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Articles

CJLS: VOL. 9, NO. 2, DECEMBER 2021

Metadiscoursal mappings of persuasion in President Muhammadu Buhari's local interviews on Boko Haram conflicts in Nigeria

Submitted
January 19, 2022
Published
2022-01-19

Abstract

This paper investigates the way PMB manipulates metadiscourse features during media interviews in Nigeria to persuade Nigerians on the policies and actions deployed by Nigerian government in battling Boko Haram (BH) threats, which have become the country's major security challenge. It explores the various interactional metadiscourse elements and linguistic forms that characterise PMB's persuasive strategies in such interviews. The data comprise three media interviews of PMB's randomly selected from three Nigerian media stations (EbonyLife Television, National Television Authority, and TVC NEWS). These were transcribed and subjected to content analysis with insights from Ken Hyland's interpersonal model of metadiscourse and aspects of Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar. Five interactional metadiscourse resources were observed in PMB's interviews: self-mentions engagement markers, hedges, boosters, and attitude markers. These are largely realized through his use of modals, performatives, and personal pronouns.