This study examines the ideological orientations of discourse participants in selected print media political interviews (PMPIs) in Nigeria. Twenty political interviews were purposively selected from Vanguard and The Sun newspapers published between 2014 and 2016. The newspapers were selected because of their wide readership, accessibility, and coverage of political events. Privileging van Dijk’s socio-cognitive model of critical discourse analysis (CDA) and transitivity system of Halliday’s systemic functional grammar (SFG), the study unearths four main ideological constructions to characterise the PMPIs: nationalist, supremacist, sectionalist and constitutionalist. These ideologies are realised through discursive strategies such as lexicalisation, polarisation, self-glorification and negative other-presentation, with material, mental, existential and verbal processes. The study concludes that a linguistic study of political interviews enhances the understanding of political leaders’ political ideologies which will ultimately help to ameliorate the problem of leadership and governance in Nigeria.
Keywords: Ideology, Nigeria, Print Media, Transitivity, political interviews, socio-cognitive model
