Conceptual metaphors in newspaper reportage of the war on Boko Haram Terrorism in Nigeria

Abstract

The government of Nigeria has continued to wage (a) war on Boko Haram (BH) terrorists in Nigeria. Previous linguistic studies on (war on) Boko Haram terrorism in Nigeria have examined the media reportage of the BH activities, while such studies have not paid sufficient attention to metaphorisations in the representations of the news reports. This study, therefore, identifies conceptual metaphors deployed by the selected newspapers in representing the war on BH terrorism. Headline and overline stories are purposively sampled from four newspapers, published between 2011 and 2014, from the northern and southern parts of Nigeria. The purposively selected newspapers, Daily Trust, Leadership Nigeria, The Punch and The Nation, widely reported BH activities. The conceptual metaphor theory, complemented with systemic functional grammar, provided theoretical underpinnings; and the analysis reveals that the newspapers metaphorically conceptualise BH terrorism as war, evil and crime. The newspapers' metaphorical conceptualisations have cognitively tasked the readers. Readers' experience in relation to BH terrorism has been linked to the understanding of one thing in terms of the other.

Keywords: Boko Haram, conceptual metaphor, systemic functional linguistics, Nigerian newspapers, war on terrorism