Lexicogrammatical Analysis of News Reporting of 2015 General Elections in some Nigerian Newspapers

SOURCE:

Faculty: Arts
Department: English Language & Literature

CONTRIBUTORS:

Nwankwo, S.C;
Chukwu, E;

ABSTRACT:

This study investigates the news reporting of 2015 General Elections in some Nigerian newspapers using the lexico-grammatical analysis paradigm of SFG. The print media is one of the major channels of information dissemination with a peculiar language use. The problem lies on the need of investigating the language of the print media to unveil the lexico-grammatical features that have made it effective for the audience to understand the information contents meaningfully.. Some of the highlights of the study include: the concept of lexico-grammar and its features, context of situation and culture, language functions and the semantic stratum. The study derived its theorem from Halliday’s systemic framework of lexico-grammatical analysis. The population of the study comprised a deliberate collection of four Newspapers from libraries and media houses. The selected areas used for data collection included the headlines, introductions and the news reports. A textual analysis of newspapers was used in evaluating the data collected to answer the research questions. The researcher applied lexico-grammatical analysis on the data in order to discover its prominent features. The study established that the print media employed theme and information systems to indicate the organization of information.. It is also revealed that transitivity systems help in the description of experiences of the world.. It was established that attitudinal lexis were used which are associated with aesthetic and emotive undertones. It was observed that finite clauses were used to achieved tense, number, person, concord, and to indicate mood and modality. Mood systems were used to indicate interactional meanings of the participants and the attitude and judgment of the speaker and also were used to expressed probability, ability, obligation, inclination, certainty, willingness. Non-finites were used for modification and indicating the future plans of the subject respectively.