Analysing the discourse on corruption in presidential speeches in Nigeria, 1957- 2015: Systemic functional linguistics and critical discourse analysis frameworks
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Date
2019
Authors
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Publisher
University of the Western Cape
Abstract
Corruption as a concept is viewed differently by various disciplines, but there seems to be
consensus that it relates to the misuse of public office for private gain. Studies in the social
sciences, mainly political science, economics, sociology and law, have provided valuable insights
into the subject, for example, its causes, manifestations and consequences. In a country such as
Nigeria, corruption is said to have cost the country up to $20 trillion between 1960 and 2005, and
it could cost up to 37% of its GDP by 2030 if the situation is not urgently addressed.
The paradox, however, is that although all successive leaders of the country have consistently
articulated their anti-corruption posture in national speeches, they get accused by their successors
of not being tough on corruption both in word and in deed. Regrettably, there have been relatively
few close textual analyses of presidential speeches carried out within analytical frameworks in
linguistics that have the potential of revealing how presidents can simultaneously talk tough and
soft on corruption, a contradiction that could well explain the putative anti-corruption posture of
the country�s leaders and the ever deepening corruption in the land.
It is against this backdrop that this study draws on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Systemic
Functional Linguistics (SFL) in order to examine language choices related to the theme of
corruption in speeches made by Nigerian presidents from 1957 to 2015. The objectives of the study
are to (1) provide an overview of how the discourse on corruption has evolved in Nigerian
presidential speeches from 1957-2015; (2) determine specific facets of the construal of corruption
from the dominant choices made from the system of transitivity (process, participants,
circumstance) in speeches by different presidents and at different time points in their tenure in
office; (3) analyse how the interpersonal metafunction of language is enacted in the speeches by
the presidents through the system of appraisal for a strategy of positive self-presentation and
negative other-presentation; (4) interrogate from a critical discourse analysis standpoint the
interest, ideological, partisan or other bases for the choices made in the speeches from the systems
associated with the experiential and interpersonal metafunctions of language; and (5) to evaluate
the different presidents in terms of how the above analyses position them in relation to combating
corruption.
Description
Philosophiae Doctor - PhD
Keywords
Corruption, Ideology, Transitivity, Appraisal, Discourse