EXPLORING FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE IN HEADLINES OF CRISES AND EMERGENCIES IN NIGERIAN NEWSPAPERS

This qualitative study demonstrated the interrelatedness between print journalism and written language. It explored figurative language in the headlines of crises and emergencies in Vanguard and Daily Sun newspapers selected through the simple random sampling. The research adopted mixed methods comprising discursive content analysis and oral interviews in which reader opinion and experience were sought. It was anchored on Framing, semantic and pragmatic theories and covered the last four months of 2022. The choice of the selected months was purposive because it was the peak of crisis and emergency in 2022. The population of study comprised all the editions of the select newspapers published during the period. The sample size represented the number of manageable observations for the study. There was a total of 68 samples (Vanguard 34, Daily Sun 34). The multistage sampling technique was used to determine the actual sample size. The coding sheet was the instrument for data collection and guided the researchers to classify their variables in predetermined columns. The coding sheets were tested for validity and found to measure what they intended to measure. Findings revealed a total of 37 figurative expressions in the headlines. These were from the three categories of figurative language such as idioms (13), figures of speech (8), and phrasal verbs (16). It was also discovered that, apart from their ability to create special effects, Aesthetics, and narrative style, the connotation of the figurative language had hidden meaning, posed semantic confusion, expressed ambiguity, and comprehension difficulty in the headlines. This paper recommended that readers should understand figurative language of crisis and emergency headlines in relation to the context in which they appear; the Nigerian journalists should desist from uncontrolled use of figurative language in crisis and emergency headlines.