Conventionalised impoliteness in Nigerians’ reactions to the Buhari-led government’s Federal Character Principle

Abstract

Previous scholarly work on impoliteness in Nigerian political discourses appears to be steeped in the analysis of the super strategies of impoliteness, paying little attention to the socio-cognitive corollaries of impoliteness as practised on social media. Thus, adopting Culpeper’s conventionalised impoliteness formulae and van Dijk’s socio-cognitive discourse models as the theoretical framework, the article explores, as socio-cognitive properties, the discursive structures of the impoliteness formulae deployed by Nigerian Facebook users in expressing their opinions of President Buhari-led government’s handling of the Federal Character Principle, especially in its appointment of government functionaries. Using a purposive non-probability sampling technique, data for this study comprise Facebook users’ responses to two news reports about the appointments of two heads of government agencies by President Buhari. These were obtained from the Facebook pages of two online newspapers: Sahara Reporters and Premium Times. Among the identified formulae types, unpalatable presuppositions and questions have the highest frequency with evaluative beliefs and stereotypes found to be the most predominantly used by the Facebook users. The findings also reveal that the identified impoliteness formulae types are triggered by the social cognitions reflecting the Facebook users’ attitudes about the mode of political appointments in Nigeria.