NARRATIVE STRUCTURE AND IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN CHILD VULNERABILITY DISCOURSES IN OYO STATE COMMAND OF THE NIGERIA SECURITY AND CIVIL DEFENCE CORPS

Abstract

Child vulnerability which involves the susceptibility of a child to abuse can spring from the interface of harmful sociocognitive factors, evident in the discourse of Anti Human Trafficking and Child Protection Unit (AHTU) of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC). Previous linguistic studies on child vulnerability focused mainly on the syntactic, semantic and sociolinguistic perspectives of interactions between security agencies and survivors/suspects. However, little attention was devoted to pragmatic perspectives on interactions of child vulnerability. This study was, therefore, designed to investigate the narrative structure and identity construction in the Oyo State Command of the NSCDC, with a view to capturing the context types, narrative structure and role identity in the interactions. William Labov’s Narrative Theory, complemented by Stephen Levinson’s notion of context and M. A. K. Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan’s model of Contextual Configuration, served as the framework. The descriptive design was adopted. The Oyo State Command of NSCDC was purposively selected because of easy accessibility to participants. Four officers of AHTU NSCDC and 53 child survivors of abuse between ages 5 and 17 years were purposively sampled because of their availability and suitability. Fifty-three sessions of interactions between officers of NSCDC and child survivors of abuse were audiorecorded. The data were subjected to pragmatic analysis. The discourse was marked by two types of macro context: social context and cognitive context. The social context demonstrated the evocation of dereliction and destitution. The cognitive context projected four intensifying factors of abuse, namely age, poverty, naivety and dependence; and four protractive factors, namely impuissance, stealth, intimidation and seclusion. Both context types were marked by anaphoric and cataphoric references projecting the children’s abusive experiences. The use of reference was evident in the use of person, time and spatial deixis mostly, against the sparing use of discourse deixis, suggesting injured memory of the children. The narrative structure featured Abstract (A), Evaluation (E) and Coda (C) as optional elements, while Orientation (O), Complicating Action (CA) and Resolution (R) were obligatory, with the catalogue: (A.) ^ O. ^ {CA. ^ [(E.)} ^ (R.) ^ (C)]. The role identity types were institutional and ad hoc. Both identity types featured Greeting (G), Identity Presentation (IP), Narrative Evasion (NE), Trust Establishment (TE), Participants Relationship (PR), Action Presentation (AP), Narrative Alignment (NA), Appraisal (A) and Closing (C). The generic structure catalogues evident in institutional and ad hoc role identity types were [G^IP.]^NI^{NP.^(PR.)}^[(NA)^(A)^(C)] and [G^IP^NE.]^(TE)^{PR.^AP.}^[(NA)^(A)], respectively. Institutional roles showed officers as interrogators, who inquired and probed, and investigators, who censured and indicted. Children, in their role as responders, recounted and answered; and as relators, they clarified and defended. For the ad hoc role, the officers acted as confidants, encouraging and assuring; while the children acted as confessants, revealing the details of abusive events. The interactions of officers of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps with child survivors of abuse capture the interface of the Nigerian social structure and child exploitation.