CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0        Background to the Study 

This study is a Critical Discourse Analysis of military parade discourse at the Nigerian Military school, Zaria. The study uses the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis henceforth, CDA. The Military is recognized worldwide as an integral part of every nation because the institution protects countries from external attack. Military institution shares a common feature wherever they exist, which is discipline and absolute loyalty to the last command. It is a command society where power is sublet from top to bottom and such power is subject to abuse but procedures are uniformed, ordered and precise for combat effectiveness.  It is a rigidly stratified society where rank is defined (Brotz and Wilson 1946 in Abaya 2008). These features are reflected or rather enacted verbally in almost all activities of the institution especially parade. There is no doubt that military values would stamp their identity on the language use during parade (Abaya 2008).  

Several events in military institution are marked with parade. In Nigeria, Independence Day Parade is performed every 1^st October to mark Nigerian Independence, Burial Parade is performed as last respect for falling soldiers, passing out Parade (POP) for students who graduated from military schools and host of others for several purposes. Hence, Parade is an indispensable part of military institution. It’s symbolic and therefore embedded with believes shared by participants in the discourse community. Military Parade discourse can therefore, be said to be embodied with ideological orientation vis-a-vis dominance.

Scrolls (2001) asserts that social action and discourse are inextricably linked i.e. they are inseparable. However, studies on Military Parade discourse have focused on sociolinguistic, pragmatic, semiotic and stylistic features of the discourse to the neglect of Critical Discourse Analysis.  For example, Woodward (2010) investigates the discourse of Gender in the contemporary British Army. Hawryluk (2010) examines the review of the Red Army and Soviet Army discourse as a variety of language while Amafah (1990) examines the English Language use in the Nigerian Army. Abaya (2008) demonstrates that elements or rather some features of political language can be found in military language, while Ogundele (2015) investigates the role of context in the effective production and interpretation of intentions of addressors in Army’s parade interaction. 

 These above studies are all premised on Military discourse; nevertheless, none of them has specifically used the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis to unravel the ideological prejudices and dominance embedded in Military parade discourse. Hence, the aim of this study is to investigate the reflection of ideology vis-à-vis dominance in the military parade discourse. The study intends to use the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) because it is concerned with how discourse is used as an integral aspect of power and control. CDA makes explicit aspects of ideology that underpin social interaction (Bloor and Bloor 2013). 

Speech is one of the major elements that distinguish man from other animals. This speech serves as an instrument for achieving different purposes. Hence, Language is an indispensable part of human society. One wonders how the human society would have been without language. This perhaps is what made Barber (1965:9) concludes that language is the most remarkable tool produced by man which made other inventions possible. Hence, there exist an intrinsic relationship between language and human society. Our social behaviors are represented in our language use. Language is the most powerful emblem of social behavior.  Social activities such as culture, religion, occupation, government, and politics are enacted in language use. In other words, language is used to control the society. Institutions and social groups are formed or established under several ideologies. These ideologies reflect in the use of language by the institutions or social groups consciously or unconsciously. It is this reflection of ideology and dominance in military parade discourse that necessitates this research work. Thus, chapter   one presents the Background to the study, Statement of the Problem, the aim and objectives of the study, justification of the study and the scope and delimitation of the study. 

The Nigerian Military School Zaria, founded as the Boys-Company of Nigeria in 1954, was established under the auspices of Nigerian Regiment Training Centre of the Royal West African Frontier Force (RWAFF). The school was established along with three others in the British Colonial West Africa in Gambia, Ghana, and Sierra-Leone. It was modeled after the Boys Wing of the British Army. The present day Military School came into being on May 20, 1954.The aim of the school was the production of "middle and skilled manpower" to replace the departing British Colonial NCOs. Thus, a lot of emphasis was laid on military and academic training. In 1960, the name "Boys Company" was changed to Nigerian Military School. In 1965 the first set of Boys wrote the West African Examination Council (WAEC).

The School runs a six-year training programme which was divided into junior and senior classes of three years’ duration respectively. To facilitate effective administration, Military and Academic training, the school is segmented into 5 main Wings: The

Headquarters, Military wing, Education Wing, Boys Battalion and the Administrative Company.

The Nigerian Military School gives its students both academic and military training. Every boy soldier as the students are called has one day a week dedicated strictly to military training while the other four days of the week are dedicated to academic training.

The students used to be optionally enrolled into the Nigerian Army as private soldiers on the successful completion of their training; in 1999 it became compulsory for graduating students to join the Nigerian Army. Since the establishment of the Nigerian Military School, the institution has contributed in all walks of life and remains the center of excellence in its distinct role of training and moulding Nigeria children just coming out of primary schools into intelligent, disciplined, Industrious, patriotic and hardworking young boys.

The school from its establishment to date has produced numerous Senior Military officers and Senior Staff in both Government and Private sectors. In contributions to economic and socio – political development in Nigeria which can be seen by its products in all fields of our lives. The six-year duration provides the institution time to inculcate and instilled military ideology into the children. This is done mostly through rigorous training especially regular parade. The training is a process of integrating ‘’the boy soldiers’’ into the discourse community of military institution. The school therefore, serves as a Center for integrating  the naïve children into military culture of discipline and absolute loyalty to the last command. It is with this that informed the choice of the school parade as the most suitable for this study. 

1.1         STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Whenever a specialized language exists for the use of a particular institution, that language can provide evidence useful in understanding the way the institution views itself, its role in the larger world, and the world as a whole. Language use carries with it implicit meanings, which can be made explicit through careful analysis in order to assess better the world view the language helps to create and sustain. The use of language always has embedded within it these implicit meanings. The Nigerian Military School, Zaria is a military institution where children from different cultural, religious and socio-economic background are given combined secondary education and military training simultaneously. One of the major things instilled in the ‘’Boy soldiers' as the students are fondly called is the ideology of the military which is ‘’total discipline’’. This is mostly done through parade. According to Bloor and Bloor (2013) most discourse used by members of a group tends to be ideologically based. Thus, Parade discourse is embodied with military ideology vis-a-vis dominance in the institution. Military parade discourse can therefore, be said to represent the institution’s ideology. 

It is however, surprising that many scholars have studied Military Parade discourse   using pragmatic, socio-linguistic, semiotic and cognitive pragmatic approaches in order to understand its unique features, similarities and dissimilarities with other forms of language use by other institution in our society(see Amafa 1990, Abaya 2008, Woodward 2010, Hawry 2010 and Ogundele 2015), but there is a dearth of studies applying the framework of CDA (a multidisciplinary approach) in analysing the discourse of military parade, which is capable of laying bare the ideological distinctiveness and dominance of the military institution. This is the gap this study seeks to fill.

1.2         RESEARCH QUESTIONS

In view of the aforementioned reasons, this study intends to provide answers to the following questions:

a)       What are the features of Military Parade discourse?

b)      How does Parade discourse reflect the ideology of the Military institution?

c)       How is power manifested in Military Parade language?

d)      How is dominance reflected in the discourse of Military Parade? 

1.3         AIM AND OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study is to investigate how the Military parade discourse reflects the ideology and dominance of the Military institution. Hence, the objectives of the study are as follow:

a)       To identify and document the features of Military Parade discourse.

b)      To explain the reflection of ideology in the Military Parade discourse.

c)       To explain the manifestation of power in Military Parade discourse and 

d)      To explicate the reflection of   dominance in Military Parade discourse.

1.4          SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This study is restricted to a CDA on passing out parade (POP) discourse.  The choice of POP for this thesis is because it is the parade that is always displayed at the graduation of soldiers in Military schools after several years of training.  It demonstrates that the soldiers have been fully integrated into the discourse community. Hence, the study will explore all parts of CDA relevant to the subject matter. This study covers all relevant parts of CDA and military parade discourse with little reference to other necessary areas of linguistics.

1.5         JUSTIFICATION FOR THE STUDY

Most linguistic researches on Military language are done using Pragmatics, Sociolinguistics, Stylistics and Semiotics as areas that can divulge the intrinsic nature of the discourse while CDA approach has not been employed to the study of military parade discourse to the best of my knowledge. Hence, applying the CDA approach to analyze military parade discourse is by every means introducing a multi-disciplinary approach which is capable of illuminating the ideological contents and dominance that are embedded in the discourse. Being a multidisciplinary study, researchers and students of social sciences and humanities will benefit from this study. This is because the study will help them to understand that discourse is an integral aspect of power and control. The study upon completion will increase awareness to participants in the different discourse communities the intrinsic relationship between social practice and discourse. Finally, the study will, contribute to knowledge as a CDA material for further study.

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