Resistance, Dominance and Power Structures: A Lexico-Syntactic Approach to Police Assaults on Journalistsin Nigerian Newspaper Editorials

Abstract

Police violence against journalists has been a bane of postcolonial democratic experiences, manifesting
state repression against press freedom and transparency. Existing studies have largely documented physical
assaults with less attention paid to how such incidents are lexico-syntactically represented in the editorial
discourse of Nigerian newspapers. This study, therefore, investigated lexico-syntactic choices in editorial
texts in Nigerian newspapers with a view to examining how language is used to resist, reinforce, or obscure
dominant power structures.
Fairclough’s (1995) model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), complemented with that of van Dijk’s
(1998), serves as the theoretical framework, analysing editorial excerpts from The Punch, The Guardian,
Vanguard, and Daily Trust
Lexical choices such as evaluative adjectives, agent labels and syntactic structures of voice, modality, and
agency assignment reflect and negotiate power relations, institutional ideologies, and press-state dynamics.
The Punch adopts a confrontational stance, employing morally charged vocabulary, active voice, and highmodality
expressions to resist state violence and legitimise journalistic authority. The Guardian, while
critical, moderates its language, balancing critique with institutional respect and favouring reformist
discourse. In contrast, Vanguard and Daily Trust utilise passive constructions, euphemisms, and weak or
cautious modality to obscure agency, minimize conflict, and maintain ideological alignment with statetolerant
or conservative discourses. It is demonstrated that editorial texts function as ideological
instruments, subtly shaping public perception through linguistic framing.
Lexico-syntactic choices are shown not merely as stylistic preferences but as strategic tools for negotiating
authority, legitimacy, and resistance within Nigeria’s fraught media landscape. These underscore the
Issues in Language and Literary Studies, Vol 12, Number 1, December 2025
Department of English, Faculty of Humanities, Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo.