Abstract
This paper investigates the representation of social actors in news reports on economic and financial crimes in four Nigerian newspapers: Punch, The Guardian, The Nation and ThisDay. Theo van Leeuwen’s socio-semantic inventory for the representation of social actors and Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) served as the theoretical framework. Five socio-semantic categories were applied in the news reports: functionalisation, backgrounding and suppression, activation and passivation, personalisation and impersonalisation and nomination and categorisation. Only the accused were both nominated and categorised. They were nominated when the reference is to people of high status and categorised when the reference is to ordinary or middle-class people. All the other social actors were nominated because of their roles in the fight against economic and financial crimes. The study shows that language is a medium for hidden meaning in the reportage of economic and financial crimes.
Keywords
Introduction
Representation is concerned with allocating meanings to groups and their social practices, events, social and ecological conditions and objects through language use in text or talk (Fairclough, 1989, 1995; van Dijk, 2002). Hall (1997) defines representation as the process of producing meaning through language. This presupposes that meaning is construed by linguistic representation (Fairclough, 1992; Halliday, 1990). Linguistic interpretations shape the way we perceive reality and so have the potential to influence social practice. The representation of social actors indicates how individuals and groups are portrayed in discourse and how they are endowed or attributed with agency through various discursive elements (Bennett et al., 2013).
The media play a vital role in informing the public about happenings in the world (Sunday and Fagunleka, 2017). In situations where the public does not possess direct knowledge of what is happening, they rely on the media for information. The representations given to the actors involved in events or happenings by the media are absorbed by the people rather than the actual happenings. The media’s use of language therefore plays an important function in shaping issues and setting limits of discourse in society (Henry and Tator, 2002). How social actors involved in economic and financial crimes are presented by the Nigerian media can influence not only the people’s perception and understanding of these crimes but also their beliefs, attitudes and ideologies about this negative social practice.
The subject of economic and financial crimes has been investigated by Nigerian scholars from different fields in the social sciences. These include Adegbie and Fakile (2012), Nwogwugwu and Uzoechina (2015), Akindele (2005) and Mohammed (2012). The motivation for research on economic and financial crimes in these disciplines is related to the effects and impact of these crimes on governance and national development. A few studies have been conducted in the area of linguistic study of financial corruption. Orpin (2005) conducts a study of words that are semantically related to financial corruption. Mele and Bello (2007) examine the corrupt practices and exchanges between drivers and security personnel manning checkpoints on the roads. Also, Agu (2015) investigates the language and style of newspaper reportage on the theme of financial corruption. These studies are limited to lexical, semantic and stylistic studies of a number of financially corrupt practices such as extortion and misappropriation of funds.
Furthermore, many studies have been conducted on the linguistic representation of social actors in various socio-political discourses in the print media such as militancy (Chiluwa, 2011); conflict (Kheirabadi and Moghaddam, 2012); insurgency (Ayoola and Olaosun, 2014); elections (Osisanwo, 2016; Asiru et al., 2018); divorce cases (Osisanwo and Oluwayemi, 2018); protests (Osisanwo and Iyoha, 2020); and gender (Jonah and Nnanyelugo, 2020). However, the linguistic representation of social actors in a socio-economic discourse, such as economic and financial crimes, especially in Nigerian newspapers, has received little attention. This paper, therefore, examines how social actors are portrayed in newspaper reports on economic and financial crimes through the use of various discursive features using van Leeuwen’s socio-semantic inventory for the representation of social actors (van Leeuwen, 2008) and the Transitivity System of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as theoretical framework. The transitivity system is useful for the allocation of roles to the social actors in the news reports.
Economic and financial crimes
Economic crimes refer to human activities that pertain to violating the economic laws of a country or illegal and immoral acts with negative economic consequences that are punishable by law (Ribadu, 2004). Financial crimes involve the illegal conversion of another person’s property to one’s personal use and advantage (Eiya and Otalor, 2013). Financial and economic crimes are universal and many countries are making efforts to fight them. Section 46, Part VI of the EFCC Establishment Act (2004), which confers on the Commission the power to combat economic crimes, defines economic and financial crimes as: the non-violent criminal and illicit activity committed to earning wealth illegally either individually or in a group or organised manner thereby violating existing legislation governing the economic activities of the government and its administration and includes any form of fraud, narcotic drug trafficking, money laundering, embezzlement, bribery, looting and any form of corrupt malpractices, illegal arms deal, smuggling, human trafficking and child labour, illegal oil bunkering and illegal mining, tax evasion, foreign exchange malpractices including counterfeiting of currency, theft of intellectual property and piracy, open market abuse, dumping of toxic waste and prohibited goods etc.
Financial crimes include embezzlement, theft of state funds and abuse of legitimate authority for extortion. Huge amounts of money that cannot be explained as legitimate income are stolen or siphoned and are stashed away in foreign banks regarded as safe havens. The perpetrators hardly see themselves as committing criminal offences. They see themselves and are seen by society as sharp, fast, intelligent and crafty citizens who have been able to maximally and beneficially exploit the available economic opportunities (Ubeku, 1991).
In consonance with Article 8 of the United Nations Convention against Corruption, Nigeria enacted some laws which authenticated its commitment to the war against corruption. They include the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act (2000) and the EFCC Establishment Act (2004). The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act Commission (ICPC) was established in September 1999 and the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act was enacted in 2000. The ICPC was established to prohibit and recommend punishment for corruption, fraud, embezzlement, bribery and forgery committed by individuals and corporate organisations either in the public or private sector (Okogbule, 2006; Raimi et al., 2013). Following the persistence of the menace of corruption and the pressure from the Financial Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was inaugurated in 2003 but began operations in 2004. The mandate of the EFCC is to investigate financial crimes such as fraud and money laundering. The legal instrument backing the commission is the EFCC Establishment Act 2004 (Ezeani, 2012).
The media and economic and financial crimes in Nigeria
With the emergence of the Muhammadu Buhari administration in 2015, issues that have to do with financial corruption became prominent in the media, probably because top on the agenda of the Buhari administration was fighting graft. There have been revelations in the news of how public funds meant for the development of basic infrastructure were misappropriated or squandered. The public depends on the media to get informed of these crimes and what the government is doing to punish the culprits and recover the loot.
Through investigative reportage, the media have made it easy to uncover the obnoxious practices of public officials and the extent of the damage that is being caused by economic and financial crimes on the nation’s economy. Through the use of language, the media has been able to play its role as an essential tool of social reform and change. This role is hinged on the crucial and fundamental functions of educating and informing the public of social issues, in this instance, the social practice of economic and financial crimes.
In Nigeria, issues relating to corruption, particularly economic and financial corruption, are usually celebrated as ‘breaking news’ in the media. Such news is sensationalised with newspapers carrying banner headlines while government and private television and radio stations report them as major news items (Soola, 2007), especially at the point of arrest of the suspects. However, the public is unaware of what happens afterwards, as little or no update is provided by the media on the trial, conviction, discharge or acquittal of the suspects. Thus, the scope of knowledge of the Nigerian public as far as corruption-related issues are concerned is determined by the media.
Theoretical framework
Data analysis was based on van Leeuwen’s (2008) socio-semantic inventory for the representation of social actors and the Transitivity System of Halliday’s (1985; 1994) Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The van Leeuwen ‘socio-semantic’ model is concerned with the semantic resources of discourse for representing social practices and social meanings of texts (Eggins, 2004). The model is a socio-semiotic system of the ways social actors can be represented (van Leeuwen, 2008). It establishes the sociological relevance of the categories of representation before addressing the linguistic realisations, thus placing sociological categories before linguistic categories. This is attributed to two reasons. The first one is the lack of bi-uniqueness in language, that is, sociological agency is not always realised by linguistic agency. The second reason is based on the assumption that meaning belongs to culture rather than to language and so cannot be tied to any specific semiotic. Representational choices are therefore linked with specific linguistic realisations. Social actors are represented as participants in clauses (Baker and Ellece, 2011).
The socio-semantic network involves three major types of transformations: deletion, rearrangement and substitution (van Leeuwen, 2008). These are the changes that the elements of a social practice undergo through discourse. In discourse, social actors can be included or excluded. Included participants are represented in many ways. They can be activated or passivated, impersonalised or personalised. Excluded participants may be backgrounded or suppressed. By making distinct the different ways in which social actors, their actions and purposes are represented in texts, van Leeuwen (2008) seeks to analyse how specific discourses validate some of these actors, practices and intentions rather than others.
The transitivity system views the grammar of the clause as representation (Eggins, 2004; Sunday and Ofoegbu, 2019). Through it, participants and social actors in texts can be analysed and connected to social practice. As a tool of grammatical analysis, transitivity helps to uncover the naturalised allocation of roles and actions in texts and identify patterns of choices in representation, that is who is represented as the doer or sayer and to whom is the role directed? Which events are represented without doers through the use of linguistic features, such as passivation or nominalisation? It is the clause structure that reveals who is the subject (agent/doer), object (affected/patient) or beneficiary (Fairclough, 1995; Halliday, 1985; van Leeuwen, 2008).
Processes are the core of transitivity and are realised by verbal groups. Participants and circumstances are determined by the doings, happenings, feelings and beings (Eggins, 2004; Gerot and Wignell, 1995). The transitivity model is composed of six processes: material, mental, relational, behavioural, verbal and existential. The material process is concerned with the process of doing. The mental process provides knowledge about the goings-on in people’s consciousness (Mehmood et al., 2014). The relational process is related to the process of being (Halliday, 1994). Behavioural process is the process of physiological and psychological behaviour, like breathing, coughing, smiling, dreaming and staring. The verbal process is the process of saying. The existential process represents the fact that something happens or exists (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014; Sunday and Ofoegbu, 2019). The roles of social actors are made prominent by transitivity structures in which social actors are coded as Actor in a material process, Behaver in a behavioural process, Senser in a mental process, Carrier in a relational process (Bloor and Bloor, 1995), Existent in existential process or as Sayer in a verbal process (Halliday, 1985).
Methodological details
The data for the study were sourced from editions of four Nigerian national newspapers, namely The Nation, The Guardian, The Punch and ThisDay. The four newspapers were purposively selected out of the top ten tier-A Nigerian newspapers (Chigozie, 2018) based on readership (Ikenwa, 2019). The study was restricted to hard news reports on economic and financial crimes investigated between May 29, 2015 and December 2017. This period marked the time when there was a change of regime and there was intense media attention and coverage of issues on economic and financial crimes. Thirty news reports, from a total of hundred sampled news reports, were randomly selected for this study. The sampled news reports were on the various types of economic and financial crimes in Nigeria, such as fraud, currency scams, advance fee fraud, embezzlement, criminal conspiracy, money laundering, stealing, bribery and Internet fraud. The reports also focused on the prosecution of these crimes in Nigeria by the EFCC. The choice of the excerpts was based on their suitability for supporting and giving credibility to the ideas and arguments enumerated in the paper.
Data presentation and analysis
The main social actors identified in the sampled reports are the EFCC, the accused or suspect, the judge, the prosecution counsel, the defence counsel and the court. Other social actors in the news reports are the Government, petitioners, whistleblowers, witnesses, sureties, political supporters, the people, the police, observers, family members, the media and media sources.
In the analysis of the representation of social actors in news reports on economic and financial crimes, five elements from van Leeuwen’s framework were applied. They are backgrounding and suppression, activation and passivation, functionalisation, personalisation and impersonalisation and nomination and categorisation. They were selected because of their appearance in the news reports.
Table 1 shows the pattern of representation in the sampled news reports.
Representation of social actors in news reports on economic and financial crimes.
Source: (Fagunleka (2021).
Exclusion of social actors in economic and financial crimes reports
Representations may exclude or include social actors to suit the interests of the writer about the readers for whom they are intended (van Leeuwen, 2008). Table 1 shows the frequency of exclusion and inclusion of social actors in the sampled news reports. Exclusion refers to the omission of social actors through some linguistic mechanisms. It is subdivided into two: backgrounding and suppression. The EFCC is the most excluded social actor in the news reports. Exclusion that leaves some traces within the text where actors are excluded to serve a particular purpose or the interests of the writer is known as backgrounding, the excluded social actor is included elsewhere in the text (van Leeuwen, 2008). Grammatically, backgrounding may be realised by prepositional phrases. The EFCC is the most backgrounded social actor, as indicated in excerpts 1–3. This may be because the news writers aim to draw the readers’ attention to the suspects, the nature of their crimes or the outcome of the trial process, as indicated in excerpts 1–3.
Backgrounding
They were jailed on a 16-count charge of conspiracy, forgery, theft and criminal breach of trust brought against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). (The Nation, Fri. Aug. 7, 2015)
Excerpt 1 is on the conviction of former bank workers who were jailed for economic crimes. According to Richardson (2007), prepositional phrases are useful for achieving the backgrounding of certain acts. The EFCC, which is cast in the role of prosecutor as indicated by the material process type brought (performed the action of ‘bringing’ charges against the suspect), is de-emphasised in the prepositional phrase ‘by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)’ in the latter part of the excerpt.
Two siblings, a male and a female, have been sentenced to two years in prison each for Internet fraud in Warri, Delta according to the EFCC. (The Guardian, Mon. May 15, 2017)
In the excerpt above, two siblings were jailed for two years for defrauding foreigners through Internet scams. The EFCC is made to be less prominent in the phrase, ‘according to the EFCC’. The fact of conviction is expressed in the first part of the excerpt, which is the dominant clause, while the latter part of the excerpt backgrounds the EFCC as the one who supplies the details of the conviction.
He was found guilty of the corruption charges brought against him in September by the EFCC. (ThisDay, Tues. Mar. 7, 2017)
A former State Governor convicted of violating the Public Procurement Act by awarding contracts for the procurement of vehicles without following due process is convicted and jailed for five years without a possibility of a fine, as seen in Excerpt 3. The EFCC is backgrounded here in the role of bringing charges against the accused as indicated by the material process, ‘brought.’
Suppression
Suppression refers to exclusion that does not leave any trace within the text. This means that the relevant actions are included, but the social actors involved are left out and are not referred to anywhere in the text. It can be realised through passive agent deletion and also through non-finite clauses functioning as grammatical participants (van Leeuwen, 2008). In the news reports, the EFCC is the most suppressed social actor, as shown in Excerpts 4–5. The exclusion of the anti-graft agency in some of the news reports suggests that the media wants the focus of the reader to be on the prosecution of the suspect(s).
The former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd) and four others were yesterday arraigned before the Federal Capital Territory High Court on a 19-count charge bordering on money laundering and criminal breach of trust. (ThisDay, Tues. Dec. 15, 2015)
Excerpt 4 is on the trial of a former National Security Adviser and four other people for money laundering and criminal breach of trust. The EFCC, the agent or actor that is responsible for prosecuting them as indicated by the material process arraigned, is completely excluded and is therefore suppressed.
They were slammed with a 37-count charge of conspiracy, money laundering and abuse of office. (The Nation, Sat. July 11, 2015)
Similarly, the EFCC is completely excluded in Excerpt 5 which is on the trial of a former governor and his aides who have been charged with conspiracy, money laundering and abuse of office. There is no reference to the anti-graft agency, which is responsible for the action of accusing the suspects, as shown by the material process slammed, in the text. In excerpts 4–5, suppression is realised through passive agent deletion.
Inclusion of social actors in economic and financial crimes reports
Included participants are represented in different ways. They can be activated or passivated, impersonalised or personalised. When they are personalised, they can be determined or indetermined, genericised or specified. Determined social actors can be nominated or functionalised (van Leeuwen, 2008).
Activation and passivation
Representations may be in the form of reallocation of roles or rearrangement of social relations between social actors who can be attributed with active or passive roles. Activation refers to the representation of social actors as the active, dynamic forces in an activity. In the case of passivation, social actors are represented as being subjected to an activity or as the recipient of an activity (van Leeuwen, 2008). Activation is realised by participation (grammatical participant roles), that is the active role of the social actor in focus is made prominent by transitivity structures in which social actors are coded as Actor in a material process, as seen in Excerpts 6–7 or as Sayer in a verbal process, as indicated in Excerpts 8–10 (van Leeuwen, 2008). In the sampled news reports, the EFCC is the most activated social actor, with 25%.
Yahaya diverted funds of the company. . .and padded them into staff salaries. (ThisDay, Thurs. Aug. 3, 2016)
In Excerpt 6, the suspect is activated in relation to the commission of economic crimes. The suspect, represented by a top government official, is the Actor of the material process diverted. He is activated in relation to the process of diverting a huge amount of his company’s money for personal use while presenting such as payment for staff salaries.
The EFCC has. . . arraigned a former Director-General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency. . . for an alleged fraud of ₦8.5bn. (Punch, Sun. June 4, 2016)
In Excerpt 7, the EFCC is active in the role of arraigning a former Head of the Nigerian Maritime Agency and three others for allegedly swindling the agency of ₦8.5bn.
On Tuesday, Justice Mohammed Yunusa of the Federal High Court, Lagos ordered the forfeiture of multi-billion naira assets allegedly belonging to him. (The Guardian, Fri. July 10, 2015)
Excerpt 8 portrays the Judge in the active role of Sayer of the verbal process ordered. He is activated in pronouncing the penalty of forfeiture of multi-billion naira assets for the crime of converting state funds to personal use by a former governor.
The leader of the prosecution defence. . . lamented that the defence counsel’s cross-examination of the witnesses was ambiguous as it went outside the statement made by Ennah and was admitted by the court as exhibit. (Punch, Thurs. Oct. 26, 2017)
The prosecution counsel, as Sayer of the verbal process lamented, is activated with regard to proving that the suspect committed the crime. In Excerpt 9, two witnesses were presented for cross-examination in a currency fraud case. The prosecution counsel is activated in relation to the process of lamenting how the defence counsel was cross-examining one of the witnesses by describing it as ambiguous.
The defence lawyers. . . applied orally to the court to release their clients on bail. (The Nation, Tues. July 14, 2015)
The defence counsel is activated with regard to being an advocate for the suspect. The suspects in Excerpt 10 were arraigned for conspiracy, advance fee fraud and money laundering. The defence lawyers are represented as active in the oral application for bail on behalf of the suspects (their clients).
Activation can also be realised through the use of prepositional circumstantials, such as ‘by’ or ‘from’. The activated social actor in Excerpt 11 is indicated by the preposition ‘by’.
Former Adamawa State governor, Murtala Nyako, his son, Abdulaziz (a serving Senator) and two of the ex-governor’s aides have been granted bail by the Federal High Court in Abuja. (ThisDay, Sat. July 11, 2015)
The court is usually activated in ensuring that laws are adhered to strictly in a criminal trial. In the circumstance of the trial of a former governor, his son and two aides for conspiracy, money laundering and abuse of office in Excerpt 11, the court is activated in relation to granting the suspects bail, as indicated by the material process granted. The act of granting or refusing bail in trial proceedings is purely a discretionary matter in the hands of the court (Eigege, 2018) and is dependent on the nature and seriousness of the offence.
Possessive pronouns, such as ‘my’ and ‘our’, can also be used to activate a social actor; this is known as possessivisation. It occurs when social actors become the possession of others (van Leeuwen, 2008), as shown in Excerpt 12:
Our people need food, shelter, security, roads, water and so forth. (The Nation, Thurs. June 11, 2015)
In the excerpt above, a former governor was asked to return public funds that had been misappropriated during his tenure. The possessive pronoun, ’our’ portrays ‘the people’ as the possession of those in government while the people are activated in terms of ‘needing’, as shown by the mental process need. This suggests that it is the duty of the government to provide the basic needs of the people, such as shelter, security, roads and potable water and these can only be done when public funds are judiciously spent. In Nigeria, however, economic and financial corruption has deprived the people of access to basic amenities. Funds allocated for social infrastructure are often diverted to personal use.
In the case of passivation, social actors can be subjected or beneficialised. While subjected social actors are presented as objects in representation, beneficialised social actors benefit positively or negatively from an activity (van Leeuwen, 2008). Subjection can also be realised by participation, where the passivated social actor is represented as Goal in a material process, Phenomenon in a mental process and Carrier in an attributive process (van Leeuwen, 2008). Table 2 shows the allocation of roles to the main social actors in the news reports. In the sampled news reports, the suspect and the court are more passivated than activated. The suspect is the most subjected (69.9%) and also the most beneficialised social actor (80%).
Role allocation in the news reports on economic and financial crimes.
Source: Field Survey (2023).
In Excerpts 13–16, subjection of the suspect and the court is realised through participation.
The ex-minister is expected to account for over ₦3.050 billion including ₦1.1billion being part of the funds in the account of the ONSA and an aggregate sum of ₦1,950.000 belonging to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which sum was transferred to Jabbama Ada Global Services. (The Nation, Sun. Dec.11, 2015)
Excerpt 13 is from a report on the confession of a former Finance Minister being investigated for diversion of funds. Here, the suspect is represented as the Phenomenon of the mental process, ‘is expected’ and is subjected to the action of expecting. The EFCC expects the suspect to give a record of public funds in his custody that were misappropriated.
Agih urged the court to grant the accused persons bail on liberal terms. (ThisDay, Wed. July 15, 2015)
The court is subjected to the action of urging in the excerpt above by the defence counsel. It is represented as the recipient of the verbal process, ‘urged’. The defence counsel seeks to persuade the court to release the suspects who were being tried for misappropriation of funds on bail.
Ikani (prosecution counsel) urged the court to refuse the application or grant the defendant bail on very stringent conditions. (Punch, Thurs. May 11, 2017)
Similarly, in Excerpt 15, the court, which is represented as the Recipient of the verbal process urge, is also subjected to the action of ‘urging’, in this case by the prosecution counsel. The prosecution wants the court to decline the accused, who was being tried for receiving gratification and making false declarations of some of his properties, bail.
The suspect is the most beneficialised social actor. It is passivated with regard to being granted bail by the court, as shown in Excerpt 16.
Former Adamawa State governor, Murtala Nyako, his son, Abdulaziz (a serving Senator) and two of the ex-governor’s aides have been granted bail by the Federal High Court in Abuja. (ThisDay, Sat. July 11, 2015)
The suspect is beneficialised in relation to being granted bail. In the Nigerian legal system, the concept of bail is vital; an accused person is regarded as innocent until proven guilty by a court of law. Bail is thus the right of an accused person; he or she has the right to be freed and allowed to appear in court while his/her case is being heard (Eigege, 2018).
Functionalisation
Functionalisation has to do with the representation of social actors in terms of their occupation or role. It is realised in the following ways: by the formation of nouns from verbs; by a noun or compound noun indicating a place, location or an instrument closely associated with an activity; and by highly generalised categorisations (van Leeuwen, 2008). High-profile social actors, such as the government and experts, are always functionalised. In the news reports, the suspect is the most functionalised social actor. Economic and financial crimes are usually perpetrated by people of high social status in the course of their occupation (Sutherland, 1949). They often have control over resources owing to their professional status or specialised technical skills. The goal is the accumulation of financial gains. In the sampled news reports, the social actor (suspect) is functionalised, that is, represented in the news reports through his/her occupation or role in society as seen in Excerpts 18–20.
The case involving a former governor of Bayelsa state, Timipre Sylva being prosecuted by the EFCC on a fresh 50-count charge bordering on stealing and money laundering came up for mention yesterday. (The Guardian, Fri. June 26, 2015)
In Excerpt 18, the suspect is represented as a former Governor of Bayelsa State. In Nigeria, a governor conducts the affairs of the executive arm of government at the state level, the second tier of government. Functionalisation is realised here through noun formation, that is with the addition of the suffix ‘-or’ to the verb, ‘govern’.
The EFCC arraigned three Central Bank of Nigeria officials and five employees of First Bank Plc over the alleged scam. (The Nation, Wed. June 3, 2015)
The suspect in the excerpt above refers to bank officials involved in a currency scam. Functionalisation is indicated by nouns that connote places closely associated with the occupation of the suspect: ‘Central Bank of Nigeria’ and ‘First Bank Plc’.
The EFCC arraigned two businessmen at the Federal High Court over alleged financial fraud. (The Guardian, Oct. 10, 2017)
Functionalisation is conveyed in Excerpt 20 through generalised categorisation. The suspect is represented by the compound word ‘businessmen’. The type of business is not stated in the excerpt.
Nomination and categorisation
Representation of social actors in terms of their specific identities is known as nomination. It is realised by proper nouns which can be formal (surname only, with or without honorifics), semi-formal (given name and surname) or informal (given name only). Nominations may be titled, either in the form of honorifics, standard titles or ranks. It may also be in the form of affiliations or the addition of a personal or kinship term (van Leeuwen, 2008). Nominated participants play important roles in the reports. Representation in terms of the identity and functions that social actors share with others is described as categorisation.
The prominent social actors identified in the news reports (the EFCC, the suspect, the Judge, the prosecution counsel, the defence counsel and the court) are usually nominated, as seen in Excerpts 21–27. They may have been nominated because of the roles allotted to them in the news reports. The determination of who these actors are may contribute to the validity of the reported events, as proper names can be used to verify facts.
Justice Gabriel Kolawole ordered their release shortly after the accused persons were arraigned by the EFCC on a 24-count charge of money laundering and others. (The Guardian, Tues. July 14, 2015)
The social actor, Judge, is nominated in Excerpt 21. Nomination is realised by the use of a title (Justice) and proper nouns which are semi-formal –given name and surname (Gabriel Kolawole). His identity is thus made very clear as the one who ordered the release of the suspects arraigned for money laundering and other crimes in the excerpt above.
A Federal High Court in Ibadan, Oyo state, yesterday refused bail to 10 bank workers standing trial for appropriating ₦8 billion mutilated bank notes. (ThisDay, Sat. June 20, 2015)
In Excerpt 22, nomination is achieved through the use of a proper noun indicating the specific location of the social actor ‘court’. It distinguishes the Federal High Court in the specified location from the others. It helps the reader to identify the particular High Court where the suspects in the excerpt (bank workers) were being tried.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday narrated how former Adamawa State governor Murtala Nyako, his son, Abdulaziz (a serving senator), and two of the ex-governor’s aides allegedly looted billions of public funds. (The Nation, Sat. July 11, 2015)
The EFCC is nominated as the actor that gives information about how the suspects in Excerpt 23 looted billions of public funds. The anti-corruption agency is nominated by the use of its full name and its acronym. There is therefore no ambiguity about the identity of the prosecutor. The first suspect is nominated in a semi-formal manner through the use of title + given name + surname (Governor Murtala Nyako) while the second suspect is identified in an informal way: given name only (Abdulaziz).
The leader of the prosecution defence, Tayo Olukotun, lamented that the defence counsel’s cross-examination of the witnesses was ambiguous. (Punch, Thurs. Oct. 26, 2017)
The prosecution counsel is nominated in Excerpt 24 in an informal way, with the use of given name and surname (Tayo Olukotun). He is foregrounded as the leader of the prosecution defence.
Shortly after the defendants took their pleas, their lawyer, Mr Mamman Usman (SAN), moved their bail applications. (Punch, Wed. May 17, 2017)
In Excerpt 25, the defence counsel is also nominated in an informal way: Title + given name + surname (Mr Mamman Yusuf).
When social actors are classified according to the roles or ideas they share with other group members, they are said to be categorised (van Leeuwen, 2008). In the news reports, the social actor ‘suspect’ is both nominated and categorised. It is nominated when it refers to people of high status, as in Excerpt 26, where it refers to a former Head of the Civil Service. It is categorised when it refers to ordinary or middle-class people, as in Excerpt 27, where it refers to bank workers/officials.
Oronsaye is alleged to have been complicit in several contract awards between 2010 and 2011 during his tenure as Head of Service. (The Guardian, Tues. July 14, 2015)
The identity of the suspect is foregrounded in Excerpt 26. He is nominated in a formal way by the use of his surname. He is alleged to have been involved in many contract awards during the period in which he served as the Head of the nation’s civil service.
A Federal High Court in Ibadan, Oyo state, yesterday refused bail to 10 bank workers standing trial for appropriating ₦8 billion mutilated bank notes. (ThisDay, Sat. June 20, 2015)
In the excerpt above, the social actor is represented by ‘10 bank workers’. A group of bank workers is being prosecuted for appropriating mutilated bank notes for their personal use. The social actors are said to be categorised because they share the same identity as ‘suspects’ in the news report, having been indicted of the same crime.
Personalisation and impersonalisation
Social actors can be personalised (van Leeuwen, 2008), that is they can be given human qualities. This can be done through the use of proper names, nouns and humanising adjectives. All the aforementioned categories of social actors are represented as possessing human qualities. In the case of impersonalisation, social actors can be represented as dehumanised and objectivated. Impersonalisation can be used to make an official statement or to conceal the actual source of information. Impersonalisation can be carried out through abstraction and objectivation. Abstraction occurs when social actors are represented by means of a quality assigned to them. Social actors are objectivated when they are represented by means of reference to a place or thing closely associated with their person or the activity they are represented as being engaged in, that is, through metonymical reference.
There are different types of objectivation: if social actors are represented by a place associated with them, it is called spatialisation; utterance autonominisation occurs if they are represented by their utterance, saying or writing; instrumentialisation occurs if they are represented by their instrument or tool of action; representation by a part of their body is called somatisation (van Leeuwen, 2008). Two of these, spatialisation and utterance autonominisation, are identified in the news reports, as shown in Excerpts 28–29.
Spatialisation
The office of the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), for example, was given ₦600 million. (The Nation, Thurs. June 11, 2015)
The excerpt above is about a former governor who allegedly misappropriated money that he took as a loan on behalf of the people. The money was shared by the governor and his officials. Here, the Secretary to the State Government is objectivated. He is backgrounded and represented by a reference to his office. This suggests that a share of the loot was allotted to him through his office.
Utterance autonominisation
The statement added that the administration had prioritised the needs of the people, stressing that such looted but recovered funds would be expended on projects. (The Nation, Thurs. June 11, 2015)
Excerpt 29 is taken from a news report on the misappropriation of funds by a former governor. ‘The statement’ refers to the utterance of the Chief Press Secretary to the incumbent Governor on recovered funds, reiterating that such funds will be spent on the provision of infrastructure for the people. He is represented by the reference to his utterance. This gives a kind of formal authority to the utterance. This form of objectivation is often found in the utterances of high-profile and ‘official’ spokespersons.
Conclusion
This paper has discussed the representation of social actors in news reports on economic and financial crimes in Nigerian newspapers. Theo van Leeuwen’s (2008) socio-semantic inventory for the representation of social actors and the Transitivity System of M. A. K. Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) served as the theoretical framework. The van Leeuwen socio-semantic network brings together grammatical and discourse-level linguistic elements, transitivity and the nominal group in the realisation of social actors. The framework provides the resources for a systematic textual analysis of concrete discursive events. The model, which is a socio-semiotic system of the ways social actors can be represented places sociological relevance of the categories of representation above linguistic realisations. It posits that sociological agency is not always realised by linguistic agency. This is because meaning belongs to culture rather than to language and so cannot be tied to any specific semiotic. Social actors are represented based on sociological relevance and not just linguistic agency. Meanings are decoded according to social interpretations and these are transmitted through the instrumentality of language.
The social actors in the news reports on economic and financial crimes are represented through inclusion and exclusion. Excluded social actors are either backgrounded (that is deemphasised) or suppressed (that is they are omitted from the texts completely). News writers often exclude social actors in ways that suit their purposes. Included social actors are usually foregrounded in the news reports to draw attention to their actions. Representational choices may be linked with specific linguistic realisations. At the grammatical level, while exclusion may be realised through the use of prepositional phrases, passive agent deletion or non-finite clauses, inclusion is realised through transitivity structures, prepositions and possessive pronouns. However, representations can also be realised in other ways. Social actors can be represented in terms of their functions (occupation, status, role and position) and identity. They may also be personalised, objectivated or dehumanised.
In the analysis of the representation of social actors in news reports on economic and financial crimes, the EFCC is the most excluded social actor. The exclusion of the anti-graft agency in some of the news reports suggests that the media wants to draw the attention of the reader to the suspect(s), the crimes that have been committed and the trial process. In terms of inclusion, roles are allocated to the social actors. The EFCC is the most activated social actor, with 25%. This may be because it is responsible for the interrogation, arrest and arraignment of the suspect. In terms of passivation, the suspect is the most subjected (69.9%) social actor and is the goal of the process types initiated by the EFCC, the Judge, the court, the defence counsel and the prosecuting counsel. The suspect is also the most beneficialised social actor (80%). It is beneficialised in terms of being granted bail by the Judge or court.
In terms of functionalisation, the suspect is the most functionalised social actor and is represented in the news reports through his/her occupation or role in society. In the news reports, the economic crimes of money laundering, conspiracy and criminal breach of trust are presented as rampant among political office holders, public officials, bankers and top civil servants. These groups of people have access to resources by virtue of their positions. All the main social actors are nominated because of the roles allotted to them in the news reports. This tends to give credibility to the reported events, as proper names can be used to verify facts. However, only the suspect is both nominated and categorised. It is nominated when the reference is to people of high status and categorised when the reference is to ordinary or middle-class people.
The findings in this paper show that language is indeed a medium for hidden meaning. Through its instrumentality, media assumptions and perspectives on the discourse of economic and financial crimes are conveyed.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.