‘Pragmatic Face and Ideology in Selected Speech Discourses of President Muhammadu Buhari

Abstract

‘Face’ an attribute of politeness theory is one of the most considerable frameworks for the analysis of social interaction. The proclivity of this study unveils how President Muhammadu Buhari (henceforth PMB) deploys pragmatic ‘Face’ as discourse strategy to instantiate ideology. Despite the substantial scholarships on ‘Face’, not much has been done on its linguistic role in the underpinning of ideology in speech discourses. This study aims at three goals. First, it takes account of ‘face’ as pragmatic resource for the production and interpretation of ideology. Secondly, it underscores ‘face’ as a discourse passage or strategy for comprehending a speaker’s ideological stance; and thirdly, it situates the place of the politeness theory in the explication of speech discourses by interrogating its relevance in such domain or context. The study examines 19 texts purposively selected from two speeches from The Sun and The Guardian of 29th May, 2016 and 1st October, 2016 respectively. The selected speeches, through the theory of politeness complemented by critical discourse analysis reveals that PMB deploys discourse strategies that are face threatening to designate derision and relations of superiority on those undermined and face saving to instantiate ideology of solidarity on those whose interests are being served.