Don advocates unhurtful self-expressed communication

Prof Sola Babatunde of the Department of English, University of Ilorin, has advocated the use of freedom of expression to 'encourage and not to fatally hurt'.

Babatunde made the call on Friday in Ilorin while delivering the 215th Inaugural Lecture of the University of Ilorin entitled: "Dethroning Silence and Installing Meaning: The Burden of Applied Linguistics".

He said that all forms of legislation that deny citizens access to expressing themselves are obnoxious, ungodly, and should be repealed.

The linguist who teaches in the Faculty of Arts of the university argued that God created man for self-expression and that nothing should be done to recreate man.

He said that self-expression gives meaning to life, that the end and purpose of language is the enhancing of communication.

"If culture is seen as the sum of that which man contributes to nature, everything which elevates the human life above that of animals, then language is at once the expression of culture.

"It is the depository of culture and the crucial mode of culture transmission. Human existence and development depend largely on the existence and development of language for communication," he said.

He said that persuasive communication can thrive even in the environment of where there are opposing views.