analysis of three major christian hymns selected to indicate the aspects of dialogue, rhetoric and ideological load that hinge on spirituality and religiosity. The findings reveal textual metafunctional elements that coalesce with certain textual-conceptual functions such as pronominal representatio ns, naming and describing, apostrophisation, rhetorical negations, interrogative structures, modal and theme systems as well as simple and compound-complex structures. Other non-lexical devices like punctuation marks, rhythm and rhymes also feature to describe the encapsulating semantic and divine ecclesiastical imports of the hymns by engaging the real, imagined and personified interlocutors, and establishing the ideological view of Christ's vicarship and redemptive exploit. Gospel hymns and songs obviously have their syntactic and stylistic patterns with a functional use, not only in creating, building and projecting a Judeo-Christian worldview that emphasises man as the sole crown of the terrestrial creation, but also in securing the attention of the text-consumers with a full comprehension and acceptance of their theology beyond the aesthetic exposure. These thus provide adequate learning resources for learners of English in, especially, Nigerian second language pedagogy.