International Journal of Social Science and Human Research ISSN (print): 2644-0679, ISSN (online): 2644-0695 Volume 07 Issue 05 May 2024 DOI: 10.47191/ijsshr/v7-i05-93, Impact factor- 7.876 Page No: 3226-3235 IJSSHR, Volume 07 Issue 05 May 2024 www.ijsshr.in Page 3226 Pragmatic Choice of Diction and Deictic Elements in Select Covid-19 Media Discourse in Nigeria Osakinle, Patrick Ayokunle 1 , Ibitoye 2 , Anthonia Folasade 3 , AF Abolarin-Egbebiola 4 1,2,3,4 Department of Languages and Communication Federal Polytechnic Ado-Ekiti Nigeria ABSTRACT: Recent scholarly works on Covid-19 media discourse and medical discourse have only focused on the use of neologisms within the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and language use that investigates communication and exchange of shared background knowledge as important factors between doctors and their patients. This paper investigates the pragmatic choice of words and the various contexts in which deictic elements have been employed by members of Nigeria's Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 to convey meaning with the public. As a pragmatic study, attention is given to the mood aspect, using Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to elicit the potential motivations behind the pragmatic choice of words of the speakers. This paper analyses a total of 92 utterances from four speeches of the Nigeria's Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 members delivered at one of their live telecast press briefings on Tuesday, 27 th April 2020, were taped and transcribed for analysis. The utterances were analysed with antconc software, which provided a frequency tally of the specific deictic elements used in the speeches. The findings of this study on the one hand, indicate that speakers at the press briefing used person deixis such as I, We, and Us in both inclusive and exclusive contexts to demonstrate pity for the public and to pragmatically connect with the public as if both the speech producers and the public are engaged in a serious battle against Covid-19. On the other hand, our grammatical analysis revealed the use of military diction, leading the researcher to conclude that the members of the Nigerian Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 assume State authority for themselves. KEYWORDS: Covid-19, context, deixis, pragmatics, diction, SFL INTRODUCTION The word diction has been found to have its origin from the Latin word dictio, which means "expression" or "word." In its original usage, the word refers to a writer's or speaker's specific linguistic choices and way of expression in a text or speech. The uniqueness of speech in its broadest sense suggests that the art of speaking is clearly interpreted in such a way that each word in a speech or text is comprehended. In the same vein, diction necessitates a number of considerations, the most essential of which is the adaptation of style and formality to the social context in which language is put to use. It may also be used to examine how tone and characteristics evolve in voice or writing. In language, for example, a prevalence of verbs related to the physical world indicates an active character, while a preponderance of verbs referring to the intellect indicates an interpretative character. In other words, it has been shown that diction has a substantial impact on the choice of words and syntax in any particular speech or text. Preston's (1967) research backs this up, claiming that diction is made up of eight elements. Phoneme, syllable, conjunction, connective, noun, verbs, inflection, and speech are examples. As a result, the purpose of this study is to link diction choice to language use in a covid-19 media discussion in Nigeria, utilising the syntactic framework offered by Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics, which is a potent tool for analysing language use in context. LANGUAGE USE AND THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN NIGERIA The attention of language scholars has lately been drawn to language use in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Covid-19 is largely recognised as humanity's biggest catastrophic health calamity since World War II. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the unusual and highly infectious respiratory disease was found in Wuhan, China. There have been severe outbreaks of many diseases caused by a number of viruses throughout human history, such as Laser Fever, Ebola, and others, but the Corona Virus pandemic is second to none in terms of the virus' mutation, epidemiological manifestations, and the high number of fatalities that have been recorded around the world, leading one to believe that the virus has so many fuzzy manifestations and presentations in humans. Without a doubt, the disease's spread has had a negative influence on practically every sector of many economies throughout the world, from the health system to business and commerce, from the environment to social interaction, to mention a few. This has necessitated action on the part of critical stakeholders all around the world to rally support for the