{"title":"A Pragma-Rhetorical Analysis of Speeches of Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari on COVID-19","authors":"O. Adebomi","doi":"10.1080/10228195.2023.2185903","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study extends scholarship on COVID-19 discourse by identifying the discourse strategies in Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari’s COVID-19 speeches and the persuasive intentions each strategy serves. It examines the aptness of Buhari’s choice of words and tropes in the heat of the pandemic. It adopts Douglas Walton’s rhetorical pragmatics as theoretical anchor. Excerpts were selected using purposive sampling. The study reveals that Buhari deployed eight discourse strategies, which fall within the logos, ethos, and pathos categorisation, in his argumentation. These strategies include use of numbering, figures and dates, avoidance of courtesies, portrayal of government as proactive, deployment of negative adverbs, rolling out safety measures, acknowledgements, emphasis on collaboration, and referencing. He also deploys tropes such as repetition, pun, and personification to establish the need for compliance with COVID-19 protocols. The study recommends that further sociolinguistic analysis of COVID-19 texts would demystify linguistic barriers associated with the pandemic.","PeriodicalId":43882,"journal":{"name":"Language Matters","volume":"54 1","pages":"21 - 39"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Language Matters","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10228195.2023.2185903","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract This study extends scholarship on COVID-19 discourse by identifying the discourse strategies in Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari’s COVID-19 speeches and the persuasive intentions each strategy serves. It examines the aptness of Buhari’s choice of words and tropes in the heat of the pandemic. It adopts Douglas Walton’s rhetorical pragmatics as theoretical anchor. Excerpts were selected using purposive sampling. The study reveals that Buhari deployed eight discourse strategies, which fall within the logos, ethos, and pathos categorisation, in his argumentation. These strategies include use of numbering, figures and dates, avoidance of courtesies, portrayal of government as proactive, deployment of negative adverbs, rolling out safety measures, acknowledgements, emphasis on collaboration, and referencing. He also deploys tropes such as repetition, pun, and personification to establish the need for compliance with COVID-19 protocols. The study recommends that further sociolinguistic analysis of COVID-19 texts would demystify linguistic barriers associated with the pandemic.
期刊介绍：
The purpose of Language Matters is to provide a journal of international standing with a unique African flavour focusing on multilingualism in Africa. Although the journal contributes to the language debate on all African languages, sub-Saharan Africa and issues related to multilingualism in the southern African context are the journal’s specific domains. The journal seeks to promote the dissemination of ideas, points of view, teaching strategies and research on different aspects of African languages, providing a forum for discussion on the whole spectrum of language usage and debate in Africa. The journal endorses a multidisciplinary approach to the study of language and welcomes contributions not only from sociolinguists, psycholinguists and the like, but also from educationalists, language practitioners, computer analysts, engineers or scholars with a genuine interest in and contribution to the study of language. All contributions are critically reviewed by at least two referees. Although the general focus remains on multilingualism and related issues, one of the three issues of Language Matters published each year is a special thematic edition on Language Politics in Africa. These special issues embrace a wide spectrum of language matters of current relevance in Southern Africa.
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