Invaders, Attackers and Destroyers: Trespassing-related Terms and Representations in Nigerian Newspaper Headlines

Discourses on herding have focussed the "exact" representations of social actions itinerant herders who clash with farmers while grazing supposed cattle routes. Media coverage herdsmen-farmers conflict has deployed ideologically laden terms to represent as trespassing farmlands and foreigners trespassers. Using van Leeuwen's Representation Social Actions Actors model Martin White's Appraisal Framework, this paper examines how different trespassing-related (i.e. invade, attack destroy) were in Nigerian newspaper headlines their activities a view discussing kinds that constructed nomads through texts. Findings revealed using transactive role allocations, nominalization, descriptivation, identification, aggregation attitudinal lexicalization, these actors evaluated negatively intruders, raiders, destroyers. The negative othering underscores general perception suspicious treatment host farming communities.