Contexts and Proximisation Features in President Muhammadu Buhari’s Speech on Regional Security in West Africa

Abstract

This paper complements the pragmatic attempts in its adoption of Auer’s contextual model and Cap’s proximisation theory in carrying out a context-driven and discourse space pragmatic analysis to track the speaker-imposed construal distance and proximity in political discourse on security. President Buhari’s speech at the 2nd regional security summit delivered on the 14th May, 2016 has been purposively selected for this exploration. The study identified three contexts namely securitisation, rehabilitation and solidarity within which President Buhari seeks legitimization by using spatial, temporal and axiological proximisation features in the representation of the actors involved. The study identified pragmatic usage of verb phrases as category accommodating markers and the symbolic movement between the discourse space centre inside-the-deictic centre noun phrases and discourse space periphery outside-the-deictic centre noun phrases is used by the speaker to achieve his vantage intentions. The study also found out that the President deployed lexico-grammatical expressions to label Boko Haram against the ideologies of extremist, terrorist, and killer. The study concludes that President Buhari’s orientation to shared situational knowledge and mutual contextual belief within the social context of securitisation, solidarity and rehabilitation imply that African politicians’ use of language on war on terror promotes solidarity, galvanise support of the general public by legitimising actions against insurgency or terrorism with a view to curbing the menace.