Language, Power, and Gender: Insights from Nigerian Print Media

This study investigated gender issues published between 2014 and 2016 in The Guardian and Vanguard with a view to uncovering the interactions between linguistic devices and the underlying ideologies in discourses on gender relations. The theoretical framework was a synthesis of insights from Faiclough’s (1995) model of Critical Discourse Analysis and Halliday’s (2004) Systemic Functional Linguistics. Out of a total 50 news reports, 14 news reports were purposively selected and subjected to linguistic and descriptive analyses. The Guardian and Vanguard constructed women as equal to men in the public arena and encouraged women not to participate in politics for selfish reasons but for a national cause. These ideological constructions in the newspapers were projected through material processes, relational processes, and lexical choices. These linguistic devices revealed that the womenfolk have always been contributing to political issues in the country. The two newspapers have similar ideological leanings on gender issues in Nigeria. They both projected the womenfolk as nation builders. There is a dynamic interaction between gender ideologies and linguistic devices in the newspaper reports on gender issues in political discourse. Awareness of this interaction is essential to understanding media reports on gender issues in Nigeria.