LEXICAL CHOICES AND IDEOLOGY IN NIGERIA’S SECURITY AND DEVELOPMENT DISCOURSE IN THE NIGERIA’S MEDIA

Abstract

Language as a veritable means of communication not only expresses social realities but also communicates ideologies. The language habits of a community shape how members of that community perceive and interpret social realities. As the media’s tool for social representation and ideological construct of realities, language shapes people’s social, political and cultural viewpoints and influences their perception of events in the real world. This study therefore, investigates Lexical choices and ideology in Nigeria’s security and development discourse in Nigeria’s media. It adopts the theoretical insights offered by Van Dijk's socio-cognitive theory (ideological square) and Halliday's systemic functional grammar (SFG) transitivity system to identify ways Nigerians use lexical items to construct identities and represent the polarity among various groups as ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ in issues of security and national development discourse. Data for the study were sourced from online versions of the Nigerian newspapers, purposively selected to enable the researcher achieve the research objectives. The findings reveal that language users use lexical choices to depict polarity, blame game, stereotypes, ethnic slurs that enact, reproduce, and legitimate insurgency, banditry and violence in security and development discourse in Nigeria. The study is significant because of the insights and methodological approach it offers the researchers to interrogate security and development discourse in Nigeria from critical viewpoints and proffer solution to different manifestations of insecurity in the country.