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A Stylo-Semantic Analysis of the Depiction of COVID-19 in Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari's March 29, 2020 Address
Emmanuel Jolaolu Adegbenro
Department of English, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye
Abstract
Emerging researches on COVID-19 are in large volumes but have been limited to medical and scientific orientations. These research efforts have also been replete with its causes, spread, and possible prevention. The aim of this research is to study the responses of world leaders to the deadly virus using a stylo-semantic approach. The data for the study is Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari's national broadcast of Sunday March 29, 2020. After a close reading of the address, the prominent stylo-semantic features are identified and then analysed using Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar. It is discovered that President Buhari subtly deploys fear-gripping but illustrative lexical constructions and vivid semantic items to depict COVID-19 as a pandemic requiring urgent, individual and collective proactive responses. It is also discovered that such portrayal is deliberate in order to instill fear in the people towards the virus and its devastating effects. The study provides useful insights on the perceptions of world leaders regarding the virus. The study concludes that fear-laced lexical items can be employed as tools for reinforcing caution in people, particularly in the period of a pandemic. It is hoped that this research will fill a need for a linguistic exploration into the global health challenge. Keywords: Depiction, economic semantic field, medical semantic field, military semantic field, sense relation, stylo-semantics.
