Stylistic Processes of Meaning-Making: An Analysis of Selected Newspaper Headlines of 20 May 2017 Celebration in Cameroon

Abstract

Stylisticians analyse the style of language by looking systematically at the formal features of a text, and determining their functional significance for the interpretation of the text in question. Texts can be classified as either literary or non-literary. In looking at texts, this study has examined the power headlines wield in the discourse of the 20 May 2017 representation in three newspapers in Cameroon. It has presented a coherent system of meanings, historically located, supporting institutions, reproducing power relations and having ideological effects, portraying the relationship between the context and interpretation to make meaning. For the headlines to raise interest and arouse the reader, they must draw power from the common ground which is the shared culture and political context. The study uses as conceptual framework Fairclough’s analytical elements in the process of meaning-making, which are production of the text, the text itself and the reception of the text, bringing out the ideologies of contrast, negativity and positivity. The analysis concludes that news makers tilt their use of linguistic choice towards the ideas they want to implant on their audience, and at times manifest exaggeration and therefore misrepresentation in reporting an event.