Abstract:
The study sought to analyse the discourse features of President Akufo-Addo’s news
stories on galamsey in the Daily Graphic Newspaper from January 2021 to May, 2021.
The study sought to identify power and ideology employed by President Akufo-Addo
in the discourse of galamsey in the Daily Graphic Newspaper and to examine the issues
communicated by the President’s use of some grammatical constructions. Using
Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis as a framework, the study found that Nana
Addo projected himself as a man who is committed to changing the status quo in the
fight against galamsey. The study also found that, power is exhibited in the news stories
on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo through the use of modal auxiliary verbs
such as must, should and will. This signifies the call on audiences to duty in the fight
against galamsey. The study concluded that language, which is the fundamental means
by which to engage in socio-political discourse, can be viewed as a complicated tool
having many uses. Again, the study affirmed the assertion that language has an
ideological dimension and this dimension is not explicitly stated but implied. The study
recommends that a critical attention should be given to language and power in the fight
against galamsey and other political discourses. Again, it was recommended that
politicians should move from rhetorics and talk about the effects of galamsey on the
ordinary Ghanaian.
Description:
A dissertation in the Department of Communication Instruction,
School of Communication and Media Studies, submitted to the
School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the award of the degree of
Master of Arts
(Communications Instruction)
in the University of Education, Winneba
NOVEMBER, 2022