Legitimizing Political Choices through Tropes: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Dauda Abdullah Rarara’s Political Songs

This study examines the power of tropes in legitimizing political choices. It focuses on Dauda Abdullahi Rarara’s political songs. Fairclough’s Three Dimensional Model was adopted in the analysis of the data of the study. The theory fits the analysis as it guarantees analyzing relationship between language, power, and ideology in social and political contexts. This relationship can be examined by looking at the speakers’ lexical choice and constructions. The analysis is done using descriptive qualitative research method. Specifically, the paper studies two songs of Rarara paying attention to strategies he employs in constructing his ideology (legitimization) through the infrastructure of tropes. To be able to bring out a sense of legitimisation from the two songs (Maimalafa YaKaraya, The Man in a Sunhat Losses Hopes, and Aminu Dabo Ubangayya, Aminu Dabo, the Pendragon), six excerpts were purposively culled and analysed and arrived at interpretations. One of the findings reveals that Rarara, as one of the foremost voices in the political rendition in northern Nigeria is endowed with linguistic power to articulate his ideologies creatively. Another finding authenticates that the singer often leverages on tropes of different categories to achieve his goals. For positive self-representation or legitimisation of choices, positive metaphors, hyperboles, euphemisms are often used; while innuendos and rhetoric questions are basically used for negative representation or condemnation. It is also established that apart from tropes, other linguistic devices – adjective and verbs play immeasurable roles in framing legitimisation of preference.

Keywords: CDA Tropes Songs Legitimization Choices

Authors

• Dan’Azumi Abdu
  Department of English
  Federal University Dutsin-Ma, Katsina State
  abdudnazumi@gmail.com
• S. A. Abaya
  Department of English and Literary Studies,
  Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Kaduna State
• Muhammed Halima Samaila
  Department of English and Literary Studies,
  Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Kaduna State