LAUSR

ABSTRACT The paper analyses dialogic contractions in selected online news discourse on Violence against Women (henceforth, VAW) in Nigeria. The data comprise ten (10) purposively selected online news reports on various cases of VAW sourced from the news archives of Saharareporters.com; NigeriaFilms.com; Premium Times; and The Punch Online. The study selects only cases of VAW in Nigeria. The study performs a qualitative analysis of the online news discourses from White’s dialogic perspectives of intersubjective positioning. The analysis portrays diverse linguistic resources through which online news reporters and commenters firstly acknowledge, and then, restrict the scope of diogic alternatives in various communicative contexts in the reportage of cases of VAW in Nigeria; the dialogistic functions of the identified resources of dialogic contractions; and their rhetorical effects with respect to audience (dis)alignment. The paper, therefore, concludes that the dialogic theory enhances the understanding on how online audience and their assumed shared societal values/beliefs on VAW in the Nigerian context are taken as important and foregrounded in the creation of online news discourse on VAW.