Abstract
Politics and politicking in Nigeria has assumed a considerably new dimension. Actors articulate their ideology and programmes, and construct their subjects and experiences in diverse linguistic processes with a view to achieving political victory. This paper examines clause structures of President Buhari’s My Covenant with Nigerians to reveal the transitivity processes employed by the President in this famous campaign speech in 2015 presidential election. This study utilized Transitivity Processes, which is rooted in Halliday’s (1985) Systemic Functional Grammar, in order to uncover different process types and main participants in the speech, and to explain the functions which these processes perform in the speech in helping the speaker to convey his ideology to Nigerians and convince them to rally support for him. Specifically, objective of this study is the uncover transitivity process types in the speech, their frequency, function and ideological underpinnings. The study reveals that President Muhammadu Buhari utilized mental and verbal processes perception, affection, cognition and volition, and verbal process of saying to appeal to the masses, and to commit himself to serve Nigerians. He equally used material and relational processes to encode his ideology, persuade the people and achieve political victory.
Highlights
Politics and politicking, not just in Nigeria or Africa alone, but the world over have awakened new interest in social commentators, philosophers, political analysts, language philosophers, and discourse analysts
Ideologies in political discourse are often hidden, as history has revealed. This points to the fact that political process is essentially an ideological process, and political cognition often identifies with ideology which is conveyed through language
We begin here by identifying the various process types utilized by President Buhari in his My Covenant with Nigerians
Summary
Not just in Nigeria or Africa alone, but the world over have awakened new interest in social commentators, philosophers, political analysts, language philosophers, and discourse analysts. These set of persons have to pragmatically engage the structures of political speeches in rigorous examinations in order to shed light on ideology behind the speeches. Experiences and desires are usually embedded in language It is not surprising, that most of the intents of political actors and the underlying meaning of their speeches are not overt; they are hidden in the structures of their texts or speeches. Political speeches perform both linguistic and political functions: they mirror the linguistic choices made by the speaker and serve the political purpose of communicating the ideology of the leaders (Amma et al, 2016)
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