Abstract
Discursive strategies are often deployed to create awareness, capture and persuade electorate in political campaign songs. Existing scholarly works on political and electoral issues have examined different aspects of political discourses but have not sufficiently examined the import of political campaign songs in electoral and political discourses. Therefore, this paper examines the use of political campaign songs in southwestern Nigeria with a view to identifying the discursive strategies deployed to persuade the electorate. The YouTube Channel was visited in order to retrieve the transcript of political campaign jingles used during the 2011, 2015 and 2019 general elections in southwestern Nigeria. The selected period comprised the most recent general elections in the region. Guided by relevant aspects of the socio-cognitive model of critical discourse analysis, data were subjected to discourse analysis. The analysis uncovers the vital relationship existing between the political campaign songs and the Nigerian socio-cultural spatial setting that produced them. Eight discursive strategies: allusion (historical, religious/biblical, socio-cultural), propaganda, indigenous/native language usage and code alternation, reference to collective ownership, figurative/proverbial expressions, adaptation of common musical tune, and rhythmicity were identified. Politicians use different discursive and rhetorical strategies in their political campaign songs to open the door to the heart of the electorate.
Highlights
Language and PoliticsThe import of language in political campaign cannot be overemphasized
This paper is motivated by the insufficiency in the engagement of political discourses in Nigeria; it examines and identifies the discursive strategies deployed among politicians in convincing the electorate about their political agenda
This paper set out to subject political campaign song discourse in southwestern Nigeria to discourse analysis, using data from the PCSs of 2011-2019 and applying relevant aspects of van Dijk’s socio-cognitive model of critical discourse analysis, which assisted in uncovering the vital relationship existing between the political campaign songs and the Nigerian socio-cultural spatial setting that produced them
Summary
The import of language (choices) in political campaign cannot be overemphasized. One of the most comprehensive definitions of language is the view that it is “human vocal noise or the arbitrary graphic representation of this noise, used systematically and conventionally by members of a speech community for purposes of communication” [1]. Ayo Osisanwo: Discursive Strategies in Selected Political Campaign Songs in Southwestern Nigeria public to a particular product or service with the aim of inducing them to patronise the commodity, political campaign strategists can be seen as advertisers. The argument in this paper is that Nigerian politicians deploy different discursive and rhetorical strategies in their political campaign songs in order to open the door to the heart of the electorate. Such political campaign songs, often laden with different discursive and convincing strategies, are relayed as jingles on the radio and television, and most especially at campaign rallies to promote their good and present their opponents as bad or evil, to the public. This paper is motivated by the insufficiency in the engagement of political discourses in Nigeria; it examines and identifies the discursive strategies deployed among politicians in convincing the electorate about their political agenda
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