Ebuka Elias Igwebuike

There are many studies addressing the historical, sociopolitical, economic, and legal-diplomatic aspects of the Nigerian-Cameroonian Bakassi Peninsula border conflict situation, but little attention has been paid to the issue of media discourse and language. From a critical discourse perspective, this study, therefore, examines the media representations of the conflict in order to assess the role of the press (Nigerian and Cameroonian) in the conflict mediation and resolution. The project employs the socio-cognitive model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Systemic-Functional Linguistics (SFL) as research methodology. While the CDA approach unearths the hidden “ideological square” (van Dijk, 2006) in the data, the SFL analysis reveals how participants and the conflict events are represented through transitivity. The study demonstrates the necessity of critical discourse analysis for understanding conflict discourse in the media in Africa.

Studies on Igbo folk music have investigated its performance styles, compositions, and aesthetic and utilitarian values from the ethnomusicological and literary (socio-political satire) perspectives with little attention paid to the use of metaphor for representing socio-cultural realities in the Igbo society, whereas, metaphorical expressions in Egwu Ekpili, a highly dynamic and symbolic Igbo philosophical folk music constitute a significant feature essential to the full understanding of the unique music genre. Drawing upon the theoretical resources of Charteris-Black’s (2004) Critical Metaphor Theory, White’s (2006) Evaluative Semantics and Halliday’s (2004) Systemic-Functional Linguistics, this study, therefore, investigates metaphors in selected albums of three prominent Egwu Ekpili musicians with a view to uncovering hidden ideological meanings as well as evaluating the role of metaphors in representing identity and power relations in the music texts. This investigation promises better understanding and appreciation of metaphor in folk music in Africa.?????