International Journal of Language & Literature

Invectives as a Language of Dissidence in the Nigeria Social Media Space
Memunat Olayemi Mahmud; Idegbekwe, Destiny, Ph.D

Abstract
The Nigerian government has been accused of insincerity of purpose and lack of sensitivity in the handling of the affairs of the country. The unpopular policies of the Nigerian government resulting into economic meltdown, insecurity and so many social vices in the society etc are giving Nigerians concern to the level of frustration. This frustration has pushed many Nigerians to the social media space, which provides alternative platform for them to offer parallel rhetoric on governance and developmental issues. The virtual, and in some cases, anonymous nature of the social media enable the users to be bold and critical, unlike what they would have not have been able to in physical conversation. This work is propelled by the use of invective dissident language troupe, which has not been sufficiently studied in the context of the Nigerian social medial space. The paper, therefore, investigates Ten (10) randomly selected dissenting opinions of Nigerians used in the Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter, which contain invectives using Brown and Levinson (1978) face theory as the framework. Among other findings, this study presents that the high invective nature of dissenting opinions and the wilful intention to promote falsehood for selfish gains on social media are the major reasons for the proposed censuring bills in the country.

Full Text: PDF      DOI: 10.15640/ijll.v10n1a7