The Yoruba language is one of the richest languages in the world in terms of how words and expressions can be employed beyond their conventional meanings. One way of achieving unconventional meaning of words and expressions in the language is the deployment of verbal indirection which is a strategic avoidance of speaking directly in order to achieve a communicative goal. As phenomenal as this concept is in the Yoruba language and culture, it has not received adequate attention from scholars, particularly in Nigeria. This study therefore attempts an ethno-pragmatic analysis of verbal indirection in Yoruba, within the purview of Hyme’s Ethnography of speaking and Brown and Levinson’s Face theory. The study observes, contrary to the existing notion that verbal indirection is a face-saving strategy in language, it can be deployed as a face-threatening strategy in the Yoruba language.
Nigeria is a multilingual country comprising peoples of different ethnic, political and religious inclinations, hence the incessant ethno-religious conflicts that lace her trajectory. Different scholarly works have examined ethno-religious conflict in the Nigerian space from the religious, sociological, historical and political perspectives. However, little attention has been given to the phenomenon from the linguistic perspective. This study, therefore, drawing inputs from van Dijk's Critical Discourse Analysis and Culpeper's Impoliteness Theory, investigates how Nigerians deploy language in engaging in ethno-religious conflict as evident in their online comments on issues of national interest in the country. Different online comments and reactions of Nigerians to four recent national issues-Apostle Suleman's alleged 'sex scandal', the Southern Kaduna killings in Kaduna, the Yoruba-Hausa crisis in Ife, Osun State, and the issues surrounding the arrest, detention and clamour for the release of Nnamdi Kanu, a strong agitator for the Biafra State, as reported by three online platforms, Sahara Reporters, Vanguard Newspaper and Nairaland.com are purposively selected as data for this study. The findings of the study reveal elements of they (them) versus we (us) ideology and different forms of impoliteness strategies permeate the discourse of online ethno-religious conflict among Nigerians. This is a development that portends a bad omen for the continued peace and unity of the country.
This study critically examines ideological strategies in President Buhari's 2019 Independence Day Speech with a view to demonstrating how the speech subtly but pragmatically functions beyond being a yearly ritualistic exercise but equally projecting the Buhari-led administration's commitment to its 'change' agenda. With insights from van Dijk's (2004) model of Critical Discourse Analysis, relevant excerpts of the speech were purposively selected for analysis in this study. Findings reveal that the speech is characterised by two ideological strategies: positive self-representation and negative otherrepresentation. While the former is deployed to project his administration as people-oriented, the latter is deployed to blame, berate and condemn the past governments in the country.
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