Cover not available

Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 17:4 (2018) ► pp.461–484

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

“If indeed this is the will of the Ekiti people”

A discursive critique of a concession speech

ORCiD logo with link | University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos
Published online: 8 December 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.15016.ade
Abstract
Based on the idea that the quality of a democracy may be measured against the quality of its public communication, this paper deploys Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to investigate a Nigerian gubernatorial concession speech in discursive terms. It argues that as an uncommon genre in political discourse in an emerging democracy this hybridised speech both indexes a growing culture of ‘fair competition’ in Nigeria’s eighteen-year-old civilian rule and presents the incumbent as a deft political actor who strategically claims political capital. The paper examines the text’s generic structure, the political and other actors mentioned or implied in it, its manipulation of pronominal references for rhetorical effect, as well as the epistemic uncertainty implied by a query-concession sequence noticed in it. Drawing on the concession speech literature, the paper charts a course for studying the concession speech as an emerging genre in a neonatal democracy like Nigeria.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1A brief history of Nigeria’s Ekiti State and its political actors
    • 1.2Critical discourse analysis: Some comments on Norman Fairclough’s approach
  • 2.The concession speech as a focus of studies in political rhetoric
  • 3.The gubernatorial election of June 21, 2014 and Governor Fayemi’s concession speech: Some notes on methodology
    • 3.1The speech as part of a chain of social events
    • 3.2Political and social actors in the speech
    • 3.3Pronominal references in the speech: Including and excluding practices
    • 3.4Construal of political and social actors in the speech
  • 4.The strategic claiming of political capital and the speech as a hybridised genre
    • 4.1Perceptions of political actors on the speech
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Bibliography
References (43)
Bibliography
Adetunji, Akin. 2006. “Inclusion and exclusion in political discourse: Deixis in Olusegun Obasanjo’s speeches.” Journal of Language and Literature 5 (2): 177–191.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Aziken, Emmanuel, 2014. “Implications of Fayose’s Victory”. Vanguard, June 23, 2014.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan. 2005. Discourse: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. “The forms of capital.” In Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, ed. by John G. Richardson, 241–258. New York: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1991. Language & Symbolic Power. Translated by Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chilton, Paul. 2005. “Missing Links in Mainstream CDA: Modules, Blends and the Critical Instinct.” In A New Agenda in (Critical) Discourse Analysis, ed. by Ruth Wodak, and Paul A. Chilton, 19–51. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Corcoran, Paul E. 1994. “Presidential Concession Speeches: The Rhetoric of Defeat.” Political Communication, 111, no. 21: 109–131. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Corcoran, Paul. E. 1995. “Presidential Endings: Conceding Defeat.” In Presidential Campaign Discourse. Strategic Communication Problems, ed. by Kathleen E. Kendall, 255–91. Albany, New York: SUNY Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Corcoran, Paul E. 1998. “The Rhetoric of Triumph and Defeat: Australian Federal Elections, 1940–1993.” Australian Journal of Communication, 25 (1): 69–86.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fairclough, Isabella, and Norman Fairclough. 2012. Political Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 2000. New Labour, New Language? London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fayemi, Kayode, 2014. “If this is the will of the people.” The Vanguard, June 22, 2014. Accessed June 23, 2014. [URL]
Forchtner, Bernhard. 2014. “Rhetorics of Judge-penitence: Claiming Moral Superiority through Admissions of Past Wrongdoing.” Memory Studies, 7 (1): 409–424. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hansson, Sten. 2015. “Discursive Strategies of Blame Avoidance in Government: A Framework for Analysis.” Discourse & Society, Vol. 26(3): 297–322. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Habermas, Jurgen. 1984. The Theory of Communicative Action. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K. 1994. Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holly, Werner. 2008. “Tabloidisation of Political Communication in the Public Sphere.” In The Handbook of Political Communication in the Public Sphere, ed. By Ruth Wodak, and Veronica Koller, 317–342. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kampf, Zohar. 2009. “Public (Non-) apologies: The Discourse of Minimizing Responsibility.” Journal of Pragmatics, Vol. 41(11): 2257–2270. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Boston, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McNair, Brian. (2011). An Introduction to Political Communication. 5th ed. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mieroop, Dorien V. D. (2010). “Making Transportable Identities Relevant as a Persuasive Device. The Case of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 Concession Speech.” Hermes – Journal of Language and Communication Studies, 441: 229–239.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Neville-Shepard, Ryan. 2014. “Triumph in Defeat: The Genre of Third Party Presidential Concessions.” Communication Quarterly, 621: 214–232. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Punch Newspaper. Punch, June 27, 2014. Editorial.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ritter, Kurt, and Buddy Howell. 2001. “Ending the 2000 Presidential Election: Gore’s Concession Speech and Bush’s Victory Speech.” American Behavioral Scientist, 441: 2314–2330. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Steiner, Jurg, Andre Bachtiger, Markus Sporndli, and Marco R. Steenbergen. 2005. Deliberative Politics in Action: Analysing Parliamentary Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Dijk, T. A. 1998. Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vanguard Newspaper. “Fayemi is the Difference.” Vanguard, June 24, 2014. Editorial.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vile, John. 2002. Presidential Winners and Losers: Words of Victory and Concession. Washington, DC: CQ Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Waldman, Michael. 2003. My Fellow Americans: The Most Important Speeches of America’s Presidents, from George Washington to George W. Bush. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, Inc.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Washbourne, Neil. 2010. Mediating Politics. Berkshire: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill Education.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
White, Ronald C. 2002. Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2005. The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln through his Words. NY: Random House.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Willyard, Jennifer, and Kurt Ritter. 2005. “Election 2004 Concession and Victory Speeches: The Influence of Genre, Context, and Speaker on Addresses by Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates.” American Behavioral Scientist, 49(3): 488–509. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth. 2011. The Discourse of Politics in Action – Politics as Usual. 2nd ed. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. The Politics of Fear. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, and Michael Meyer. Eds. 2009. Methods for Critical Discourse Analysis. 2nd ed. London: SAGE.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yule, George. 1996. The Study of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yuravlivker, Dror. 2006. “Peace without Conquest”: Lyndon Johnson’s Speech of April 7, 1965. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 36 (3): 457–481. [URL]
Zimmerman, Don H. 1988. “On conversation: The Conversation Analytic Perspective.” Annals of the International Communication Association, 11 (1): 406–432. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1992. Achieving Context, Openings in Emergency Calls.” In Text in Context: Contributions to Ethnomethodology, ed. by Graham Watson, and Robert M. Seiler, 35–51. Newbury Park: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue