1.0     INTRODUCTION

Discourse analysis is generally an umbrella term for the many traditions by which discourse may be analysed. It is a critique of cognitivism that developed from the 1970s onwards, although it has its roots in the ‘turn to language’ in the 1950s (Woolgar, 1988). Whereas cognitivism speaks of objective, observable, knowable reality, on the other hand discourse analysis speaks of multiple versions of reality, multiple ‘truths’, which are constructed through texts, therefore there are correspondingly multiple versions of analyses. Here, language is viewed as a social performance or a social action – it is productive and constitutive (language both creates social phenomena and is representative of social phenomena). The method explores power relations from a critical standpoint in an attempt to make sense of the social world by providing new critical insights – a positive contribution to both theory and research.

According to Van Dijk (1998a) Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a field that is concerned with studying and analyzing written and spoken texts to reveal the discursive sources of power, dominance, inequality and bias. It examines how these discursive sources are maintained and reproduced within specific social, political and historical contexts. In a similar vein, Fairclough (1993) defines CDA as discourse analysis which aims to systematically explore often opaque relationships of causality and determination between (a) discursive practices, events and texts, and (b) wider social and cultural structures, relations and processes; to investigate how such practices, events and texts arise out of and are ideologically shaped by relations of power and struggles over power; and to explore how the opacity of these relationships between discourse and society is itself a factor securing power and hegemony. (p. 135) To put it simply, CDA aims at making transparent the connections between discourse practices, social practices, and social structures; connections that might be opaque to the layperson. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a type of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context. With such dissident research, critical discourse analysts take explicit position, and thus want to understand, expose, and ultimately resist social inequality.

1.2 Critical Discourse Analysis

Critical Discourse analysis is a branch of Critical Linguistics which analyzes a text in connection with the social context of that text. Norman Fairclough(1989:24) sees it as ‘the whole process of social interaction in which a text is just a part’. It is the consideration given to a text in relation to the social context that surrounds it. The critical discourse analyst considers a text as an entity of the social and cultural relations that informed such a text.  Van Dijk (2001) considers it to be ‘a type of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context’.

When analyzing a discourse, the speech act of an utterance is usually put into consideration. This goes to expose the intention of the speaker (illocutionary force) and the effects the utterance has on the hearer (perlocutionary act).

1.3 Theoretical Background

 1.3.1The Speech Act Theory

In this study, we shall adopt the speech act theory to analyze Dokubo’s utterances. The speech act theory introduced by a British language philosopher, J. L. Austin in 1962 in his ‘How to do things with words’ and further developed by American philosopher, J.R Searle concerns itself with the fact that the speaker’s utterances produce so much effects and consequences on the hearer. Keith Allen (2012) believes that the speech act as a pragmatic exercise is created ‘when Speaker makes an utterance U to Hearer in context C and must be interpreted as an aspect of social interaction.’ When an utterance is made, there is a meaning that is naturally attached to it which experts in pragmatics called the locutionary act. Again, it is a fact that when someone speaks, there is a force in him that makes him to produce such an utterance. This is considered to be the illocutionary act or illocutionary force. The utterance is made to achieve a certain effect or result on the hearer. This is the perlocutionary act. Searle claims that there are five major types of actions that human beings can performed by the use of language. They are: representative, declarative, directive, expressive and commissive. For the sake of this study, we shall particularly base our analysis on the commissive aspect of the speech act theory. This is a speech act theory which commits the speaker to some future course of action. This could be a threat, a promise, a vow, a bet, a guarantee, an offer, warning, etc. Dokubo’s utterances majorly fit into the category of threat. In social context, his utterances could be termed an incitement. Already, Dokubo understands very well, the schemata of his audience, in this case, Nigerians. He knows that each time he issues a threat, the chances are that, the unarmed Nigerians are either thrown into fear and confusion or his group (the Niger Delta militants) are reinforced and encouraged to take up arms against the state. John Gary Stobbs(2012) succinctly puts the idea of schemata theory thus: ‘there is a shared cultural, historical and social schema that is used by the speaker to create a common understanding of an ideology. The speaker will utilise the schemata of the hearer. By using shorter utterances, the speaker allows the hearer to form a coherent understanding. The short utterances are complete in themselves but also build towards an overall conclusion.’

2.1      EVOLUTION OF CDA

In the late 1970s, Critical Linguistics (CL) was developed by a group of linguists and literary theorists at the University of East Anglia (Fowler et. al., 1979; Kress & Hodge, 1979). Their approach was based on Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). CL practitioners such as Trew (1979a) aimed at "isolating ideology in discourse" and showing "how ideology and ideological processes are manifested as systems of linguistic characteristics and processes" (155). This aim was pursued by developing CL's analytical tools based on SFL (Fowler et al., 1979; Fowler, 1991). Following Halliday, these CL practitioners view language in use as simultaneously performing three functions: ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions. According to Fowler (1991, p. 71), and Fairclough (1995b, p. 25), whereas the ideational function refers to the experience of the speakers of the world and its phenomena, the interpersonal function embodies the insertion of speakers' own attitudes and evaluations about the phenomena in question, and establishing a relationship between speakers and listeners. Instrumental to these two functions is the textual function. It is through the textual function of language that speakers are able to produce texts that are understood by listeners. It is an enabling function connecting discourse to the co-text and con-text in which it occurs.            Halliday's view of language as a "social act" is central to many of CDA's practitioners (Hodge & Kress, 1979). According to Fowler et al. (1979), CL, like sociolinguistics, asserts that, "there are strong and pervasive connections between linguistic structure and social structure" (185). However, whereas in sociolinguistics "the concepts 'language' and 'society' are divided…so that one is forced to talk of 'links between the two'", for CL "language is an integral part of social process" (Fowler et al., 189).

Another central assumption of CDA and SFL is that speakers make choices regarding vocabulary and grammar, and that these choices are consciously or unconsciously "principled and systematic"(Fowler et al., 188). Thus choices are ideologically based. According to Fowler et al., the "relation between form and content is not arbitrary or conventional, but….. form signifies content" (188). In sum, language is a social act and it is ideologically driven.

On further development of CDA, over the years CL and what recently is more frequently referred to as CDA has been further developed and broadened. Recent work has raised some concerns with the earlier work in CL. Among the concerns was, first, taking into consideration the role of audiences and their interpretations of discourse possibly different from that of the discourse analyst. The second concern has called for broadening the scope of analysis beyond the textual, extending it to the intertextual analysis.

Fairclough (1995b) has raised both issues. He claims that the earliest work in CL did not adequately focus on the "interpretive practices of audiences." In other words, he claims that CL has, for the most part, assumed that the audiences interpret texts the same way the analysts do. In a similar vein, commenting on Fowler (1991), Boyd-Barrett (1994) asserts that there is "a tendency towards the classic fallacy of attributing particular 'readings' to readers, or media 'effects,' solely on the basis of textual analysis" ( 31).The other issue put forward by Fairclough (1995b) is that while earlier contributions in CL were very thorough in their grammatical and lexical analysis they were less attentive to the intertextual analysis of texts: "the linguistic analysis is very much focused upon clauses, with little attention to higher-level organization properties of whole texts" (28). Despite raising these issues with regards to earlier works in CL, Fairclough (1995b) inserts that "mention of these limitations is not meant to minimize the achievement of critical linguistics--they largely reflect shifts of focus and developments of theory in the past twenty years or so" (28). The "shifts of focus and developments of theory" which Fairclough talks about, however, have not resulted in the creation of a single theoretical framework. What is known today as CDA, according to Bell & Garret (1998), "is best viewed as a shared perspective encompassing a range of approaches rather than as just one school" (7). Also, Van Dijk tells us that CDA "is not a specific direction of research" hence "it does not have a unitary theoretical framework." But, van Dijk also asserts that given the common perspective and the general aims of CDA, we may also find overall conceptual and theoretical frameworks that are closely related.

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