Analysis of Polarity and Modality in Former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Open Letters: A Critical Discourse Approach

Abstract

This study is an analysis of the deployment of polarity and modality in the open letters of former president Olusegun Obasanjo. The study examines how Obasanjo has used language to construct meaning and convey his perspective on the goings-on in the Nigerian society. The study captures various scholarly works in the area of critical discourse analysis, which is the theoretical framework of the research and further incorporates this theory into the analysis of the data. Data analysis focuses on the assessment and evaluation of the writer’s deployment of polarity and modality in his narrative, and it thus revealed that the writer has dexterously used polarity to assume a position of neutrality, without tilting more or less to either the negative or positive; it has also revealed that the writer’s deployment of modality has helped him express his core concerns, expectations and objectives for a better Nigeria, through the use of certain modal verbs. The study further recommends that future studies should harness other areas of critical linguistics, such as transitivity, mood and intertextuality to help construe the ideational motivations of the writer.