A Linguistic-stylistic Analysis of the Language of Nigerian Political Elites
Chapter One
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The aim and objective of this study is to examine and expose implicit statements in the language of politics and to detect examples of linguistic strategies that impose moral or ethical values on people. This study also aims at looking into how politicians always attempt to communicate leadership and obtain credit with the use of language in political contexts and their way of appealing to attitudes and emotions that are already within the listeners.
In addition to all the above, this study will also showcase how perceptions, convictions and identities are influenced by politicians’ use of language. In other words, how electoral candidates through their speeches always try to accomplish or persuade an audience to support their political opinions and how their paragraphs, dictions, figures of speech, etc., are selectively picked in order to conceal meaning. And more specifically, how they use language to make the audience agree or conform with their ideologies.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
LANGUAGE AND POLITICS
Linguistic scholars have proved beyond doubt that language influences thought. In that case, politicians influence the way we think about events happening around us and the words they choose are a crucial part of the process by which language and thought go hand in hand.
What then is language if one may ask and what is its connection with politics?
Different definitions have been given to language by different scholars but one of the oldest and most commonly cited definitions is that of Edward Sapir who defines language as “a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols.” (Sapir (1921), Page 18). He stresses that language is the institution whereby human beings communicate ideas, emotions and desires as well as interact with each other by means of habitually oral, auditory and arbitrary symbols.
This definition has, however, been criticized for being too narrow and too broad at the same time. It is considered too narrow on the basis that language communicates much more than “ideas, emotions and desires.” It is also criticized for being too broad in its use of the phrase “voluntarily produced symbols” since not every voluntarily produced symbol passes for language except by an extended use of the term to gestures, postures, etc.
Block and Trager (1942, Page 5), however, define language as “a system of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social group co-operates.” This definition is seen to reflect only indirectly the communicative function of language, while emphasis is on the social functions.
Bolinger Dwight defines language as a system of vocal auditory communication using conventional signs composed of arbitrary patterned sound units and assembled according to set rules, interacting with the experiences of its users (Bolinger (1968), Page 2).
Another school of thought sees language as a system of human communication, in speech or writing by means of a structured arrangement of sounds into morphemes which are in turn arranged to form words; larger units such as phrases and sentences are constructed.
Finally, language is also generally defined as any system employed in giving, receiving or hiding information. It can be made up of sounds and calls, signals and signs, postures and gestures. including silence.
Language, therefore, is essentially a communication system.
It’s also noteworthy to state here that some linguists see language as a human method of communicating ideas, feelings, desires, fears, joy, sadness by means of a system of sound and sound symbols within a social community. It is a meaningful medium of sending messages to a receiver either through signals, symbols, gestures, etc.
Different scholars have over the years tried to define politics. They have been faced with difficulties as each scholar has tried to advance a different view of politics according to his understanding of the term.
Politics has been severally defined as “the art of the possible,’ “A game of wits,’ “All that begins and ends with government,” “the decision by the technocrats” or “the study of government” that is, the study of the control, distribution and use of power over human activities in society.
The word politics is, however, derived from the Greek word, polis, which means city-state. In his treaties on Human Associations, Aristotle (384-322 BC), stated that the most sovereign and inclusive association is the polis whose essence is the establishment of government, law -making, enforcement and eliciting obedience from the members of the society. He observed that Man is by nature, a political animal. This means that politics comes naturally to all men. It can be seen in day-to-day living of man and encompasses all forms of human endeavour. Men are bound to live in communities and interact with one another. This gives rise to relationships and in their constant interaction with one another, they are bound to get involved in politics. As they seek to define their position in the society and as they try to share available resources, people engage in politics. Each man by his very nature tries to convince the other to accept his views. In the existing divergent views, conflicts arise and have to be resolved.
Politics can be seen in all forms of human endeavour and the vehicle each individual uses to drive in his or her views or idea is “language.” This, of course, brings to our view the serious relationship that exists between language and politics. A politician relies strongly on language to pass his message across to the electorates. Language and politics are, therefore, seen as a Siamese twin.
Politics, as earlier said is seen in all forms of human endeavour: At the international scene, that is, among different countries, at the national level, that is, within a state, in religious organizations, among students, among members of a family, etc. Wherever man exists, there is always an element of politics. This is because man’s selfish nature puts him in a position of always attempting to gain an advantage over another. This is further illuminated in the views of Robert Dahl who describes politics as an interplay of contending actors in which one actor always attempts to gain a relative advantage over the other.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
METHODOLOGY
The public speeches of the underlisted politicians of note like Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, S. G Ikoku, ‘Chief Bola Ige, General Olusegun Obasanjo, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, Mr. Tunji Braithwaite and Dr. Nwafor Oritzu in the course of their addressing political issues were extracted as data for this study. The speeches collected are studied and analysed along the following linguistic parameters:
(a) Nature of the lexical choices and functions.
(b) Forms or types of sentence prominent in the speeches and functions.
(c) Rhetorical devices prominent in the speeches and functions.
(d) Contextual semantic implications of the features.
Then, as each of the speeches is analyzed, they are studied critically with a view to identifying the nature of the features of the linguistic parameters above. The identified features are then related to their contexts with the intention of drawing the concomitance or relatedness between the features and the intended messages.
THE RESEARCH INSTRUMENT
Eight speeches cutting across different regimes and periods of notable politicians were studied. One speech by the one-time civilian Head of State, Alhaji Shehu Shagari at a press conference, after the result of his election was announced in 1979. One broadcast from the former military and civilian Head of State, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo on September 21, 1978 to signal the game of politics; a speech of S. G Ikoku, who was the Secretary-General of the People’s Redemption Party (PRP) in the Second Republic; Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s speech in Voice of Courage; Uncle Bola Ige’s speech in his maiden broadcast in 1979 as the Governor of the defunct Oyo State. A speech made by a popular Lagos-based lawyer and one-time Nigerian Advanced Party (NAP), Chief Tunji Braithwaite, in the Second Republic (1979) in one of his campaign against the military rule. The speech made by the former Acting Civilian President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Dr. Nwafor Oritzu on January 16, 1966 and finally, the speech made by the former Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida on June 29, 1990, during the graduation of students at Military Command College, Jaji.
SAMPLES
For this research project, we’ve chosen different elite based on their regional level basis or ideology, educational and professional level. This is because, these elitist’ political ideology and language on the above mentioned basis differ. They share different political opinions. For instance, Zik (Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe) called himself “The beautiful bride” to be courted by other politicians while Awolowo believed he was the best and didn’t need anybody to compromise his ideology in his course of achieving political height, goal or result. Seeing himself as the best, he didn’t reach out to people for any political interest and thus he was regarded as “the best President Nigeria never had.” That, of course, was one of the reasons he failed politically.
The Northerners, however, believe that they are the largest and that all they need to do is to form political alliance with the minorities in order to attain their goals. If one ‘should view from various past political results, the north will always marry or reach out to the Southern minorities.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA
INTRODUCTION
To get to the linguistic features of this variety of language, there are various linguistic options or approaches that could be explored. The options include the text linguistic approach, discourse analysis, general and linguistic stylistic approaches and so on. In this study, however, the procedure of general stylistic analysis is adopted for the following reasons. In the first place, stylistics itself is described as a linguistic study of different styles (Chapman, 1973), Ayeomoni (2002), Babajide (2002), Romano (2000), William (2002). Stylistics has also been defined as the variations in the use of language. ”
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
After scrutinizing the language of the Nigerian political elite thoroughly, it has been observed that this class of people could be dubious. This is simply because, often times, it is not what’s in their mouths that is in their minds. Their actions do not usually match with their words for reasons best known to them, which is somehow known to the populace they intend to deceive too.
Again, their utterances always have a purpose of gaining sympathy rather than making things work better for the electorates. This, of course, serves as a pointer that most Nigerian political elite are not upright in their dealings. About 80 per cent of them fall into this category of non uprightness. Most of them appeal to sympathy and thereby deceive the electorates. There is always this element of dramatization in their actions. A good example of this is likened to President Goodluck Jonathan’s outburst or shedding of tears at the site of the recently crashed Dana Air. One could easily say that he did that to get nothing but commendation from the public since he couldn’t deny his awareness of the poor condition and poor management of the aviation industry. Another good example is seen in Governor Raji Fashola’s show of affection for the late symbol of democracy in Nigeria, Bashorun M. K. O Abiola. He (Fashola) celebrated the June 12 (Abiola’s mandate) by declaring a holiday on that date to show their unending love and loyalty to the late politician cum business mogul. All the actions that took place on that day were nothing but “politics.”
Apart from all of the above findings, we were also able to note that, the language of politics encompass other disciplines like sociology, psychology, philosophy, etc. Politicians always take the advantage of their environment to suit their own purposes. We’ve also found out that a political elite’s action is usually attached to his level of educational, social and political background and this often shows in the way and manner an elite speaks, acts and takes decision. Thus, for instance, almost ail the speeches ever made by the evil genius, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), always portray him as a leader who had well-educated people as his speech writers. So also, if one listens to the speeches made by the likes of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and host of others, one could reach a conclusion that they were balanced educationally. IBB is highly accentic in his speeches while Awolowo and few others didn’t have the accentic tone.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The researcher recommends that this research work should serve as a benchmark – that is, a standard or point of reference for future researchers who may want to find out if the language of the Nigerian political elite is comparatively in line with the international standard or just mere national standard.
Besides, the speech writers for the politicians should ensure that they consider the personality of their clients, his educational background, attitude and aptitude whenever they compose speeches for them. These speech writers should not write speeches that would expose their clients’ incompetence’ or stupidity and thus earn condemnation from the electorates or listeners.
Therefore, speech writers should not ‘write’ above the ‘heads’ of the politicians.
CONCLUSION
It is very important to note at this juncture that the language of politics is a language of many parts that can influence the listeners both negatively and positively, depending on the users and the circumstances or contexts surrounding its usage.
It is a language that is so desirable like the language or register of any other discipline. The user should however, be careful or mindful of the usage in order not to deceive people, especially the electorates.
There should be a sincerity of purpose on the part of the users while a good attempt is also made to correct their dubious intentions. Users should try as much as possible to match actions with words. Users should be upright in their dealings and stop dramatizing. They should stop appealing to sympathy and put an end to unnecessary deceit.
In addition to all of the above, users should balance their rhetorics. Persuasive but insincere language is what they should do away with. They should rather prefer a persuasive but effective language. All their slogan and lexical items should be perfectly formed while they should also say bye-bye to ambiguity. Their choice of words should be subject specific and avoid the use of abstract nouns so as to stop deceiving the electorates. They should be practical enough. They should stop the attitude of “do as I say and not do as I do.” They should stop using language to adapt reality to suit their purposes. They should stop using “pronouns” to deceive the electorates. In other words, all their intentions should be spelt out in clear and unambiguous grammar. All their pejorative term for pompous and inflated speech or writing should stop. In other words, all empty rhetoric (that is, bombast) they should do away with.
REFERENCES
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- Bronzewear (1970), Literary Stylistics
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- Chomsky Noam (2004), Language and Politics
- De Beaugrande & Dressler, Introduction to Text Linguistics
- George Orwell, (1946), Politics and the English Language
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