DISCOURSE ISSUES AND DISCURSIVE STRATEGIES IN SELECTED ONLINE NEWSPAPER ARTICLES ON FARMER-HERDERS’ CONFLICTS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Apart from using linguistic resources to communicate news events,
(online) journalists overtly or covertly deploy same to project certain
discourse issues based on the ideological leanings of their proprietors
(or existing media frames on a news event), by means of the discursive
strategies deployed. It is to investigate these that this study set out to
achieve. 10 online news articles were purposively selected from 5
online news sources (The Guardian Nigeria, Punch Newspapers, Sahara
Reporters, Vanguard, and Tribune Online) between January, 2017 and
December, 2018. Teun van Dijk's (2004) Critical Discourse Analytical
framework provided insight for analysis. It was found, among others,
that discourse issues as legitimisation of hate speech, commonization
of death, politicization of criminality and radicalism, existential
contestation, securitisation and glocalisation of an international
malaise were preponderant in the corpus and were communicated
using seven (7) discursive strategies; some of which include:
Metaphor, Generalization, Actor description, Authority, among
others. Consequently, the study recommends that online news writers
maximize the use of neutrally coloured lexicogrammatical structures
when accounting for conflict situations between farmers and
herders/pastoralists in Nigeria. If this is implemented, it is hoped that
it will contribute to the ongoing national advocacy for peaceful
coexistence and revival of national ethos for brotherhood and mutual
coexistence, aimed at sustainable national growth and development.