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ABSTRACT
This study examines how Nyesom Wike, the former governor of Rivers State, Nigeria, uses actor description and argumentation as aspects of critical discourse analysis in his political speeches. The data consists of five speeches delivered by the governor during the 2023 general elections, from September 2022 to January 2023. The study adopts van Dijk’s sociocognitive approach as the theoretical framework and analyses how Wike portrays himself and his opponents in terms of their identities, labels, roles, actions, and evaluations. The study also analyses how Wike constructs and supports his arguments in terms of their narratives and comparisons to enhance credibility. The findings reveal that the governor employs three strategies of actor description (labelling, identification and evaluation) and three strategies of argumentation (narrativisation, evaluation and comparison) to manipulate his audience and advance his political agenda. The study therefore concludes that language is a tool used by politicians to express their ideology, influence the public and reveal their intentions.
