Cite this article as: Musa, A.L., Danjani, A.M. & Musa, G. (2023). A Critical Identity Construction in the Songs of Alhaji Musa Dankwairo. Zamfara International Journal of Humanities, (2)2, 55-64. www.doi.org/10.36349/zamijoh.2023.v02i02.006.
A Critical Identity
Construction in the Songs of Alhaji Musa Dankwairo
By
Aminu Lawan Musa
Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso
College of Advanced & Remedial Studies, Kano, Nigeria
08034536986
aminunmu@gmail.com
And
Aishatu Muhammad
Danjani
Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso
College of Advanced & Remedial Studies, Kano, Nigeria
08036782029
aishadanjani@gmail.com
And
Garba Musa
Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso
College of Advanced & Remedial Studies, Kano, Nigeria
08032783231
garbamusa335@gmail.com
Abstract
Traditional
Songs are powerful means of propagating and maintaining culture in Hausa
societies. They are tools with which a singer constructs the identity of
personalities and the world views of his society in general. In Hausaland,
singers propagate, educate and inform the members of their society about the
government policies, roles of personalities, norms, customs and values. This
study focuses on the songs of Alhaji Musa Dankwairo with particular attention
to the way language is used in identity constructions of power holders in the
songs of Sardauna Bello. It examines the nature and attributes of the
linguistic items employed by the singer in differentiating the powerful
personalities on one hand and the powerless ones on the other. The study is
based on the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Thus, the method of data
analysis adopted is Fairclough’s (1989) theory of Social Practice. The study
finds out that Dankwairo as a singer is creative in using linguistic resources
such as nouns, pronouns, adjectives, metaphors etc. to construct the positive
personality of the major social actors and portray others as negative.
Therefore, Hausa traditional song is a means of legitimising or de-legitimising
positions or actions. Hence, the creative use of language by singers plays a significant
role in obtaining and maintaining power in Hausa society. The study recommends the
preservation of Hausa traditional songs due to their relevance as a treasure of
cultural norms and values.
Keywords:
construction, de-legitimising, identity, legitimising,
powerful, powerless social actors
Introduction
In
the Hausa society, songs have often provided persuasive social and political
commentaries to the people. It also gives flamboyant expressions to the heroism
of people’s lives in the period of their struggle, victory or defeat. Singers team may contain
several drummers (to play the different types of drums), eulogists, two or more
pipers, and sometimes a horn-blower. One important tool of song is language.
Language has been recognised, from time immemorial, as a tool with which human
beings achieve their social goals. Through language, human beings direct,
command, persuade and influence others.
Critical discourse
analysis is a field of study that investigates how discourse helps to maintain
power structures. Language is significant in classifying people concerning
their place in the power structure and how powerful groups with the tacit
cooperation of the less powerful can use language to maintain power and
inequality. Thus, one important aspect that Hausa traditional singers employ to
persuade listeners and help in maintaining power is the construction of
identity. Therefore, this study sets out to investigate the identity
construction in the selected songs of Alhaji Musa Dankwairo within the context
of the CDA framework. It sets out to investigate the presence of elements of
ideology, power and domination in Alhaji Musa Dankwairo’s songs.
Brief Biography of
the Late Alhaji Musa Dankwairo
According
to Bunza (2006), Dankwairo was born in 1907 in the town of Bakura, about 105
kilometres from Zamfara State. Dankwairo's father and grandfather were all
musicians of Maradunne. He grew up and found his grandfather and uncle singing
together, but he lived more with his father in real life, and since he was 6 to
7 years old he started going out where his father used to go with him in a
chorus of songs. After the death of his father, the management of the band
reverted to Aliyu Kurna, as Dankwairo's father's successor, with Dankwairo
elected as his deputy. The late Alhaji Musa earned the title of 'Dankwairo'
because of his melodious voice and skills in singing.
Since
then, Dankwairo has become famous in the field of music, which led him to
become a singer for the late Sardaunan
Sokoto, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello. Dankwairo sang his first song Mai Dubun Nasara Garnaki Sardauna. In
terms of classification, Dankwairo is regarded as a court singer (makadin fada). It appeared that Sardauna
was a politician and an emir; so, by implication, he needed a royal singer to
live with him in his palace for his name's sake. Thus, the late Sardauna preferred the Dankwairo band
over any other band. Therefore, Dankwairo became the singer of his palace with
an extraordinary quality which at that time did not go unnoticed by the kind of
gifts that Sardauna used to give to
Dankwairo and his team. However, Musa Dankwairo composed 17 songs for Sardauna, and he once met with Sardauna
in the political arena of the NPC (Northern People's Congress). Dankwairo died
and left behind 14 children, 7 boys and 7 girls, with 104 grandchildren.
Language
and Identity
Thomas & and Wareing
(1999) believe that one of the most fundamental ways of establishing our
identity is through the use of language. We usually employ words to shape and
influence other people’s views of who we are. At the level of individual,
social or institutional structure, identity is something which is constantly built
and negotiated through interaction with others. Therefore, language is
essential in the construction of individual and social identities. It is a
powerful means of exercising social control.
Gee (2000:99) in
Woodhams (2019) observes that identity is simply ‘being recognized as a certain
“kind of person”, in a given context’. He argues that such recognition is
central to identity, as human beings must see each other in certain ways and
not others if there are to be identities of any sort. Four types of
perspectives can guide analytical attention to identity. These are nature, institution, discourse and
affinity.
a.
The
Nature Perspective: is the identity
construction where the source of its ‘power’ is derived from nature rather than
society e.g., being an identical twin. It can become an identity through
recognition, primarily in discourse.
b. The Institutional Perspective: this is
exemplified in the case of being a professional in a particular field, for
instance, a professor authorised by a university, and such identities can be
called down willingly or imposed by others.
c. The Discourse Perspective: these concerns with
being considered charismatic by others in discourse, whether achieved by one
self-consciously or ascribed. It can be viewed in that such an identity is only
given its power through recognition.
d.
The
affinity perspective: this is
represented, by being a member of a group aligned to a common set of practices.
Thus, identity
construction involves people’s attempt to classify themselves as belonging to a
particular group or community. In doing so, the linguistic conventions of that
group or community are adopted not just about the words but also about the way
the words are put together. The way those linguistic conventions are defined
and maintained is usually controlled by a group rather than the individual.
Thomas & Wareing
(1999) opine that identity is multi-faceted because people switch into
different roles at different times in different situations, and each of those
contexts may require a shift into different, sometimes conflicting, identities.
One of how we accomplish and display this shift is through the language we use.
However, personal identities are socially constructed through the use of names,
naming practices and rituals. Identity can also be through the systems of address; the way we refer to someone
when we are talking to him directly, and how speakers use language to classify
and identify each other through these systems.
However, Van Leeuwen
(1996) cited in Fairclough (2003) identifies many more variables with which a
speaker/writer uses in identity construction. These variables are:
1.
Inclusion/Exclusion: in the identity
construction of
social events, a social actor can be included or excluded to portray positivity
or negativity. There are two types of exclusion of social actors; Suppression is where a social actor is
not in the text at all or ignored while Backgrounding
is a situation where a social actor is mentioned somewhere in the text, but has
to be inferred in one or more places.
2.
Pronoun/Noun: sometimes social actor is
realized as a pronoun such as ‘I’, ‘he’, ‘we’, ‘you’, etc. or as a noun.
3.
Grammatical Role: It
is how the social actor is realised as a participant in a clause (e.g. Actor,
Affected), within a Circumstance (e.g. in a preposition phrase,) or as a
Possessive Noun or Pronoun (‘Ali’s friend’, ‘our friend’).
4.
Activated/Passivated: this has to do with
situating the
social actor as an actor in processes (the one who does things and makes things
happen), or the Affected or Beneficiary (the one affected by processes).
5.
Personal/Impersonal: Social
actors can be represented impersonally as well as personally – for instance
referring to the police as ‘the filth’ is impersonalizing them.
6.
Named/Classified: Social
actors can be represented by name (e.g. ‘Fred Smith’) or in terms of class or
category (e.g. ‘the doctor’). If the latter, they can be referred to
individually (e.g. ‘the doctor’) or as a group (‘the doctors’, ‘doctors’).
7.
Specific/Generic: where
social actors are classified and can be represented specifically or
generically. For instance ‘the doctors’ may refer to a specific group of
doctors (e.g. those who work in a particular hospital), or to the class of
doctors in general, all doctors (e.g. ‘the doctors see themselves as gods’).
Given the above, in
Hausaland identity construction is achieved by distinguishing a class of
people, naming systems, other attributes like belonging to a family and
nomenclatures reserved and attached to differentiate the ruling class from
other classes of people. Osisanwo (2021),
states that songs
have been accorded with a significant role in different contexts, such as
religious, cultural, social and political. It possesses the instinct of
generating the rhetorical power of persuading and informing listeners. This is
very true with Dankwairo’s songs. He is a court singer who mostly composed his
songs to canvass political support, instigate the need to recognise the
legitimate power of his personality (in most cases the Sardauna) and sometimes justify the legitimacy of his
leadership.
Van Leeuwen (2018:553) believes that “the
act of making music, and listening to music, is by nature a form of social
interaction”. Unlike sequential conversation, musical interaction is usually a simultaneous
tool with the great power to unite people and create group feelings. Thus, the
power and solidarity that are created by musical interaction serve as the
primary source of musical meaning. There are three broad kinds of simultaneous
interaction in music. The first is Social Unison. It is a form of musical interaction in which all
participants sing and/or play the same notes. This can create or represent
solidarity and a positive sense of belonging to a group. These can be found in
the pub, the sports stadium, the church, the school or the army. The second is
the Social pluralism. In
social pluralism, different melodies are
simultaneously played or sung by different instruments or singers. Each could
stand on its own and still have musical interests, yet they all fit
harmoniously together. It is therefore a form of interaction, in which the
interacting parties are “equal but different”. The third category is Social
domination. In social domination music, one voice (the melody)
becomes dominant and the other voices subordinate, accompanying and supporting
the dominant voice.
Critical
Discourse Analysis
According
to Hart (2014), Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a particular form of
discourse analysis which, in one guise at least, seeks to disclose the
ideological and persuasive properties of text and talk which might not be
immediately apparent without the assistance of a systemised descriptive
framework such as grammar or typology. Fairclough (1989) views that the
“critical” component of CDA implies the unravelling of the causes and
connections that are often hidden in a text or talk through systematic inquiry into
linguistic elements that make up a discourse. CDA is designed to make implicit
the causes and connections of language on one hand and power and ideology on
the other by linking them to local, international, institutional, and societal
matters. Thus, it examines what is not said rather than looking for the veiled
meaning or “reading between the lines” since texts cannot be viewed in
isolation and must always consider context.
Van Dijk (1993:1) believes that CDA is “a type of
discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social power
abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text
and talk in the social and political context”. Therefore, CDA explicitly pays
much attention to the understanding, exposure and ultimate rejection of social
inequality such as racism, xenophobia and gender discrimination in a society or
community. The notions of ideology, power, hierarchy and gender together with
sociological variables were all viewed as relevant for an interpretation or
explanation of the text.
Wodak (2001: 2) describes the
purpose of CDA as trying to analyse the “opaque as well as transparent
structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control as
manifested in language”. It does not limit itself to the analysis of the
immediate formal properties of a text but rather it situates the text in its
wider social, economic, historical, cognitive and political context. It
critically examines how a text relates to other texts, and how it is
constituted by the existing social practices and constitutive of other new
social practices. Bloor & Bloor (2007: 13) are of the view that the aims of
CDA are mainly to uncover the socio-political inequalities based on political,
economic, cultural, religious, or gendered grounds that exist in a particular
society. CDA seeks to bring out the hidden way in which institutions and their
discourse shape our thinking. Central to the notion of CDA are the
relationships of language, power and ideology.
a.
Language and Power
The demonstration of
connections between language and power can be traced to the works of Fairclough
(1989) and others who work on Critical Language Studies. He argues that
“language is centrally involved in power, and struggles for power. Language
needs to be seen as social practice determined by social structures, and
determined by sets of conventions that are associated with social institutions,
shaped by power relations and located in both institutions and society as a
whole. Thus, social structures and social practices exist in a dialectal
relationship as there is no external relationship between language and society.
Fairclough (1989:18)
emphasizes that language is the primary medium of social control and power
because discourse relations reflect inequality through the social roles of the
participants in a discourse. The modern and often more effective tool of exercising
power is mostly cognitively enacted through persuasion, and manipulation to
change the minds of others to achieve their
interests. He submits that “language is a part of society; linguistic
phenomena are social phenomena of a special sort and social phenomena (in part)
are linguistic phenomena”. Discourse affects social structures and social
structures affect discourse. Then, discourse can contribute to social
continuity and social change; as such, power in discourse lies in the social
space occupied by the participants in social settings. Therefore, leaders
nowadays prefer maintaining power through consent rather than coercion where
discourse is constructed to project in the mind of the audience, a positive and
powerful self.
According to Dahl
(1957), power is a process that involves the ability to make somebody do
something that he or she would not have done. About the concept of power, the
term discourse, Foucault (1980) postulates that “power is relational and
dynamic, showing itself in the minute of interactions between and within
people”. He also views that there is continuous resistance to it from
individuals who are its vehicles. In CDA power is seen as “already accruing to
some participants and not to others and this power is determined by their
institutional role and their socio-economic status, gender or ethnic identity”
(Thornborrow 2002:7). In other words, the crucial point at which discourse and
power met is the managing the mind of others through professions, status,
gender or ethnic identity which can determine whether or not certain people
have power, as well as the extent of such power.
The relationship
between language and power is very essential. Language plays an important role
in exercising power and dominance. Power is greatly dependent on language.
Language is considered a tool with which people exercise control over others.
Through language one can influence and to a large extent control events and
actions over others. This can be seen in speeches given by people in power and
their cronies. Most of the speeches are meant to persuade, influence, and warn
the conduct of their audience. Similarly, in Hausa court songs, language is not
only an instrument of communication used to illicit information but also a tool
with which the power of traditional leaders is portrayed and legitimized to
control the minds of the audience.
b.
Language
and Ideology
Bloor
and Bloor (2007:10) define ideology as a set of beliefs or attitudes shared by
members of a particular social group. Every discourse is a product of ideology
as those elements of beliefs and attitudes are not held consciously by the
individuals rather they are embedded in the thoughts of the shared speech
community. Van Dijk (1995:33) maintains that ideologies are often articulated
and based on the ideological square which includes; emphasizing positive things
about us; emphasizing negative things about them; and de-emphasizing negative
things about us; de-emphasizing positive things about them. Ideology is a
complex notion as different names and functions were given to the term.
Thompson (1987:4) puts it that ideology is “linked to the process of sustaining
asymmetrical relations of power to maintain domination…by disguising,
legitimating, or distorting those relations”.
Fowler
(1991) views ideology in the neutral sense of a world view; a largely
unconscious theory of the way the world works accepted as common sense”. Common
sense refers to conventions that embody ideological assumptions that are
routinely drawn upon in discourse; thus the effectiveness of ideology largely
depends on being merged with common sense. In other words, ideologies are means
of legitimizing existing social relations and differences of power through the
recurrence of ordinary, familiar ways of behaving which many people are not
aware of. Therefore, Fairclough (1989:94) views that in discourse
interpretation conventions that embody ideological assumptions are drawn upon
which are taken as mere common sense. These assumptions contribute to sustaining
existing power relations. It establishes relations between text and the world.
Approaches in CDA
CDA
is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse that uses language
as social practice. It tolerates varied approaches. The main theoretical
approaches of CDA are:
1. Social
and Historical Approach: Ruth
Wodak is the main figure associated with this approach. The approach is based
on the tradition of sociolinguistics and ethnography. It emphasizes not only
the contextualized nature of discourse within its present state of occurrence
but also explains the development of discourse through a historical continuum.
Wodak developed the sociological and historical method by devoting it to
tracing the (intertextual) history of phrases and arguments. The method begins
with the studying of original documents augmented by ethnographic research of
the past (e.g., interviews with war veterans). It also encompasses wide-ranging
data collection and analysis of contemporary news reporting, political
discourse, lay beliefs, and discourse. According to Wodak (1996), it is not possible
to understand the discursive strategies adopted in any discourse without
understanding the historical/social background against which they were created.
2. Socio-Cognitive Approach: Van
Dijk proposes this model as one of the pioneers of CDA. According to van Dijk
(2008), there is an agreement among discourse analysts that communicative
events should be approached in terms of their immediate constituents:
grammatical, stylistic, rhetorical, pragmatic, argumentative, interactional or
other related structures. This approach is cognitive-oriented as it views that
speakers represent their beliefs, intentions, and processes in the production
and comprehension of the discourse. For Van Dijk, it is social cognition and
personal cognition that mediate between society and discourse. He defines
social cognition as "the system of mental representations and processes of
group members". In this direction, "ideologies are overall abstract
mental systems that organize …socially shared attitudes". Ideologies thus,
"indirectly influence the personal cognition of group members" in
their act of comprehension of discourse among other actions and interactions. Van
Dijk (1991: 36) views “ideologies” as frameworks that organise sets of
attitudes about other elements of society. Therefore, ideologies are the
“cognitive foundation” for the attitudes of various groups in societies. It
also serves as an impetus for pursuing their goals and interests. He believes
that one who desires to make transparent such an ideological dichotomy in
discourse needs to analyze discourse in the following way:
a. Examining
the context of the discourse: historical, political or social background of a
conflict and its main participants
b. Analysing
groups, power relations and conflicts involved
c. Identifying
positive and negative opinions about “Us” versus “Them”
d. Making
explicit the presupposed and the implied eg. Examining all formal structures:
lexical choice and syntactic structure, in a way that helps to (de)emphasise
polarized group opinions.
3.
Social Practice Approach: This
model was developed by Norman Fairclough (1989). The approach sees CDA as a
method of examining social and cultural modifications that could be employed in
protesting against the power and control of the elite groups on other groups or
people. Fairclough’s approach is different from both the historical approach
and the cognitive approach as its emphasis is on the social aspects. Fairclough
believes that there is a dialectical relationship between language and other
social practices. Thus, actual discourse is determined by socially constituted
orders of discourse set of conventions associated with social institutions.
(Fairclough, 1995:131). The research agenda of the approach focuses on language
and globalization, contemporary social change, as well as language, education
and power. Fairclough’s CDA has been defined as a methodology which is
fundamentally interested in analysing opaque as well as transparent structural
relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control as manifested in
language. Therefore, through deconstructing society, the aims are critically
investigating possible social inequalities as expressed, constituted, and legitimized
by discursive practices. It analyses competing power interests between groups
and individuals within a society by identifying who gains and who loses in
specific situations. The approach is also meant to raise awareness of how
language can influence the dominance of one group of people over the other.
Methodology
The method of data
collection of the study is based on extracting randomly from the selected songs
of Alhaji Musa Dankwairo. The songs selected for the analysis are Mai Dubun Nasara Garnaki Sardauna and Sardauna Bello Mai Sulken Yaki ka fi gaban Wargi.
The theoretical framework adopted in the analysis of data in this study is a textual
analysis based on Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics theory
(Transtivity) where Textual and Ideational metafunctions are applied within the
analytic approach of Fairclough’s (1989) Description,
Interpretation and Explanation. The analysis of data of
this study includes an attempt to translate the songs from Hausa to English;
thus improvisations were used where certain expressions have no equivalents in
English. Excerpts from the songs mainly obtained from Diwanin Wakokin Baka (Muhammad 2008) are used whenever a particular
feature that is relevant to the study is spotted.
Data Presentation and
Analysis
These analyses of the
selected Dankwairo’s songs focus on linguistic categories such as pronouns,
metaphors, process and time. Analysis of lexical choices, rhetorical structures
and pronouns is carried out to deconstruct how both positive and negative
identities of social actors are constructed.
Pronouns
and Names as Identity
In the field of critical
discourse analysis, Fairclough (2003) acknowledges two ways of exercising
power; through physical coercion and manufacture of consent. The power through
physical coercion involves the use of force (considered outdated) while the manufacture
of consent involves convincing people to accept things or accept proposed
changes persuasively. Thus, in the modern world, the manufacture of consent
lies much in the use of it. In Dankwairo’s songs, proper nouns, pronouns as
well and positive backgrounding are deployed to construct the identity of the
major social actor (Sardauna) and
others. Thus, the manifestations of pronouns and proper nouns in the excerpts
are:
1. a. Sa
maza nadama, mai ilimin fama
b. You are the one that makes men (enemies)
regret
2. a.
Mai halin sarauta mai ilimin fama
b.
You have the attitude of ruling and knowledge of struggle
3. a. Sardauna
Bello mai sulken yaki ya hi gaban wargi
b. Sardauna
Bello you have a shield of war, you are beyond misbehaving
4. a. Da ka zakka
ana yaki ne da arna sun ji wuyar fama; Muhammadu yanzu ko da babu yaki da
alkairi ya ka fama dai
b.
Had it been you ruled in the time of
war, the heathens (enemies) would suffer; But Muhammadu, now you are
conquering with your kindness
5
a. Ka san bai san tsoro ba babu maza bayanka, Muhammadu
ban ga maza a gaba nai ba
b. You know he is fearless never defeated and will never be deterred by any in
the future.
Van
Leeuwen (1996) observes that one of the most obvious linguistic means of
establishing people’s identity is through the giving and using of names. In the
above excerpts, there are subsequent use of both proper nouns and pronouns such
as Muhammadu, Sardauna,
Bello,
He, you,
I etc. The singer employs these
to distinguish his social actor from other power holders by names and pronouns.
He combines some attributes of bravery, kindness and morale with Ahmadu Bello. Thus, the critical
examination of the use of pronouns in the selected songs of Dankwairo, as appears in the excerpts
above, shows that the personal pronouns you, I and he are meant to persuade
the listeners to recognize Sardauna
as a legitimate power holder with the singer’s opinions tilted towards
describing his kindness, eligibility, capability etc. the singer compliments
some qualities to construct Sardauna’s
identity through narrating the collection of positive activities he has carried
out to others. This is implicitly meant to appeal to and seek for solidarity of
the public to recognize Sardauna as a
considerate and energetic leader.
Grammatically, most
of the proper nouns and pronouns are used as subjects in active sentences. This
implicitly indicates the ‘institutional identity’ of the major actor (Sardauna) mostly in the forms of stanzas
and panegyrics. The overall choices and applications of proper nouns and
pronouns have ideological implications of asserting the authority of Sardauna Bello as the major political
actor in both traditional and democratic Northern Nigeria whose credibility and
creativity are making an impact in changing the lives of his people.
Identity through Metaphors
Bloor
& Bloor (2007) observe that metaphor can be described as making a
comparison by transferring a name from one thing to another, a shift, or a
carrying over of a word from its normal use to a new one. Metaphors are
systematic lexical patterns grounded in the formation of concepts. A closer
analysis of the excerpts below reveals how the singer deploys metaphors to
build the identity of Sardauna Bello
to achieve the goals of identity construction of his social actor. The
excerpts:
4. a. Duk mai son ya tsallake ruwa ya je ga
Kwara ko maliya baTeku ta fi gaban tsallaka
sai dai mutum ya zo kallo
b.
Whoever wants to cross the river should go to the River Kwara or the Red Sea
but the ocean is beyond one’s crossing but watching
5. a. Ruwa ka ke da dorina da kada kowashshiga
ban ga fita tai ba.
b.
You are an ocean full of hippopotami and
crocodiles, whoever enters never comes out alive
6. a. Gagari gaba zaki mai Ankara, kai aka
tsoro zaki mai Ankara, karya maraki zaki mai Ankara
b.
You are an ever-ready lion, they
fear you the ever-ready lion that breaks
young animals
7. a. Zaki ba dai mutum guda dai ba
b.
You lion that cannot be confronted
by one man.
8. a.
Kai zaraba kamar damisa, Mamman a ja
da nesa ad dai-dai
b.
You are like a tiger that one can be
cautious of.
In
the above excerpts, careful choices of lexis are made to evaluate the actions,
attitudes, intentions and identities through metaphors. There is use of natural
entities such as teku, damisa, and zaki (seas/rivers and animals such as lion
and tiger) to depict Sardauna Bello
as an unbeatable character, stronger and conqueror of enemies. As Hart (2004)
observes, the cognitive functions of metaphor involve the set of conjured
imagery, albeit richer, than content-specified images invoked by grammatical
constructions. Dankwairo mainly employs frames of nature to construct the
identity of bravery, shrewdness, morality and intellectual attitudes of his
major actor Sardauna. The formation
of the metaphors involves systematic selection and deploying the source domains
of nature and animals to construct the identities that could persuade the
listeners to respect and recognize Sardauna as a determined leader.
Identity through
Processes
According to Fairclough
(1989:115), “Language is a tool of getting things done”. The process is
traditionally called verbs. In Systemic Functional Grammar, they are happenings
or goings on in a sentence or utterance. Processes also seek to answer the
questions of who does what to whom, for whom, when, how and why etc. In the
Sardauna songs of Dankwairo, Material (doing), Mental (thinking) and
Behavioural (behaving) processes are common types employed by the singer. Thus,
the structures of the processes in the song are embedded with the identity of Sardauna most “doing” something to others
as a powerful leader. The excerpts:
9. a. Zauna dai-dai a gadon sarauta, Dan
Magaji Bello kayi komai
b. Sit properly on the throne, the son of
Magaji Bello you have done all of it
10. a.
Ka gaji ba da doki dubu, ka gaji ba
da mota dubu, ka gaji ba da bawa
dubu, ka gaji ba da duk gari da
mutanen gari
b.
You inherit giving a thousand
horses; you inherit giving a
thousand slaves; you inherit giving
the whole town and its people
11. a.
Yusifu babanYusifu ba a taba ja ma
ba. Yusifu babanYusifu ba a taba ja ma
ba
b.
Yusifu the father of yusifu no one has ever resisted or rejected
your commands; Yusifu the father of useful no one has ever resisted or rejected
your commands
In the above
excerpts, the singer employs the use of active material process (doing) to
inform the power of Sardauna Bello
within the context of an institutional matrix of his region. He takes active
roles in the positive acts of material processes. Through ‘doing’, Sardauna Bello is implicitly described
as a kind, sympathetic, brave and powerful actor full of moral aptitudes. The
majority of the processes used in the songs are designed to positively position
Sardauna as better in all
ramifications over his oppositions who are implicitly portrayed as unkind,
cowards, powerless hopeless etc. The language devices presented by the singer
from the perspective of the choice of the processes to a large extent is making
a description of what the Sardauna is
positively doing to the others not otherwise. The singer also reinforces the
roles of heritage in positioning his actor as the giver and others as
beneficiaries. Therefore, the processes in the songs are meant to show differences
between Sardauna as the giver, and doer
of positive deeds and others as beneficiaries of his acts. Therefore, the
dominant process in the songs is the Material process. The processes of doing were
mostly related to Sardauna while others as passive enjoying his deeds.
Identity through Time
In discourse, space and time are social
constructs, differently constructed in different societies (Fairclough and Fairclough 2012:151). Time and space construction
is also contested and the change in their construction is part of social
change. It is also called intertextuality; a relationship between past and
present. In the song, Dankwairo employs history (time) to relate and portray Sardauna’s legitimacy of the throne. He
also uses the time to justify the selection of Ahmadu Bello as Sardauna
of Sokoto and the first Premier of
Northern Nigeria. The excerpts are:
12. a.
Akwai wani zamani yana zuwa ana yin Sardauna guda biyu, Sardauna guda gidan Shehu, Sardauna
guda gidan Dabo sai fa Amadu ya furce
a yi Sardauna Bello batun manya ya tabbata
Alhaji ga lokacinka nan yazo
b.
There will be a time for the
emergence of two Sardaunas, one from
the clan of Shehu and one from the clan of Dabo, it is now a reality, and it is your
time to shine
Looking
at the above, the singer employs past references to portray the prophecy for
the emergence of Ahmadu as the most
powerful leader in Northern Nigeria through timing. Dankwairo captures the past
happenings to legitimise the present. In the songs, references to the past
present and future are employed to reassert the institutional powers of his
master. Thus, songs are tools embedded with identity construction through
timing.
However, the timing representation shows that the
choices made by the singer are embedded with hope, courage and the need to
trust Sardauna as the leader and agent of a positive change. Dankwairo also
employs linguistic resources to recreate a positive past better present and
bright future of the society with Sardauna as a leader. In the songs, there are
series
of narrations full of positive incidences composed to make contrastive
distinctions between the incompetent, acceptable and loving leader Sardauna. Besides,
past positive lineage and deeds are deployed to persuade the audience to
recognise his power. Therefore, the timing structure in the songs serves as a
tool with which the singer uses the past to build the identity of the major
social actor to justify his power and domination of others. He managed to
structure the positions of his actors as a person who inherited the art of
ruling.
Discussion
Fairclough (2003)
acknowledges two ways of exercising power; through physical coercion and the manufacture
of consent. The power through physical coercion involves the use of force
(considered outdated) while the manufacture of consent involves convincing
people to accept things or accept proposed changes persuasively. Thus, in the
modern world, the manufacture of consent lies much in the use of language.
The language of the
Hausa songs within this study is shaped by the manufacturing of consent and the
social practice in which it occurs. Thus, sociality and institution exert a
huge influence on Dankwairo’s songs. In the selected songs of Dankwairo, as
revealed in this study, there is hidden information on persuasion, solidarity,
propaganda and ideology through which the identity of social actors is
constructed about institutional context and societal context.
The role of singers
as members of social institutions emanated from the consent of the Hausa
traditional institutions. Thus, a struggle for power between various
traditional personalities must take place. The nature and customs of the Hausa
traditional political system positioned a particular class of people such as
singers to serve as traditional collaborators in the struggle that would lead
to the emergence of the ‘right person’ as the legitimate leader of the society.
This is the ideology that guides the way Dankwairo and his likes structure
their songs as it appears in the analysis. He relied on his abilities to deploy
the available linguistic resources in constructing the identity of his social
actors the way he likes. This is exemplified by the presence of logical choices
of words to ideologically persuade and indoctrinate the audiences.
More often than not,
Dankwairo’s songs are designed to make audiences believe that Sardauna’s visionary power can save the
citizens. In the selected songs, positive deeds are always positively attached
to Sardauna while his oppositions are
portrayed as negative actors who are suffering while struggling to take away
what “belongs” to him. The singer also concentrates on convincing the listeners
about his eligibility to inherit the throne. In all ramifications, linguistic
devices are tactically used to portray Sardauna
as a positive actor who contributes and is always willing to do more for his
people.
Conclusion
In
this study, the relations between language, power and ideology have been
demonstrated within the context of Hausa traditional society. The study adopts
CDA to analyse some selected Hausa songs of Dankwairo. The findings of the
study show that the singer deployed linguistic devices to construct the
identity of the powerful (Sardauna)
and the powerless (others). There are implicit representations of power,
inequality and ideology in the selected songs. The singer persuades his
audience through identity construction to question the credibility of
opposition as regards competency and capability leadership. Thus, the singer
tries to capture the positive nature of Sardauna.
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