A COMPARATIVE PRAGMATIC ACCOUNT OF THE CAMPAIGN STRATEGIES OF LASSA FEVER AND COVID-19 PANDEMICS IN NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

This study was embarked upon to give a pragmatic and semiotic description of lassa fever and covid-19 written messages and ascertain the level of understanding of these messages by the inhabitants of Benin metropolis. This research interrogated the increasing high rate of lassa fever and covid-19 prevalence in Edọ State. It looked at the content of the lassa fever and covid-19 awareness messages to see if their ineffectiveness was the cause of the high prevalence rate. The study engaged in an extensive discussion of the theories used in the analysis of the data collected and also reviewed the literature relevant to it. It made use of the pragmatic and the semiotic theories in analysing the data. The pragmatic theory, precisely Mey (2001), was used to give a vivid description of the meanings of the texts in the Lassa fever and covid-19 written campaign messages, while the semiotic theory was used to analyse the pictures that accompanied the texts in the Lassa fever and covid-19 written campaign messages. All the data in this study were subjected to quantitative and qualitative analyses.