A study of the language of students’ political posters in Federal University of Technology Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria

Abstract

This paper examines the use of language in students‟ political posters in Federal University of Technology Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria. It is with a view to ascertaining to what extent the techniques of the English  language have been manipulated in the creation of the selected posters. This is against the background that language yields to influences from contexts of use. The study takes as its population, the political posters used by student politicians in the 2015 Student Union Elections in the university. However, the samples for the study are ten randomly selected posters. The method of selecting the samples analyzed in the paper is purposive, as only samples that contain evidence of linguistic  manipulations are selected. The paper adopted stylistics as its theoretical framework. This is against the background that stylistics offers instruments for the analysis of style in language use, where style refers to the correspondence between language as medium and message as  content. In this manner, describing the extent to which such messages that derive from the students‟ political interest motivate the manner of  language use forms the purpose of the study. The conclusions of the paper include that both the political interests and the technological orientations of the students play vital roles in forming the mode of language use in the selected samples. The paper contends also that the manner of creativity in language use in the samples suggests a strong need for interdisciplinary tolerance in teaching and learning. Thus, it suggests the need for  descriptive approach in the teaching of language, especially at the tertiary level, because it encourages creativity as opposed to prescriptivism that sticks to rigid rules, hence, evolving monotony and consequently loss of interest.

Keywords: Language, Student, Politics, Poster