A Critical Stylistic Study of Coup Announcements and Speeches of Selected African Military Heads of State

Abstract

A coup d’etat is a quick, brilliant and highly successful takeover of a government, especially a civilian government by a group of military officers. This paper is interdisciplinary in nature as it involves history, politics and language in use. It aims to identify and analyze the linguistic and stylistic peculiarities in coup speeches of selected African military heads of state and expose how these speeches were used in representing reality as demonstrated in the words and structures of the texts as well as the ideologies and power relations embedded in them. Coup speeches between 1984 and 2004 were selected from west and central Africa, in all four speeches were selected. The English versions of the French speeches were downloaded from YouTube, and transcribed while that from Nigeria was downloaded from the internet as text script. The speeches were analyzed using Jeffries (2010) critical stylistics framework. Analysis shows that certain linguistic features such as naming and describing; used to achieve prominence of location, setting or social background, use of proper noun and noun phrase to show inclusivity and emotional connection to the listeners; Representing actions, events and states such as use of material process clauses to represent their experiences in the real world, which reveals intention and events; Implying and assuming, which utilizes assumptions and implications in the speeches to give common sense to the listeners and to reveal some of their ideologies and influence the view points of the listeners or readers, among others. The paper concludes that military coup speeches and announcements manufacture consent in order to appear acceptable and democratic through coercion and manufacture of ideological indoctrination and all these are embedded in their choice of words and sentences.