A Critical Stylistic Analysis Of Selected Court Rulings On The 2023 Nigerian Presidential Election Petition
Auteurs : Ogungbe Ebenezer . Isiaka Balikis .
Résumé
Court ruling is an important sub-genre of legal writing. Unlike ordinary writing, it aims at a highly specialised group that uses a specialised vocabulary, containing both unusual and common terms imbued with technical meanings. While previous critical discourse analyses have examined power, hegemony and ideologies, legal studies have focused on jurisprudence. There have not been much efforts on critical stylistic analysis of stylistic devices of naming, describing and assuming to construct legitimacy and influence public trust in the judicial system. In an attempt to fill the gap from the existing research, this study attempts a critical stylistic analysis of naming, describing, implying and assuming in the selected court rulings on the 2023 Nigerian presidential election petition using the tenets of Jeffries (2010) critical stylistic tools. The data were sourced from the rulings downloaded from the court’s website online and analysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Findings from the data reveal that, the critical stylistic tools of naming and describing and assuming and implying are powerful devices for deconstructing the text. These features characterise the court ruling because of the need to ensure extreme precision, clarity of information and all-inclusiveness so as to minimise the risk of misinterpretation. The study concludes that the deployment of the critical stylistic tools for the analysis of the court rulings through the exploration of its unique language style has unraveled elements of ideology beneath the document.
Mots clés
Stylistics ; Critical Stylistics ; Legal discourse ; Court rulings ; Ideology
