Emotive language as construction of situational aggression among drivers at gridlock scenes in Nigeria

Abstract

This paper 1investigates the use of emotive language in the construction of situational aggression among drivers in gridlock scenes along the failed Calabar-Uyo highway, in Southern Nigeria. Data were derived through participants’ observations, informal interactions and semi-structured interviews in an eight-month fieldwork involving 26 drivers who formed the representative sample. Insights from Frustration-Aggression and Conceptual Act Theories were utilised to account for how emotive language instantiate displaced aggression. Findings show that the emotive cues used by drivers were principally informed by the bad road which occurred as a result of failed leadership and endemic corruption, and other cues used to exemplify inferiorisation of women, driving incompetence, superiority complex and economic hardship. The exchanges are combined to situate the collective excruciating experience of drivers and a protest against Nigerian political establishment. The emotive language impliedly re-enacts participants’ patriarchal beliefs, driving attitudes, multilingual identities and myriad of challenges that describe the Nigerian sociocultural context.