This article is published in AL-QALAM Journal of Languages and Literary Studies, Vol. 1, Issue 1, December 2025 (A Publication of the Department of English and Literature, Federal University Gusau, Zamfara State, Nigeria)
A LINGUISTIC STYLISTIC ANALYSIS OF SELECTED PUBLISHED
ARTICLES ON INSECURITY IN NIGERIA
By
Ahmad, Shehu Musa
Department of
English and Literature, Federal University Gusau, Zamfara State, Nigeria
Author’s email and Phone No.: shehumusa@fugusau.edu.ng, +2348036643716
Abstract
The prevalence of insecurity in Nigeria
has prompted the need for continued research on its causes and how best to
tackle it. In doing so, researchers deployed different linguistic tools,
techniques, and/or strategies that explore and proffer solution(s) to the
problem. This study examined the linguistic styles used by two published
academic articles on insecurity in Nigeria; how and why such linguistic choices
were made; and the articles’ areas of convergence and divergence. The work also
examined the articles’ possible effects on target audience. The study revealed
that J. Omede & A. A. Omede’s “Terrorism and Insecurity in Nigeria: Moral,
Values and Religious Education as Panaceas” provided more examples of
cases of insecurity in Nigeria and offered more recommendations than Folashade
B. Okeshola’s “VIOLENCE AND INSECURITY IN NIGERIA: THE BANE OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT”.
However, both articles exploited stylistic devices to clarify their research
topics and validate their findings. The stylistic tools deployed by the studied
articles across different levels include, among others, bolding and numbering
of topics and subtopics, bullets, and capitalization (graphological level);
alliteration and assonance (phonological level); simple and complex words, and
adverbs/adjectives for description (morphological level); simple, compound, and
compound complex sentences (syntactic level); lexico-semantic techniques, and
idioms (semantic level). Both studies foregrounded parallel structures in order
to highlight the types, causes and effects of insecurity in Nigeria. In their
recommendations, the former focused more on educational measures while the
latter focused more on good governance.
Keywords:
Published Articles, Insecurity,
Linguistic Styles, Nigeria
Introduction
Stylistics is a field of study that
systematically studies a text so as to explain the language of the text, and
how a writer or speaker has made his/her language choices to create meaning,
(Niazi and Gautan, 2010). It is an academic discipline that studies style in
language. It examines the various linguistic features and techniques deployed
in texts to convey meaning, evoke emotions, and create effects. Linguistic
Stylistics, therefore, analyses various features/levels of language, including
Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics and, to a larger extent, Pragmatics
in order to understand how linguistic choices contribute to communicative
effects of a text.
Style
refers to the distinctive way language is used in speech or writing. It
involves variations in lexis, diction, syntax, rhythm, and tone that
differentiate one speaker or text from another. According to Leech and Short
(1981), style is the selection of linguistic features in a given context for a
particular purpose. It
provides a variety of choices for the speaker or writer to make in terms of
lexis, clauses, phrases, and sentences. Thus, the linguistic choice of the
speaker or writer is known as his or her style. Style is viewed differently by
different scholars. Some scholars see style as deviation from the norms of
language. In its most general interpretation, the word style has a fairly uncontroversial meaning: it refers to the way in
which language is used in a given context, by a given person, for a given
purpose, and so on (Leech and Short 2007). In view of the foregoing therefore,
Murtaza and Qasmi (2013, p. 2) consider style as “a writer’s individual mode of
expression, way of putting his/her conceptions in words.”
Over the years, Nigeria has been
battling with insecurity. Successive governments have expended huge resources
on both physical combats and researches without yielding the desired result.
This study basically investigates the linguistic styles of two researches
carried out on insecurity in Nigeria with the view to ascertain their stylistic
relevance. The attempt is informed by the assumption, and as maintained by
Leech and Short (2007), that the style of the writer plays a significant role
in achieving a goal (purpose). Therefore, the study centres on the linguistic
stylistic analysis of selected published academic articles on insecurity in
Nigeria. The aim is to examine the type of style deployed and how insecurity is
portrayed in the selected works, vis-Ă -vis the intended meaning and effect.
Consequently, this study would contribute, immensely, in highlighting and
explicating the linguistic styles employed by the studied articles on the
causes and effects of insecurity in Nigeria.
Review of Related Literature
Types
of Stylistic Analysis
Broadly defined, Stylistics
is the systematic study of style in language. Stylistics is of two branches: Literary Stylistics, and
Linguistic Stylistics. Literary Stylistics dwells on the beauty, aesthetics,
and interpretation of literary text while Linguistic Stylistics deals with a
level by level description and analysis of a text as outlined by Geoffrey Leech
and Mick Short (1969). Usually, the linguistic aspect is objective while the
literary aspect is often subjective to an extent.
Literary Stylistics investigates the
stylistic or literary devices employed by a writer or speaker in creating a
text. These devices include figurative expressions such as simile, metaphor,
repetition/parallelism, lexical matching, personification and many other
literary stylistic devices, (Balogun, 2014). Linguistic Stylistics, on the
other hand, explores the linguistic features of a text. Linguistic Stylistics
concentrates on the “linguistic frameworks operative in the text” (Ayeomoni,
2003 p. 177). It is majorly concerned with the examination of language
structures and patterns.
Linguistic Stylistics
Linguistic
Stylistics is the branch of Stylistics that applies linguistic frameworks to
analyze the style of language used in a text. Nnadias, cited
by Olatunde (2016), defines Linguistic Stylistics as "the scientific study
of style, it is the investigation into the general qualities of a text
including the diction, sentence patterns, structures and variety, paragraph
structure, imagery, arrangement of ideas, and other cohesive devices.”
Linguistic Stylistics deals with the exploration of the linguistic features
inherent in a text. Since style, to an extent, is the linguistic choices of a
writer then Linguistic Stylistics deals with the study of those choices.
Therefore, Linguistic Stylistics is concerned with how language is being used
by the writer. It dwells on the devices used in language at all linguistic
levels. It checks out for the kinds of words used and how they are used, what
category they belong to and what they function as. Linguistic Stylistics looks
out for the grammatical choices (clauses, phrases, and sentences), their kinds,
their functions, and how they are used. It checks also for cohesive devices
used (e.g. however, consequently, more so, furthermore, in addition to, etc.)
and their functions.
Leech and Short
(1969) produce four techniques for a standard stylistic analysis as follows:
the lexical category, grammatical category, figures of speech, cohesion and
context. They bring out a
parameter through which a stylistic analysis can be done from word level to
semantic level. Simply, Linguistic Stylistics explores the linguistic features
of a text. It is primarily concerned with the use of language and its effect in
a text. It has to do with a stylistic study that relies heavily on the
scientific rules of language in its analysis.
Levels of Stylistic Analysis
Stylistic analysis is carried out in all linguistic levels for proper
description. The linguistic levels covered by this study include graphological
level, phonological level, grammatical level, lexico-semantic level, and
foregrounding/parallelism as reviewed below:
Graphological
Level
“The graphology of a text refers to the physical appearance of a text.
It is the shape of language on a page” (Paul, 2004). Leech (1969) asserts that,
"the term graphology is somewhat wider than the more usual term
'orthography' as it refers to the whole writing system: punctuation, spelling,
paragraphing, indenting, font type and size, as well as capitalization. The
graphology of a text, in part, affects its meaning, in as much as spelling
affects pronunciation and pronunciation, in return, affects meaning, hence,
graphology plays a major part.
Phonological Level
The phonological level deals with the study of the sound patterns of the
language used. “Here, the analyst puts into consideration the rules of
pronunciation, the rhyme schemes, and rhythm for poetry” (Ogunsiji as cited by
Umezinwa, 2016). Phonological level deals with the way words are pronounced as
Paul (2004) puts it: "the sound of spoken language" is examined. At
the phonological level, analysis can occur in two levels: the segmental and the
supra segmental levels. The segmental level refers to the sounds of the
language and the way they are pronounced, but at the supra-segmental level,
syllabification and stress pattern comes in. It is at this point that sounds
represent the difference in the meaning of words in a language. It also
includes repeated sound patterns which have meanings as to why they are being
repeated.
Grammatical Level
The grammatical level consists of both Morphology and
Syntax. While Morphology deals with words, Syntax on the other hand deals with
larger constituents like phrases, clauses, and sentences, (Leech, 1969).
According to Lieber (2009 p. 2), “Morphology is the study of word
formation, including the ways new words are coined in the languages of the
world, and the way forms of words are varied depending on how they’re used in
sentences”. At this level, one is to consider words and their
constituent structures. Conversely, the syntactic level deals with the way in
which words come together to form phrases, clauses and sentences as earlier
noted. According to Yule (1985), “Syntax studies the internal structure of
sentences, clauses, and phrases”. At this level, the analyst looks out for the
choices of sentences, clauses, and phrases that the author has used. Linguistic Stylistics therefore,
explores the linguistic features of a text from different levels.
Lexico-semantic
Level
The lexical level refers to the words used in a text; it is the
vocabulary of a language, as the compile of all the vocabulary of a person is
called a lexicon (Paul 2004). Semantics refers to what these words mean. It is one of the different levels of
analysis in linguistic description which is concerned with the meaning of
words, phrases and sentences (Löbner, 2013 p. 3). At the semantic
level, the analyst looks out for textual meanings. The meanings can be
denotative or connotative, it can be associative or idiomatic, figurative,
phrasal, sentential, and sometimes it can be
symbolic.
The Theory of Foregrounding
The term foregrounding is associated with visual art and it means
certain objects that appear bolder than others. It was a concept used to
describe those items in drawings or paintings that stand at the fore front and
overshadow others. The word foregrounding was formed by a Russian formalist,
Jan Mukarovsky who sees foregrounding as an act of de-familiarising a language.This theory
came up in the twentieth century and was popularised by scholars like Leech and
Short in their early studies on literary works of art. They were of the opinion
that the purpose of the work of art is to defamiliarise
the language so that it will fall out of the conventions of the language, hence
it will be foregrounded (Mcltyre and Busse, 2010).
Foregrounding
can be seen as the act of making certain features of a text more prominent than
others. Halliday as cited by Olatunde (2016) asserts that "Foregrounding
is prominence that is motivated; and these prominences only shall contribute to
the total or overall meaning of a text, and if they do not, they seem to lack
motivation, and this implies that such items are not prominent...".
Though
foregrounding is to build up the aesthetic beauty of the work of art, it is not
devoid of meaning. Leech maintains that, "Foregrounding, or motivated deviation
from linguistic norms or other socially accepted norms, has been claimed to be
a basic principle of aesthetic communication" (Mclntyre and Busse, 2010).
"foregrounding can be qualitative:
deviation from the language code, or quantitative: deviation from the
expected frequency…there are two form of fore- grounding;
the motivational and un-motivational prominence. Motivational prominence is connected with items that
are intentionally introduced into the text
for semantic purposes, while un-motivational prominence is unintentionally introduced and may not be semantically
relevant” (Olatunde, 2016).
From the above excerpt, we can deduce
that foregrounding is either intentional or unintentional. That qualitative
foregrounding is deviation and quantitative foregrounding is parallelism.
Parallelism
Parallelism on the other hand is
generally seen as repetition, but repetition is just an aspect of parallelism.
Leech defines parallelism “as foreground regularities” while Mukarovsky as
cited by Mcltyre and Busse (2010) sees parallelism as structural “patterning”. Parallelism
can be seen as the repetition of lexical entities, syntactic entities, and
certain grammatical structures, mostly for the purpose of emphasis.
Parallelism goes beyond just
repetition, it also occurs in patterns of identity and contrast, it is not
absolute duplication of linguistic choices (Leech, 1969); it encapsulates
synonymy, antonymy, homonymy, hyponymy, etc. Parallelism is a form of foregrounding
where sometimes meaning are left for the reader to deduce, e.g. when a writer
writes: I was beaten, battered and bottled. From the first two words: beaten
and battered, the reader will be able to deduce the meaning of bottled.
Sometimes the repeated words are not lexically the same but semantically
related or in contrast.
A
Linguistic Stylistic Analysis of J. Omede & A. A. Omede’s “Terrorism and Insecurity in Nigeria: Moral,
Values and Religious Education as Panaceas”
Graphological
analysis: at the
graphological level, the writers brought to light certain features that stand
out in the article. They began by making some textual elements bold. The topic
of the article “Terrorism and Insecurity: Moral, Values and Religious Education
as Panaceas” (p. 120) was written in bold and the font size was larger than the
other texts around. This, the writers did, to portray the emphasis on the topic
as the area of focus. Other elements the writers made bold were the sub-topics
throughout the work (pp. 120-125), and a few expressions which they wanted to
lay emphasis on, example: “the heart of the problem of man is the problem of
the heart (p. 122)” and “character education (p. 124)”. The writers made use of
both indented and unindented paragraphing style; the first paragraphs of every
sub-topic were unindented while the subsequent ones were. The entire work was
justified and the topic and writers’ details at the top (p. 120) were
centralized whereas the sub-topics were left aligned. The writers used
numbering to identify their sub-topics and bullets (p. 121) to identify
important notes in the work. The writers also adopted all of this to give their
work sequential organization, and beauty. For clarity, topics and subtopics
were separated using numeric and capitalization, where the writers deemed it
necessary, to introduce the subject of discussion.
Phonological Analysis: At the phonological level, the writers
used alliterations and assonance e.g. the repetition of the /iv/ sound in
“progressive, destructive, activities” (p. 121); the
repetition of the /s/ sound in “…installations, mosques, schools,
police stations” (p. 121); the repetition of the /Ĺ‹/ sound in
“kidnapping, disguising, and hijacking” (p. 121). The
diphthongs /ei/ and /ai/: “They” and “By” were repeated (p. 124),
in a bid to portray the roles of moral values and religious education. In an
attempt to list the many vices in our midst today, the writers either
consciously or unconsciously gave the work a rhythm that eases the readers
breath when reading, hence creating some sort of beauty phonologically. E.g.
“values such as hard work, discipline, respect, honesty, truthfulness,
integrity, love for one another…” (p. 123). Onomatopoeic effect was also
attached to words like “force, bomb etc.” found on most of the article’s
pages.
Morphological analysis: At this level, some of the writers’
lexical choices have been brought to the
foreground. They made use of compound and complex words in order to pass the
message across, as in “god-fatherism, ‘co-existance’, ‘characteristically’
(p.121), ‘psychomotor’ (p. 122), etc”. The writers also adopted the use of the
morphemes (ing, ions, ly, cal, ism, ive, ic, ity, etc) which came in as
affixations so that the words can carry the fullness of their message and have
some level of coherence. The writers also made heavy use of adverbs and
adjectives in a bid to describe things or actions e.g. “people are burdened on
a daily basis with psychological and emotional trauma resulting from gory
sights of lifeless and mutilated bodies of loved family members, close
associates and colleagues littered on the streets, public squares and
everywhere” (p.120), “suicide bombing, car bombing, rocket propelled grenades,
etc. (p. 121)”.
Syntactic Analysis: The writers’ syntactic choices were
obvious all through their work. Though they used some simple and compound
sentences, a major part of the work comprised compound complex sentences. E.g.
“these crises have heightened tensions and insecurity in Nigeria and they have
assumed a frightening dimension until recently that they are being overpowered
by combined military efforts of Nigeria and surrounding nations” (p. 121). The
writers made use of very long sentences to convey their message. At this level,
they also used questions in between lines in order to pull the reader into
thinking along with them. For instance, the interrogative sentence, “How can
Nigeria’s education be positioned to withstand the forces of terrorism and
guarantee security of the nation?” (p. 120) sought for a research based
finding(s).
Semantic Analysis: At this level, the writers were able
to adopt some lexico-semantic techniques in order to buttress textual meanings.
They used techniques as semantic shifts; personifications, idioms, wise
sayings, etc. For example, “educated sinners” (p. 122), as used by the writers,
referred to the set of people who were supposed to bring Nigeria out of this
confusion, having been enlightened, but who were in turn, the ones who spurred
the wickedness. The writers used the expression “symptoms, shadows and not
substance” (p. 122) to mean that the issues of “unemployment, bad governance,
ethnic superiority, religious superiority, domination and exploitation” (p.
122), among others, may not actually be the causes of unrest in Nigeria.
According to the writers, these issues were merely a reflection of ‘lack of
fear of God, negative values, and moral deficiency’.
The writers further highlighted the
root cause of Nigeria’s problem in an expression: “the heart of the problem of
man is the problem of the heart” (p. 122). This statement was personified,
since a problem cannot have heart. Literally, the heart is the most vital organ
of the body; the writers adopted that sense of the importance of the heart into
the problem to say that the core or root cause of man’s problem is his heart.
Another personification in the text is “Evil is growing” (p. 120). Here, the
writers attributed the living characteristic to an abstract noun to mean that
when evil is on the increase, it can be said to be growing. The writers also
wrote “put all hands on deck to get it strangulated” (p. 123). It is true that
terrorism does not have life; yet the writers shifted strangulate to terrorism
to mean that it can be brought to an end. It is a known fact that no human can
biologically turn into an animal as in the expression: “… most Nigerian youths
have become animals than human beings” (p. 123), but the writers figuratively
shifted the attributes of animal behaviours to certain culpable youths.
The writers made use of an idiom “An
orange tree cannot produce a guava fruit” (p. 122) to mean that what a man does
not have, he cannot give, or it is out of the abundance in one’s heart that he
acts or speaks. They used the expression, “… terrorism is not a child of
modernity” (p. 120) to connote that terrorism is a long existing problem.
Parallelism: The
writers also brought some linguistic features to fore using repetitions of
words. There was a constant use of the word “they” and “by” (p. 124) in an
attempt to point out the “roles of morals, values and religious education in
curbing terrorism and insecurity in Nigeria”. This, the writers did in order to
assign responsibility and proffer workable solutions to the problem of
insecurity in Nigeria.
Similarly, the writers made use of
parallel structures such as “… right or correct morals, right
values and sound religion …” (p. 122) for emphasis. They also adopted
patterns of similarities almost all through their work in order to highlight
some major or pressing insecurity related issues. Such similarities include,
for example, “miscreants in garages and public squares, ethnic militias, armed
robbers, human traffickers, drug addicts and barons, hijackers and bombers” (p.
122). It is a long list, but the mention of a few of them leaves the reader
counting more expressions similar to the list. In the same vein, there were
more examples of patterns of similarity such as “… honesty, obedience,
discipline, hard work, love for one another, and truthfulness …” which the
researchers believed “are not consciously taught in Nigerian schools” (p. 123).
Linguistic Stylistic Analysis of
Folashade B. Okeshola’s “VIOLENCE AND
INSECURITY IN NIGERIA: THE BANE OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT”
Graphological analysis: the topic of the research article, “VIOLENCE
AND INSECURITY IN NIGERIA: THE BANE OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT” was
bolded, capitalized, center aligned and written in larger font size, making it
more pronounced and attractive. This, by implication, tells the reader the
intensity of insecurity in Nigeria. With the exception of “Causes of
insecurity” (p. 149), all other subtopics in the work were written with content
words capital initials. The entire text was justified, while the subtopics were
left aligned. The writer used indented paragraphing system which gave the work
a unique outlook. Another graphological feature the writer used was footnote
intext citations. Each citation was marked from “130 to 152” and footnoted
accordingly. The footnotes quoted referential sources of each intext citation.
That, in addition to economy of space, added beauty to the work. The writer’s
recommendations were bulleted for better/proper highlighting and easing the
reader’s comprehension.
Phonological Analysis: At the phonological level, the writer’s
deployment of alliteration and assonance create a rhythmic effect. For example,
the repetition of /t/ sounds in “accountability, equity, security,
and touts” (pp. 149 - 152) while outlining the causes of insecurity in
Nigeria. Other repeated sounds which created same effect were found in
“Conclusion and Recommendations” (p. 154). About 85% of the recommendations
began with /ðɛəɹ/
and /ɪΖ/ sounds i.e. “there” and “is”
respectively. Thus, each recommendation was stressed for emphasis. There were
onomatopoeic words such as “thuggery, touts, bombs, force etc” (pp. 149 - 152)
whose sounds suggest their meanings. The words sound negatively horrific and
were used to vindicate the intensity of insecurity in Nigeria.
Morphological Analysis: the lexical choice of the writer
tallied with the article’s topic. Words such as “violence, insecurity,
hindrance, fear, frighten, conflict, tension, horrendous, atrocity, kidnapping,
crises, militia, dispute, cultism, criminality, armed groups, fraud, cultism,
criminality, thugs, touts etc” were used, all through (pp. 148 - 155), by the
writer to buttress the number of security threats Nigeria has and is still
facing. The words were either used in company of other words to form compound
words, e.g. “ethno-religious”, “god fatherism, ethnic-group” etc. or as complex
words e.g. “criminality, atrocities, antagonism, hostility, bitterness, etc”
(p. 149). The complexities of the security related words were adjectivized by
the preceding words in the compounds. In the above excerpt therefore, Nigerian
crises were identified as “ethno-religious”; and the group as “ethnic”.
Syntactic Analysis: The writer used simple present and
present perfect tenses to vindicate violence and insecurity in Nigeria. There
were only a handful of simple sentences such as “In Nigeria, politics is
conceived as an investment” (p. 150). By this submission, the writer considered
politics as another factor responsible for youth’s engagement in thuggery and
touting. The following simple sentence accounted for the economic implication
of insecurity in Nigeria: “The effects of corruption on a nation’s economy are
damaging” (p. 152). There were numerous compound/compound complex sentences,
e.g. the compound sentence: “Electoral fraud poses a major challenge to
democracy in Nigeria and by implication, poses threat to the security of the
nation” (p. 151) implied that lack of free, fair, and credible election breeds
insecurity. The writer defined violence in the following compound complex
sentence: “Violence is the intentional use of physical force or power,
threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or
community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in
injury, death, psychological harm, mal development or deprivation” (p. 148).
These examples have shown that the writer has, in addition to simple sentences,
also used very long sentences in explaining the causes and effects of
insecurity in Nigeria.
Semantic Analysis: This is the level the writer deployed
lexico-semantic tools for meaning making. The text is, to a larger extent, self-explanatory.
New or difficult words/concepts were defined by the writer in order to ease the
reader’s understanding. For instance, the writer defined ‘thuggery’ as follows:
“Thuggery is an act characterized by rudeness, hooliganism, touting,
intimidation and harassment. It is the behaviour that contradicts peace,
harmony and coexistence among groups” (p. 152). The writer also used semantic
techniques such as semantic shifts/figurative expressions; wise sayings, etc.
Examples of semantic shift and figurative language in the text include: “A
climate of fear” (p. 154); “At the heart of many of these conflicts” (p. 148);
“The climate of uncertainty in Nigeria…” (p. 151); “…the conditions are ripe
for it” (p. 153) etc. Here, certain literal meanings were shifted to suit the
discourse context. The meaning of ‘climate’, for example, is literally tight to
weather but the writer figuratively shifted it to explain some security related
issues. Wise saying is evident in the following expression: “… we have become
slaves to our ethnic origin to which our allegiance is largely focused at the
detriment of nation building” (p. 149). The expression sounds lamentable,
depicting negative consequence of insecurity.
Parallelism: The writer used parallel structures to
highlight, foreground and explain the trend, causes and effects of insecurity
in Nigeria. Examples of parallel structures in the text include: “ … physical
force or power” (p. 148); “Poverty, joblessness” (p. 149); “political and
electioneering conflicts” (p. 149); “cultism, criminality and organised crimes”
(p. 149); “allegiance to ethnic-group, intra-cultural and inter-ethnic
antagonism, hostility, aggression, bitterness, hatred, mistrust in the country”
(p. 149). All these are near synonyms serving as either names or causes of
insecurity in Nigeria. The writer used them to further highlight the intensity
and widespread of insecurity across different walks of life. While trying to
proffer recommendable solutions to the problem of insecurity in Nigeria, the
writer repeated the expression “There is the need …” (p. 154-155) at the
beginning of most entries, before giving befitting recommendation(s).
Discussion of Findings
J. Omede& A. A. Omede’s “Terrorism
and Insecurity in Nigeria: Moral, Values and Religious Education as Panaceas” and
Folashade B. Okeshola’s “VIOLENCE AND INSECURITY IN NIGERIA: THE
BANE OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT” academic articles were centred on the
prevalence of insecurity, violence and terrorism in Nigeria. The first article
was coauthored by the academic staff of the Department of Educational
Psychology, Kogi State College of Education, Ankpa, Kogi State, Nigeria while
the second was single authored by the academic staff of the Department of
Sociology, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria. Both articles were
published in print and online by Journal of Education and Practice, and
European Scientific Journal respectively. J. Omede & A. A. Omede’s work
explicitly regarded “bad governance, corruption, and graduate unemployment” as
symptoms rather than causes of insecurity in Nigeria. On the contrary, Okeshola
maintained that some of the causes of violence (insecurity) include “god
fatherism, poverty, money and politics, small arms proliferation, the rise of
armed groups, religious based violence, election fraud, oil gas exploration and
production in Niger delta”. These distinct submissions were substantiated
stylistically.
Omede &Omede’s style was
characterized by enumerations and definitions, where each concept was
topicalized and explained accordingly. Excluding the research topic, abstract,
and conclusion, the article has a total of twelve (12) topics/subtopics which,
by comparison, was four times lengthier than Okeshola’s. Consequently, it was graphologically
broadened, having more bolded items, smaller font size with no line spacing as
opposed to Okeshola’s. In addition to graphological level, both studies
properly utilized the linguistic stylistic levels of phonology, morphology,
syntax, semantics, and parallelism to explore the menace of insecurity in
Nigeria. In both articles, the writers deployed phonological devices of
alliteration and assonance to create a rhythmic effect. Some words in both
articles sound onomatopoeic, e.g. “force, bomb, thugs etc” which suggest chaos.
The morphological level of the two articles featured insecurity related words
like “insecurity, violence, thuggery, terrorism, evil, suicide, bombing,
abduction, assassination, kidnapping etc” which justified the research topics.
Long and short sentence structures usage were evident in both articles. They
were meant to semantically survey the cases of insecurity in Nigeria and
proffer useful recommendations on how to tackle it. Omede & Omede proposed
“moral, values and religious education in curbing terrorism and insecurity in
Nigeria” while Okeshola focused more on the need for “good governance, economic
development, and prosecution of accused persons” among others.
Conclusion
The study investigated the linguistic
styles used by J. Omede& A. A. Omede’s
“Terrorism and Insecurity in Nigeria:
Moral, Values and Religious Education as Panaceas” and Folashade B.
Okeshola’s “VIOLENCE AND INSECURITY IN NIGERIA: THE BANE OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT”.
The graphological, phonological, grammatical, and
lexico-semantic levels of the studied articles were examined. Also analysed by
this study were the concepts of foregrounding, and parallelism. Both articles
deployed the relevant linguistic stylistic analytical tools in examining the
prevalence of insecurity in Nigeria. However, the studies differed at
graphological level, where each article foregrounded the causes and effects of
insecurity differently. With such divergence, the concept assumed broader
dimension and posed serious political, social and economic threats. Therefore,
the chosen linguistic styles have contributed immensely in bringing to light
what Nigeria is confronted with and what measures are required to curb it.
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