| Abstract: |
There is undoubtedly an intrinsic relationship between language and politics. That is, language is primarily used in politics to solicit for votes on campaign platforms, to outline policies, manifestoes and subtly make ideologies known. A critical aspect of language and politics that has received little attention is ethnocentric comments of politicians. It is, therefore, against this background that we examine ethnocentric speeches by Ghanaian politicians. Using van Dijk’s (1995) ideological square as a framework, complemented with predication, presupposition and pronouns as models of analysis, a critical analysis was done on ten (10) perceived ethnocentric speeches of politicians in Ghana. It became evident that the comments were portrayed along the lines of “Us” vs “Them” dichotomy. Presuppositions were utilized when the speaker sought to mitigate the gravity of their comments whilst predication was employed to associate members of the in-group with positive properties as well as those of the out-group with negative properties. The Pronouns were, however, employed in an attempt to identify with certain ethnic groups. The study, therefore, has implication on the relationship that exists between language, politics and ethnocentrism. |
EBONYI JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE
