Language and Ideology in Discourses on Gender Relations in The Guardian and Vanguard Newspapers

Abstract

Some of the previous studies on media representation of men and women in Nigeria only provided impressive theoretical and critical analyses of ideology. Little has been done to show how such ideology(ies) could be accounted for through lexicalization and transitivity choices. Given the fact that ideologies are very crucial in discourses on gender, this study investigates the ways two Nigerian newspapers, The Guardian and Vanguard, ideologically construct men and women in discourses on politics in Nigeria between 2014 and 2016.The present study adopts Fairclough theoretical model on Critical Discourse Analysis which takes on board Halliday’s theoretical model on ‘lexico–grammar’. In the analysis, it is observed that both newspapers used linguistic tools to represent their ideological affiliations, that is, men are domineering and women are nation builders.