Discourse Analysis of General Muhammadu Buhari’s Official Acceptance Speech: A Systemic Functional Perspective

Abstract

This paper attempts to analyze the acceptance speech of the Nigerian President-elect, General Buhari, through the framework of discourse analysis. Assuming that the aim of the President is to inform and convince his audience, the article adopts the systemic functional linguistic model to inquire into the language of the speech. Specifically, aspects of experiential meaning, realized through the transitivity patterns which focus on the different processes, participants and circumstances, and the interpersonal meaning, realized through modality, which includes modalization and modulation have been studied. The findings reveal that these linguistic features have made it easy to highlight not only Buhari's experience of the events he has described, but also his ideology, that is, his attitudes and judgments that are expressed to reinforce the persuasive strategies used in his speech.