Discourse Strategy on President Buhari’s Address on the Extension of Covid’19 Pandemic Lockdown
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives Of Study
- To describe the structure and organization of the content of president Buhari’s Address on the extension of covid’19 pandemic lockdown
- To critically examine how Covid-19 is depicted by president Buhari’s Address
- To identify the discursive features of the president Buhari’s Address and relate same to the socio-political context of its discourse.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE RELEVANT TO RESEARCH OF FEATURES OF DISCOURSE STRATEGIES
INTRODUCTION
For a proper grasp of the primary concern of this study, this chapter attempts to review related literature produced by linguists and scholars. The chapter is broken into six sub-headings. They are;
- Concept of Discourse Strategies
- Types of Discourse Strategies
- History of discourse strategies
- Theoretical Studies
- Empirical Studies
- Related Literatures
Concept of Discourse Strategies
Keith Johnson and Helen Johnson (1999:99-105) cited by Abdul Muis Badulu . (2009) , defined discourse as the study of how stretches of language used in communication assume meaning, purpose, and unity for their users: the quality of coherence.
A discourse strategy can generally be defined as a strategy for communication between or among people (Walker, 1994). As it is for many other concepts, in literature the concept discourse strategy has received various definitions. Some literatures define the concept as discourse strategies (O’Connor & Michaels, 1993), communicative strategies (Tarone, 1978; Cegalla & Villaume, 1988). Others have referred to it as teaching strategies (Van de Stuyf, 2002; Butcher 2006), conversational devices (Taylor, 2002), speaker strategies (House, 2009) and conversational strategies (Gumperz, 1982).
Discourse strategies also refers to general textual strategies and choices made according to the interactive purposes in the production of discourses. In the production of discourses, we are often face with many choices as to what discourse types to choose, or what discourse-strategic continuity to use. Usually we have good reasons to explain why we have chosen certain forms instead of the others. So strategies are made to judge which choice can best serve the purpose of the production of the discourse.
Generally speaking, discourse strategies can be mainly divided into the following three parts: discourse types, discourse patterns and discourse-strategic continuities. For the purpose of this study, the researcher will only elaborate on discourse types.
Types of Discourse Strategies
Discourse types are identified as “a conceptual framework which enables us to classify texts in terms of communicative intentions serving an overall rhetorical purpose” Hatim & Mason, (1990), and they may be defined on the basis of cognitive categories or on the basis of strictly linguistic criteria. The commonly accepted typology is Werlich’s (1976) typology, which includes five types:
- Description
- Narration,
- Exposition,
- Argumentation
The typology is based on cognitive properties of text types: 1) differentiation and interrelation of perception in space (description); 2) differentiation and interrelation of perception in time (narration); 3) comprehension of general concepts through differentiation by analysis and/or synthesis (exposition); 4) Judging, evaluation of relations between and among concepts through the extraction of similarities, contrasts, and transformations (argumentation) and 5) planning of future behavior (instruction
Discourse types thus refer to the specific linguistic structural system whose choice is part of the discourse strategic choice, and it is product-oriented. It is closely connected with the theory of register.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH PARADIGM, DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This chapter is on the procedure/methodology for carrying out the study. It contains the, Research Design, Research Method, Sampling techniques , Method of Data collection, Sources of Data, Method of Data Analysis, Population Sample, Ethical Considerations.
Research Design
It is a non-experimental research design based on linguistic and qualitative methods of analysis of the selected text. The study involves a text that is indigenous to Nigeria; Presidential speech. It is so chosen because Nigeria is facing the reality of Covid-19 which is a serious threat to human environment
Research Method
Discourse analysis is central in this work . Text of an address by President Muhammadu Buhari on the extension of COVID-19 Pandemic lockdown at the State House, Abuja on Monday, April 13, 2020 is the basis for analysis. The researcher adopts qualitative analysis method of inquiry that deals with linguistic units. Again, the approach of stylistics is used in the analysis the data.
Sampling techniques
The number of sample units to be selected from this study is some important excepts and paragraphs from the speech of Buhari.
Method of Data collection
The procedures utilized in collecting the data of the research include: firstly, reading the whole sources deeply and critically using the researcher’s knowledge and sensitiveness based on speech. This is aimed at comprehending and obtaining the data sources. Secondly, selecting the data from the an address by President Muhammadu Buhari on the extension of COVID-19 Pandemic lockdown, considered as appropriate data that are related to the research problems in order to reveal the objective of the research while reading. Thirdly, the researcher is taking notes of the marked data to observe them after reading. Finally, the researcher arranges the data systematically that accordance with the problems of the study by analyzing the data.
Sources of Data
The data for this study was sourced primarily from Text of an address by President Muhammadu Buhari on the extension of COVID-19 Pandemic lockdown at the State House, Abuja on Monday, April 13, 2020
The secondary sources of data were collected from newspapers, articles and journals, scholars works and other relevant internet sources.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATIONS
Presentation of Data
This chapter presents data analysis and discussion of findings. The analysis is based on the texts excerpted from President Buhari’s Address on the extension of covid’19 pandemic lockdown on April 13th 2020. It covers Sentence / Textual Analysis, Cohesion, Modality, Metaphor, Nominalization, Vocabulary, Passivization, Transitivity, Repetition . These linguistic resources concern the three meta-functions – textual, ideational and interpersonal meanings, so the analysis will be conducted at the cline of word, clause and sentence.
Textual Analysis / Sentence Structure
The texts from an address by President Muhammadu Buhari on the extension of COVID-19 Pandemic lockdown at the State House, Abuja on Monday, April 13, 2020 is the data for analysis in this section. Parts of the headings for the analysis in this unit is adopted from Huckin (1997).
Use of Epidemiological and Medical Register
Register is a degree of formality of language involving words from different professions. Speech by President Muhammadu Buhari on the extension of COVID-19 Pandemic lockdown contain words and lexical items that are associated with epidemiology and medicine. The use of such lexical items buttresses the fact that people can use linguistic terms of professions they do not belong to; this is indeed a boost to linguistic knowledge. Words that were dormant over the years became activated. This is because of the pandemic that has ushered in new words into vocabulary stock and at the same time activated those words that have been dormant over the years. Those that appeared in Buhari’s speeches are:
“hygienic practices”, “social distancing”, “testing laboratories”, “testing capacity”, “infection prevention and control” , “isolation”, “National Centre for Disease Control”, “Quarantine”, “test” “admit cases”, “distancing measures” “virus”
The use of such words in this register helped to drive home the subject matter or theme of the speeches and the rationale behind such speeches.
CHAPTER FIVE
RECOMMENDATIONS, SUMMARY, AND CONCLUSION
Summary
The main thrust of this study is to investigate the Discourse Strategy on President Buhari’s Address on the extension of covid’19 pandemic lockdown. In carrying out the study, three research objectives and research questions was posited as a guide to the study. The chapter two of this study extensively dwell on scholarly work that are related to the study. Basically the data for this study was sourced primarily from Text of an address by President Muhammadu Buhari on the extension of COVID-19 Pandemic lockdown at the State House, Abuja on Monday, April 13, 2020. The secondary sources of data were collected from newspapers, articles and journals, scholars works and other relevant internet sources. The researcher adopts qualitative analysis method of inquiry that deals with linguistic units. Again, the approach of stylistics is used in the analysis the data. Adequate efforts was made to employ appropriate statistical methods of presentation and analysis. The frequency tables and simple percentages and graphics were utilized in presenting the data.
Based on the analysis, the following findings were made;
- President Buhari made use of Epidemiological and Medical Register hygienic practices”, “social distancing”, “testing laboratories”, “testing capacity”, “infection prevention and control” , “isolation”, “National Centre for Disease Control”, “Quarantine”, “test” “admit cases”, “distancing measures” “virus” The use of such words in this register helped to drive home the subject matter or theme of the speeches and the rationale behind such speeches.
- The study finds out that President Muhammadu Buhari used framing such as not a joke”. “life and death”. “closed”, “complete lockdown”. To drive point on how extremely Covid-19 could be.
- From the study it was also discovered that Buhari made use of Modality and such modal verbs are Can,will, shall, must. “Will” is the most frequent occurring verb modal in Buhari’s speech with a frequency of 18 and overall percentage of 44. From the contextual analysis, the researcher concluded that the use of “will” in Buhari’s speech connotes that the speech is just a mere promises to resuscitate hope
- The study also finds out that repetitions abound in the speech of Buhari . Such repetitions is Covid-19 which appeared 10times.The essence is not to create monotony or redundancy but to lay emphasis. Some of the linguistic units were repeatedly used.
Conclusion
A public speech is a socio-cultural phenomenon which embodies both oral and written forms. The speaker in the study utilized language properly to convey his messages of commitment, directing, appreciation, instructing, promising and in so doing, he employed linguistic elements to achieve pragmatic and stylistic effects. The analysis also revealed that certain words of a particular register can be used by persons who do not belong to that profession.
Recommendations
- The study recommend that other researchers who want to conduct discourse strategy may wish to undertake it by looking at a single meta-function such as textual
- The researcher also recommends that other unexplored aspects of discourse known for flexibility can be assessed for the possibility of spontaneity and subsequent study.
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