Abstract

This study stylistically analysed a Nigerian daily newspaper coverage of climate change issues. Climate change is one of the major environmental problems affecting the world and the media including newspapers cover the issue based on many normative factors. One of such normative factors is stylistics which has to do with the way language is used within a particular context. This study applied the Leech and Short model to examine the grammatical, lexical, and cohesive features of a purposively selected Nigerian newspaper, Daily Trust. Findings show the high prevalence of noun and adjectives which presupposes they contain lots of information; high incidences of complex sentences which suggest packing lots of information in a report; and high use of repetition and reference cohesion suggesting high use of narration instead of argumentation or descriptions. The study recommends further stylistic analysis of other newspaper and social genres.

Key Words: Climate Change, Stylistics, Linguistics, Media Reportage, Daily Trust.

^JCMRJournal of Communication and Media Research, Vol. 7, No. 2, October 2015, 161 – 179 

©Delmas Communications Ltd.

About the authors

*Dr. Abdullahi Saleh Bashir, Ph.D. is a Lecturer in the Department of Information Technology, Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria.

**Vivien Bello-Osagie is a Lecturer in the Department of English Language, School of General Studies, Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria.

Full Article

Words: 8,013; Pages: 19