Mobilizing Indigenous Languages for Democracy in Nigeria: a Discursive

Mobilizing Indigenous Languages for Democracy in 1 Nigeria: A Discursive and Sociolinguistic Critique DOI: 10.36108/NJSA/2102/01(0130) Benson Eluma Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique (IFRA) Institute of African Studies University of Ibadan, Nigeria & Yinka Olarinmoye Department of Sociology Lagos State University Ojo, Lagos, Nigeria Vol. 10 Issue 1, 2012 Abstract For democracy to become the political culture in Nigeria, the discourse of politics has to be conducted through expressive mechanisms owned by the people. In the absence of popular ownership of political language, the road to disconnect, apathy and disenfranchisement lies wide open. We take the view that the problem of politics is located squarely in the public sphere and that discourse is the activity that characterizes the public sphere. We raise the point that the sociolinguistic environment in the country does not encourage whole masses of Nigerians to talk politics in languages in which they can freely articulate their positions and present their aspirations. We posit that citizens are disenfranchised and rendered inaudible and invisible to the extent to which they cannot undertake political discourse with an appreciable measure of linguistic ease. The benefits of diversity are endangered as many people and entire groups in Nigeria lose the means of expressing their political views and opinions, let alone political projects and programmes. Invoking Bakhtin’s concept of heteroglossia, we make a blanket case for the viability of each and every extant language in Nigeria for political discourse if such usage is actively promoted among their respective communities of users. Keywords: political discourse, linguistic landscape, disenfranchisement, minority languages, heteroglossia Introduction The language question is one that the Nigerian polity cannot escape, especially in its ongoing throes of navigating a passage to a political culture of robust democratic governance. Nigeria stands at a critical juncture in its historical career, and political issues are at the heart of the myriads of problems confronting its populace in every aspect of their social life-world. This paper takes the view that the problem of politics is located squarely in the public 1 We thank the anonymous reviewers for this journal for comments that led to improvement in the structure of our essay and to the clarification of certain aspects of the issues raised in it. 50 The Nigerian Journal of Sociology and Anthropology Vol. 10 50 sphere. It posits that discourse is the activity that characterizes the public sphere. This is in light of how Habermas (1989) conceives of the ideal type of public sphere as the locus of a critical forum where citizens articulate their political positions without having to ingratiate themselves with state power by letting it manufacture their consent in political projects. The process of democratization, among other things, entails the creation of discursive mechanisms for cultivating and entrenching the desired political culture. Through their ownership and use of the language of such discursive mechanisms, ordinary citizens become committed to, and adept in, the debate about the central principles of governance and political participation. In the absence of this ownership, the road to popular disconnect, apathy and disenfranchisement lies wide open. This paper critiques the Nigerian case, which can be summarized as a sociolinguistic situation where a whole multitude of languages are retrenched from the arena of political discourse, in favour of a handful of languages which are, ironically, not being adequately propped up to be of much service to the entirety of the populace in discursively engaging issues in the polity. Beyond noting the farce of the political elite who hardly use the languages of the people when it comes to doing discourse in the public sphere, we argue that the Nigerian political system is undermined and impoverished by the general lack of attention to the discursive needs of the different language groups in the country, especially groups in the rural areas where any of the ‘big’ languages cannot boast of significant purchase among the people. The point we try to raise in this paper is that the sociolinguistic environment in the country does not encourage whole masses of Nigerians to talk politics in languages in which they can freely articulate their positions and present their aspirations. We advance that citizens are disenfranchised and rendered inaudible as well as invisible to the extent to which they cannot undertake political discourse with an appreciable measure of linguistic ease. The benefits of diversity are endangered as many people and entire groups in Nigeria lose the discursive means of expressing their political views and opinions, not to talk of articulating political projects and programmes. It is in consequence of this realization that an examination of the linguistic landscape of political discourse in the country becomes necessary, especially since the Nigerian state insists on projecting itself as committed to promoting democracy in Nigerian society. From Theory to Practice: Political Language and the (In)Visible Language is implicated in the political process in more ways than one. In the literature on the concept of political culture, many scholars take for granted the central role played by 'language and the discourses attending social relations and power' in their conceptualization of politics, its principles and practices (Formisano, 2001: 395). In fact, they do so to such an extent as to warrant the objection by Formisano that such concentration on language, discourse and 'expressive mechanisms' 'comes at the expense of neglecting the material goals and consequences of power' (Formisano, 396). For instance, the cultural Mobilizing Indigenous Languages 51 51 historian, John Pocock, has made the argument that students of political culture should fasten their attention on how to utilize 'techniques for identifying and exploring the paradigmatic languages in which political discourse has been carried on' (Pocock, 1989: 35). According to theorists like Pocock, an analysis of the deep structure of political language, taken as the larger embodiment of all symbolic frames in the public sphere, lays bare the inner logic and motivation of political actors and institutions. Therefore, to dissect and interrogate the discursive practices of politics and political actors is to get down to the task of understanding any political situation at its most fundamental level. Hayakawa, for instance, gives us instances of how language is mobilized for political action both good and bad, and in the preface to Language in Thought and Action he indicates explicitly that the original version of the book was borne out of 'my conviction then, as it remains now, that we need to have a habitually critical attitude toward language—our own as well as that of others—both to provide for our personal well-being and to ensure that we function adequately as world citizens' (1990: ix). The examples of Nazi Germany and Hutu Power in Rwanda, where hate speech, in the midst of other factors, served as the galvanizer of murderous instincts carried over into political projects of mass slaughter, are eternally there to remind us of the terrible effects that can be wrought with language. And there are, of course, myriad examples of the cooption of language into projects of political emancipation and the empowerment of the oppressed. Even though we agree with Formisano that the 'material goals and consequences of power' must not be lost sight of for one minute in our reading of the political scene, we would like to emphasize that analysis of political language, of political discourse and rhetoric, goes beyond just looking at words. In this connection, we rely on the theoretical insight of Woodiwiss who postulates that 'improvements in our understanding of the nature of language have depended upon moving away from regarding words as a collection of pictures or representations of things and actions in the world and towards regarding them as part of a social apparatus for making things and actions visible or signifying them' (2001: 3). Much earlier, Tony Bennett arrived at the same conclusion in his observation that 'More recent developments in the theory of language have pulled in ... a direction ... stressing not only the independent materiality of the signifier—the "fleshiness" of the sign—but also the activity and effectivity of signification as a process which actively constructs cognitive worlds rather than simply passively reflecting a pre- existing reality' (1982: 287). This is an eminently Barthean perspective, for in the structuring of the elements of his semiological theory, Roland Barthes identifies language as the deepest layer of meaning-making 'where the sociological significance is more than superficial'. He goes on to proclaim thus: 52 The Nigerian Journal of Sociology and Anthropology Vol. 10 52 It is true that objects, images and patterns of behaviour can signify, and do so on a large scale, but never autonomously; every semiological system has its linguistic admixture. Where there is a visual substance, for example, the meaning is confirmed by being duplicated in a linguistic message... there is no meaning which is not designated, and the world of signifieds is none other than that of language. (Barthes, 1968: 10) We posit that the political system is, inter alia, a linguistic system by means of which meaning is made of the theory and practice of both power and governance in a given society. Its signifieds are fully embodied in language. Specifically, they are embodied in the language used for articulating and indicating the elements, processes, principles and institutions of the political system. For the full sociological import of the political system to be within the grasp of the people, it seems evident that it has to be conducted in a language that is always socialized, even at the individual level, for in speaking to somebody one always tries to speak more or less the other's language, especially as far as the vocabulary is concerned ("private property in the sphere of language does not exist")...

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