Lexicalization and Complexity in Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Peacekeeping Agreements

Abstract

The paper seeks to establish the level of lexical complexity in the discourse of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) peacekeeping agreements (EPKA) and to describe the lexical strategies through which the observed complexity is created. Many studies on linguistic complexity focus on second language acquisition, assessment and writing development. But, this article focuses on lexical choices that create complexity capable of hindering reader’s comprehension. It utilizes quantitative and qualitative designs in its analysis of corpus which consists of ten purposively selected EPKA texts. The data are analysed using Web-based Lexical Complexity Analyzer. The findings indicate that the language of the EPKA is complex. The complexity is attributed to high lexical density, lengthy words and long sentences in the corpus. Also, a large proportion of words in the corpus are redundant and vague. It is hoped that this article provides information about the lexical choices needed to improve the discourse of peacekeeping agreements.