A SOCIOLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF COME AND SEE MY MODA BY MZ VEE AND YEMI ALADE

Abstract

This paper is a sociolinguistic analysis of the lyrics of Come and See My Moda by Mz Vee and Yemi Alade and the aim is to explicate the lyrics of the song toward identifying some sociolinguistic features used in the text to indicate social identity. The paper is anchored on Social Identity Theory. The lyrics of the song served as primary source of data and the linguistic features which the artistes called together to express aspect of social identity were identified and analysed one after the other. The paper observed that the various linguistic variables in Come and See My Moda, used to indicate the speakers’ social factors are; discourse particles, dislocations of words, repetition of words, pidgin and code mixing and the artistes have creatively used them to demarcate and to show the interplay of gender identity. Besides, gender is an important social variable for a better understanding of the structure of language because it improves language through choice of codes, discourse particles, repetition and other linguistic communicative features. The paper concluded that Sociolinguistics investigates the relationship between language and society, and within any given society, there are social variables like family, age, gender, occupation, class and so on. Being that no society exists without a language; certain linguistic variables are used in discourse to reflect these social variables. Mz Vee and Yemi Alade have exploited these linguistic features through the medium of song in order to indicate their social identity.