International Journal of English Linguistics; Vol. 7, No. 6; 2017 ISSN 1923-869X E-ISSN 1923-8703 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 246 The Usage of Spatial Prepositions for Political Aspirations in the Headlines of the Nigerian Newspapers Bashir Ibrahim 1 & Kamariah Yunus 1 1 Faculty of Languages and Communication, Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, Gong Badak Campus, Terengganu, Malaysia Correspondence: Kamariah Yunus, Faculty of Languages and Communication, Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, Gong Badak Campus, Terengganu, Malaysia. E-mail: kamariah@unisza.edu.my Received: June 12, 2017 Accepted: July 10, 2017 Online Published: October 11, 2017 doi:10.5539/ijel.v7n6p246 URL: http://doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v7n6p246 Abstract The meaning varies and some headlines are messy for effective meaning and they appear so dependent in the infinite range of context, which makes it difficult for the readers to comprehend. Using document analysis approach, this paper exemplified the usage of English spatial prepositions on the headlines of the Nigerian newspapers. The study reviewed different theoretical approaches and conceptual theories used to determine the semiotic thought of the foresight in generating meaning as a system and psychological process. The findings revealed that politicians use newspapers as a model to communicate people before and after being into power. The findings further revealed that journalists adopted different systems, in the previous researches. It is recommended that emerged readers should acquire the knowledge of spatial preposition for effective meaning. Keywords: headlines, English spatial prepositions, messy, varies and context 1. Introduction The present paper investigated the linguistic construction of strings and the communicative functions of spatial prepositions for the negotiation of the democratic set of empowerment in words fighting, before and after elections in the headlines of the Nigeria newspapers. The discourse entailed the Politian’s publicity and ambitions during the Nigerian 2015 electoral cycle (Ayoola & Olusanya, 2013). Ayodabo & Popoola (2008) placed that English is a standout amongst the most generally talked and composed dialects on the planet utilized across the board of purposes and talked as official dialect in forty-five nations of the world including Nigeria. Banjo (2005) declares that English has contact with Nigeria since sixteenth century with preacher missions for Christianity evangelism and with effect of imperialism in 1920. In addition, English is viewed as a moment dialect in Nigeria (Kamal, 2010) and it is additionally used to fill different needs, for example, in legal, financial sector, security administrations, health, councils, business, national and worldwide correspondences, daily papers and national media. David Marr’s meta-theory 1982 emphasized the importance of what he called the computational level of description—an analysis of the task the visual system performs. In this research is contrary to that this task should be conceived of not just as object recognition but as spatial understanding, and that the mental representations responsible for spatial understanding are not exclusively visual in nature (Banjo, 2005). Moreover, the view of the headlines are emotion-inducing strategy in the hands of the editor used to initiate, sustain discourse and shape the views of the readers on national issues. Prepositions are small closed-item form of words in English. The current paper aims to exemplify the usage of spatial prepositions in the headlines of Nigerian newspapers. 1.1 Preposition In the meaning of Webster’s new English dictionary (1976), a preposition is “a word or expression that joins with a noun or pronoun to shape an expression.” (Webster’s new English lexicon, 1976) Relational words are grammatical feature that presents a prepositional expression. For instance, in the sentence “John is perusing English fiction in the room”, the word “in” here is a linguistically, a relational word, presenting the prepositional expression “in the room”. Considers demonstrate that in English, the most utilized relational words are of, to, in, for, with, and on (Iatcu, 2011). In that sense, one might say that relational words work as “linkers” between parts