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ABSTRACT
This study examines the linguistic resources employed in the discursive reproduction and normalisation of national unity, as constructed by the private sponsors of newspaper congratulatory announcements (NCAs) in Nigeria during the period between 2011 and 2016. The analysis is focused on how the processes of lexicalisation and metaphorisation were utilised in realising such discursive purposes. The study is theoretically informed bysystemic functional grammar (SFG) and theory of conceptual metaphors. The analysis includes linguistic analysis and qualitative content analysis (QCA) in identifying the lexical items as well as the figures of speech used in the NCAs. Findings from the analysis revealed that positively charged lexical items have been employed by the non-state sponsors of the NCAs in an attempt to recontextualise and normalise the unity discourse in the Nigerian context, which goes against the status quo and the lived experiences of the masses. Moreover, the problem of unity is also metaphorised, naturalised and reproduced in the NCAs in another attempt to transform and manipulate people’s thoughts and practices through such a metaphorical construction of unity.
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Notes on contributors
Ahmed Tanimu Jibril
Ahmed Tanimu Jibril is currently affiliated with the Department of English and Literary Studies, Faculty of Arts, Bauchi State University, Gadau, Nigeria. His research interests are in the multimodal critical discourse analysis, the use of visual grammar in multimodal texts and the relationship between language and the media.
Afida Mohamad Ali
Afida Mohamad Ali is an Associate Professor at the Department of English, Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). Her research interests are mainly in the areas of LSP/ESP, corpus linguistics, and genre analysis, specifically genres used in professional settings i.e. business, finance, health, tourism and the new media.
Zalina Mohd Kasim
Zalina Mohd Kasim is an Associate Professor at the English Language Department, Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication, Universiti Putra Malaysia. She holds a Master’s degree in Linguistics from the Universiti Malaya University and a PhD degree in Linguistics from the Lancaster University, UK, in 2007. Her research interests are mainly within the cognitive stylistics and discourse studies. She is currently working on metaphors in media and political discourses.
Mei Yuit Chan
Mei Yuit Chan is an Associate Professor at the Department of English, Universiti Putra Malaysia. She specializes in the areas of applied linguistics, discourse and communication studies, language learning and acquisition as well as LSP. Her research interests are predominantly in the areas of institutional and professional discourse practices, language and cognition, health communication and discourses of indigenous communities.