INVESTIGATION INTO THE ENACTMENT OF POWER AND IDEOLOGICAL BACKBONE IN THE INAUGURAL SPEECHES OF PRESIDENT MOHAMMADU BUHARI AND EX-PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN

INVESTIGATION INTO THE ENACTMENT OF POWER AND IDEOLOGICAL BACKBONE IN THE INAUGURAL SPEECHES OF PRESIDENT MOHAMMADU BUHARI AND EX-PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN

ABSTRACT

This paper describes comparative discourse analysis of two inaugural speeches of the immediate past president and his successor. This study compares the two inaugural speeches of  Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan and President Mohammadu Buhari. This research work looks into political and critical  analysis of power and ideology in the two inaugural speeches. It entails a paragraph by paragraph analysis for thorough and complete analysis. The ideological analysis was first carried out and then the power analysis also. The study also analyses in view of comparing both the power and ideological cues in the two inaugural speeches of the two presidents concerned.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0       Background to Study

Language has a dimension that cuts across the world (Crystal 1997). It can be seen as a system and as a universal tool for communication. This means Language can be said to mean the only way man relates and functions as a social being. Every discourse is constructed on language, as discourses are produced through language. Johnstone (2008) opines that discourse contemporarily means actual instances of communicative action in the medium of language. Discourse is also a continuous stretch of   spoken or written language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit (Pustey, 2006). One of the approaches to the study of discourse that reveal language as a social phenomenon is Critical Discourse Analysis.