Language and ethnoreligious discrimination in media headlines of Àmòtékùn

Abstract

The Nigerian media representation of ÀmÒtékùn has promoted ethnoreligious discrimination in the country. This threatens the existing fragile ethnoreligious relations in the country. A number of the existing research studies on ethnoreligious discrimination are not linguistic in nature, and those that have a linguistic orientation do not investigate the ÀmÒtékùn discourse. This study adopted Ethnolinguistic Identity Theory and its revised standard version to qualitatively analyse ethnoreligious discrimination in the Nigerian media’s representation of ÀmÒtékùn. The study revealed that linguistics and sociolinguistic tools, such as presupposition, proposition, implicature and propaganda, are used to promote convergence and divergence of participants in the discourse. The study therefore suggests that cooperative language should be encouraged in media discourse rather than competitive language.