Pragmatic study of political hate speeches in selected newspapers in Nigeria

This paper examines, from the perspective of pragmatics, political hate speeches made by Nigerians between 2013 and 2015. It specifically explores the pragma-semantic import of the selected political hate speeches made by Nigerians in order to identify their illocutionary forces and the anticipated perlocutionary effects. The Speech Act Theory (SAT) by Searle (1969) is used as the theoretical framework for this study. The data of the study were retrieved from selected Nigerian newspapers and magazines between 2013 and 2015. Seven (7) political hate speeches from selected Newspapers were selected for analysis in this paper. The findings of this study reveal that political hate speeches perform both explicit and implicit functions. The study also observes that hate speeches from political speeches are mainly sentences that are Assertives with a total percentage of 35.7%, while 28.6% of the speeches are Expressives, 21.4% Directives, and 14.3% Commissives. Commissives and assertives are mainly used to attack and threaten opposition. This shows the high level of hatred that exists between the diverse ethnic groups as well as political parties with different political interests. From this point of view, this paper suggests awareness campaigns on the implications of hate speeches, democracy and good leadership in the country so as to protect the nation\u27s democracy as well as maintain its peace and unity