Lexical Choices in Conflict Reporting in the Cameroon Print Media: The Post and Cameroon Tribune Reporting of the Anglophone Crisis

International Journal of Communication and Media Science

© 2021 by SSRG - IJCMS Journal

Volume 8 Issue 2

Year of Publication : 2021

Authors : Henry Zuyingong Muluh, Fonghe Pascaline Penn

10.14445/2349641X/IJCMS-V8I2P102

How to Cite?

Henry Zuyingong Muluh, Fonghe Pascaline Penn, "Lexical Choices in Conflict Reporting in the Cameroon Print Media: The Post and Cameroon Tribune Reporting of the Anglophone Crisis," SSRG International Journal of Communication and Media Science, vol. 8,  no. 2, pp. 6-14, 2021. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.14445/2349641X/IJCMS-V8I2P102

Abstract:

This research reviews private and public newspaper articles on the Cameroon Anglophone crisis. The aim was to find out the lexical choices that reporters adopt in reporting the crisis, and how these words and expressions portray the ideologies of the reporters, as well as their impacts on the course of the conflict. Data for this study comprises 54 newspaper editions. Thirty purposefully selected editions of Cameroon Tribune and twenty-four purposeful selected editions of The Post newspaper in Cameroon. The data come from the news, commentaries, and human-interest stories of the selected newspapers. The units of analysis are verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, and nominalizations. Critical Discourse Analysis was used to detect the different language styles used in reporting conflict, and the conceptual frames were language and conflict, conflict reporting, and lexical choices. Results show that words explicitly and implicitly carry different shades of meaning, and the way the writer presents them would escalate or deescalate conflict. The use of exclusive and inclusive pronouns (we, us, our versus they, them, and their) revealed that social actors are excluded from what they considered to be theirs, and this was liable to stir them to revolt, thus escalating the conflict. The results also revealed that writers use nouns, especially from the processes of nominalization, to distort and manipulate the truth in pursuit of specific interests. It is therefore recommended that reporters, when reporting sociopolitical crisis, should make less emotive lexical choices. They should also strive to be objective in reporting and have an ideology to promote peace rather than to instill upheaval.

Keywords:

language, conflict, Anglophone crisis, lexical choice.

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