A Critical Political Discourse Analysis of President Goodluck Jonathan's Declaration of State of Emergency on Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe States of Nigeria

A Critical Political Discourse Analysis of President Goodluck Jonathan's Declaration of State of Emergency on Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe States of Nigeria

Angulu Samson Abaya
Copyright: © 2016 |Pages: 13
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0081-0.ch009
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Abstract

This chapter analyzes the text to other connected discourses (intertextuality) and to historical and synchronic contexts with a view to demonstrate how the President can wield power in a democratic dispensation. The paper demonstrates that Declaration of Emergency Rule is indeed a political discourse. The paper also reveals that political powers are symmetric and asymmetric whereby the president may sound authoritative in one instance; he may sound appealing on the other. The paper also concludes that declaration of state of emergency is an embodiment of ideology, power and hierarchy. Lastly, the paper reveals that political discourses are couched bearing in mind the speaker, the listeners, and the context that gave birth to it including some sociological variables.
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Understanding Critical Political Discourse Analysis

It will be interesting to start by examining the concept ‘Critical Linguistics’. According to Van Dijk (1993:131), CL can be defined as “a shared perspective on doing linguistic, semiotic or discourse analysis”. Nowadays, it is conventionally used in a broader sense to denote, the practical linking of “social and political engagements” with a sociologically informed construction of society. Hence, critiquing is essentially making visible the interconnectedness of things. (Fairclough, 1995, 35). But according to Wodak (2002, 1), the terms Critical Linguistics (CL) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) are often used interchangeably.

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