A STUDY OF PRESUPPOSITION IN ATIKU’S 2023 PRESIDENTIAL DECLARATION

Abstract

Linguistic studies currently have become more interesting consequence of the invaluable contributions of fields like pragmatics and semantics through which understanding is gained about what speakers say and how they express their intended meanings. A speaker’s intended meaning is a crucial element of consideration in discourse primarily because communication amongst people in any social situation is message oriented. It is against this background that this study is undertaken with the aim of identifying or investigating pragmatic presupposition in the declaration speech of Atiku for the 2023 presidential election. Yule’s (1996) classification of presupposition was employed as conceptual framework for the analysis. Sentences from each section of the speech were purposively selected for analysis. The analysis revealed that the dominant presuppositions in the speech are the existential and lexical type. From the analysis, it is obvious that politicians employ certain linguistic items deliberately to underscore their political ambitions which might just turn out to be mere propaganda. The speech clearly showed that Atiku is determined to win the 2023 presidential election.