META DISCOURSE MARKERS IN 2023 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION PETITION COURT JUDGMENT

Abstract

This paper carried out a study on meta-discourse markers in the 2023 judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Court where it examined how linguistic resources are used in judicial discourse to form meaning, authority, and persuasion. Legal judgments, particularly those arising from electoral disputes, are not merely repositories of legal reasoning but are rhetorically structured texts that inform public perception. But despite the significance of such texts, existing studies on Nigerian electoral adjudication have focused on legal and political dimensions with limited attention to the linguistic features that guide interpretation and judicial stance. This study is motivated by the need to bridge this gap by exploring the role of meta-discourse markers in the judgment. The study was anchored on Hyland’s (2005) meta-discourse model, complemented by Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) and Appraisal Theory (Martin & White, 2005), which together provide a framework for the analysis. As a qualitative research, data were purposively drawn from the officially published 2023 Presidential Election Petition Court judgment and analysed through the identification, classification, and interpretation of meta-discourse markers. Findings revealed a dominance of interactive markers such as transitions, frame markers, and evidentials, which enhance coherence and structure legal reasoning, while interactional markers were used to assert authority and project institutional voice. The study concluded that meta-discourse markers are essential rhetorical tools in judicial communication which aid in interpretation.