This document analyzes the representation of the 2011 Nigerian presidential election in news reports through an ideological lens. It examines how lexicalization, or word choice, was used to shape perceptions. Key findings include: verbs used to describe the opposition conveyed a negative view; nouns like "rival" and "opponent" framed other candidates as threats to the incumbent; and adjectives in reports portrayed the election either positively as free and fair or negatively as marred by irregularities. The conclusion is that lexical choices revealed ideological stances intended to influence readers' judgments of the election and major figures.

1. REPORTING OR EVALUATING? :
REPRESENTATION OF THE NIGERIAN 2011 POST-
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS NEWS REPORTS
THROUGH THE IDEOLOGICAL LENSES OF THE
MEDIA
English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria

2. ASIRU HAMEED TUNDE & EMILY.A. OGUTU
English and French Department, Umaru Musa Yar’adua University, Katsina,
Nigeria
English and Linguistics Department, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya
Being a paper presented at the Third International Conference on
Language, Literature and Society 2016 18-19 January, 2016 ,
Bangkok, Thailand.
English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria

3. Concerns of this paper
• Media bias in the representation of Nigerian 2011
post-presidential election news reports.
• How linguistic resource of lexicalization is used to
shape and control the minds of the people.
English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria

4. Introduction
 Media is the most prominent agent of socialization in the
twenty-first century.(Formation of attitudes and perceptions of
the society)
 One of the avenues of wielding such power is through political
processes ( Campaigns, elections, etc)
 While wielding power by shaping attitudes and perceptions,
media may conceal truths in their representations ( one of the
means of achieving this is through the linguistic resource of
LEXICALIZATION)
English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria

5. Lexicalization
 lexicalization is the use of specific words or classes of words,
such as verbs, nouns, adjectives to represent reality (Fowler,
1991).
 ‘words convey the imprint of society and value judgements in
particular’ (Richardson, 2007). This is especially done through
nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs.
 Oyeleye and Osisanwo, (2013:3) posit that ‘lexical items
overtly and covertly give clues to the ideology of the text
producer’.
English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria

6. Lexicalization continues
• Lexical items, apart from constructing ideological
representation of experiences, also have expressive functions
by examining the producer’s positive or negative evaluation of
events and persons (Min, 1997).
• Wareing (2004) observes that words can have a strong
influence on attitudes.
English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria

7. Categories of lexicalization
• Expressive value of verbs as lexical items
• Nominal expressions
• Prenominal Adjectives
• Categorial perspective to the function of lexical structure
• Overlexicalisation.
English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria

8. Literature review
Authors Contexts Framework Findings Knowledge
Gap/Contributions
Oyeleye &
Osisanwo,
( 2013)
Linguistic feature of
lexicalization in media
representation of the
2003 and 2007 general
elections in Nigeria
Fairclough’s
(1992) theory
on wording
Election is fraudulent,
rigged, dirty game and
that the power of
incumbency plays a
crucial role in
dictating the
pendulum of the
election.
Lexical choices are
non-neutral
because they
reveal the
ideological focus
of the magazines.
concludes that
Taiwo,
(2007)
Language, ideology and
power relations in
Nigerian Newspaper
headlines
Critical
Discourse
Analysis (CDA)
Headlines have hidden
ideological meanings
and leanings;
polarized between the
powerful people and
those whose interests
are being undermined.
It is largely a
quantitative
classification of
headlines along
their themes and
surface structures.
English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria

9. Literature Review continues.
Authors Contexts Framework Findings Knowledge
Gap/Contribution
Mahfouz ,
(2013).
Structures of two
Egyptian
newspapers, ‘Al-
Gomhuria’ and ‘Al-
Dostour’ in their
framing of police
news story
Critical Discourse
Analysis (CDA)
That ‘Al-Gomhuria’, in
its style and tone,
follows the official line
by showing solidarity
with the police and
downplays their
negative side while ‘Al-
Dostour’ is biased
against the police.
News reporting is
shaped by the
ideologies of the
owners which in
turn usually have
elements of bias
against the other
group.
Chiluwa,
(2011).
Media
representation of
Nigeria’s Joint
Military Task Force
(JMTF) in the Niger
Delta Crisis.
Critical Discourse
Analysis (CDA)
The newspapers
construct an
environment that is
devoid of law and order
which necessitated the
intervention of the
troops.
Media
representation
may not be
objective as it
often acts as the
foundation on
which people
base their
understanding,
judgment and
conceptualization
of the world
English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria

10. Findings
Expressive values of Verbs as lexical items
English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria
Example 1: Verbal groups such as ‘queried, ‘claimed’, ‘discredited’,
‘protested’, ‘cast aspersion’, ‘cause instability’, ‘will not recognise’
were used to signal the actions of the main opposition party, (CPC)
while verbs, such as ‘would extend’, ‘to calm’, ‘build consensus,’
‘foster unity’, ‘will urge’, ‘appealed’, ‘said’ (Excerpt 5) were used
to represent the actions of the (PDP) -the ruling party. All the verbs
that are used in this example to represent the actions of the
opposition party are in negatives to show that they do not support
the outcome of the exercise and these ideologically place the
opposition as being aggrieved.

11. Expressive values of Verbs as lexical items
Example 2: Jonathan sweeps Presidential poll (Excerpt 8)
The choice of ‘sweeps’ to depict how Jonathan won the Presidential
election may suggest a landslide victory for him and that he is the
right choice made by Nigerians. This may be sensational because it
portends that other aspirants were not serious contenders in the
election. Going by the lexical and connotative meaning of ‘sweep’
which is ‘to clear something away completely’, we can assume,
bearing in mind the context of usage, that ‘sweep’ is intentionally
used to make Jonathan’s victory appear total and devoid of electoral
irregularities.
English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria

12. English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria
• Example 3: Hurricane Jonathan knocks out Buhari, others
(Excerpt 4). ‘Knockout’ is a jargon associated with boxing
bout and it is carefully used in this election context to mean a
situation of helplessness on the part of fellow contestants
because Jonathan’s knockout has rendered them unconscious
and defeated. This also helps to reiterate the dominance of
President Jonathan in the election which is the opinion that the
writer wants the readers to have. All these verbal groups are
loaded and are capable of evoking a train of thought and
emotions about the exercise.

13. Choice of Nominal Expressions
• Naming and labeling
Example 4: His closest rival, General Muhammadu Buhari of CPC… (Daily Trust)
Example 5: …he got 1.8million votes to the combined 32,000 votes secured by all
his opponents combined.
In these examples, the other contestants are labeled as ‘rival’ and
‘opponents’ of the President, Goodluck Jonathan. There is no instance in
the whole data where these labels are attributed to the President himself.
The only conclusion deducible from this is that the labels are intentional
because they portray other contestants as the ones trying to wrestle power
from the incumbent President Jonathan. These labels are significant in the
news reports because they contribute psychologically and politically to how
the other contenders are viewed by the readers of the newspapers.
English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria

14. English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria
• Example 6: Hurricane Jonathan knocks out Buhari, others (Excerpt 4).
In the above example, the use of ‘Hurricane’ is glamorous as it will register in
the minds of the readers, the extent of the defeat to other contestants. The
allusion to hurricane portends a violent or stormy wind which sweeps
everything in its path. In the context of the election, President Jonathan is the
hurricane, who defeats completely all other contestants in the elections thereby
achieving a landslide victory. Similarly, in the lead paragraph of the same
excerpt, Jonathan having an ‘unassailable lead’ is a biased expression which is
geared towards coercing the readers into believing that the election was a ‘one-
man-show’, whereas, in many other newspapers, the election was depicted as a
tight race between President Jonathan of PDP and General Buhari of CPC.

15. Prenominal Adjectives
Example 7: Massive turnout, free and fair election,
Wild jubilation, a carnival-like celebration, A
mammoth crowd of voters, An exercise of comfort,
Democratically elected President, An ethnic
minority president, clean sweep, National interest,
winning magic, smooth sail, A comfortable lead, the
winner.
These Prenominal Adjectives imply that the election
was free, fair and credible, and that the outcome of
the election represents the voice of Nigerians that
President Jonathan is their choice.
Example 8: No victor, No vanquished, foul play,
crying wolf, electoral irregularities, outright lie,
Mob attacks, a bomb blast, the explosion, irate
youths, fake ballot boxes, youth restiveness, election
violence, 20 thugs, widespread corruption, obvious
lapses, a lot of anomalies, main opponents.
The implication of these prenominal adjectives is
that the exercise was marred by irregularities, hence
not free, fair and credible and these claims are
attributed to the opposition party.
English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria

16. • The prenominal adjectives in the table above show the
two sides of the representation of the Nigerian 2011 Post-
presidential election news reports. It shows the positive
side which portrays the election as free, fair and credible
and that the mandate was given to the incumbent
President Jonathan while the other side of the
representation is a negative portrayal of the exercise
which suggests that the election was marred by electoral
irregularities and this suggestion was credited to the
opposition party.
English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria

17. Categorial perspective to the function of lexical structure
Example 9: Lexical items, such as ‘alleged’, ‘foul-play’, ‘compromise’,
driven away, ‘claimed’ and ‘chased away’ portend an aggrieved
group, hence ‘the losers’. The other structural opposition of lexical
items, ‘confident President’, ‘upper hand’, ‘promised’, ‘impressive
showing’, ‘transparent’, ‘prayed’, ‘new dawn’ and ‘happy’ relate to
the other group; ‘the winners’ (Excerpt 3). The ideological
implication of this is that the ‘losers’ are portrayed as aggrieved and
in negative terms while ‘the winners’ are portrayed positively
thereby supporting their dominant culture.
English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria

18. Overlexicalisation
• Example 13: Lexical items such as, ‘peaceful’, ‘transparent’, ‘organised’,
‘unique’ and ‘keenly contested’ (Excerpt 1) are near synonyms to the
concept of free and fair election which might be the intended meaning the
writer wanted to convey in the news report. This is ideologically significant
because apart from words occurring individually, they can also cluster to
echo different ideas and topics (Fowler 1991). For instance in Example 14:
‘violence’, ‘bomb blast’, ‘mob attacks’, ‘explosion,’ ‘panic’, ‘tension’,
‘chased away’, ‘killed’, ‘snatch’, ‘angry’, ‘intimidated’, ‘smuggle’,
‘beaten’, (Excerpt 13) are used in the article to describe the activities
during the election. The implications or feelings people have when these
words are used will help in understanding the ideological stance of the
presentation.
English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria

19. Conclusion
• In conclusion, the choice of lexical items in the reports
seemingly appear as helping to give information or
reporting the election, but in actual fact, they have
ideological intentions. They give judgment about the
exercise and the major participants and groups.
Ultimately, the judgment controls the attitudes and actions
of the Nigerian newspapers’ readers so as to see the
outcome of the elections and the major contenders from
either sensational or uncomplimentary perspectives.
English and French Department, UMYU, Nigeria