Critical Analysis of Linguistic Features in the Comments of Child Abuse Victims in Select Nigerian Online Media Outlets

Abstract

Many children in Africa are usually abused in one way or the other. This abuse may involve rape, marrying them off and denying them right to quality education. Some parents force their children to do their wish (es) thereby marrying them off below the age of 18 which by extension denies many of the children the opportunity to further their education. This study, therefore, identifies analyses and discusses linguistic features in the select comments of child abuse victims in Nigeria. The comments were selected from a Nigerian national newspaper, The Punch. The newspaper selected covered the period of January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2015. The reason for this time frame is based on the fact that the period resurrected the child abuse discourse in Nigeria. The study employs both primary and secondary sources of data. The primary source includes eight comments selected from The Punch. Secondary source includes books and journal articles. It adopted Lesley Jefferies’ Critical Stylistics as a theoretical framework. The study identifies poverty, poor education and insecurity as major causes for child abuse in Nigeria particularly early child marriage and child sexual abuse. It also considers insecurity as one of the causes. It recommends that school fees should be abolished for female children in Nigeria. It further recommends strict punishment for rapists in order to put an end to this ugly menace.