METAPRAGMATIC STRATEGIES AND EPISTEMIC POSITIONING IN NIGERIAN FACT-CHECKING REPORTS ON THE 2023 ELECTORAL CLAIMS ON X

Abstract

Fact-checking organisations that correct election-related misinformation are typically viewed
as political or informational entities, and their language is seldom studied on its own. This
paper explores the metapragmatic strategies used by Africa Check, Dubawa, and the Centre for
Democracy and Development on X during the 2023 Nigerian general election. The analysis
focuses on a set of posts, selected from a larger collection of 120, and combines Verschueren’s
metapragmatic theory with Davies and Harré’s positioning theory, as expanded by Bamberg’s
three-level model. Each device is read first as a metapragmatic indicator and then as a
positioning act at Bamberg’s narrative, interactional, and identity levels. The study examines
how these fact-checkers build corrective authority through five recurring linguistic devices:
epistemic modality, evidential attribution, evaluative verdicts, hedging and boosting, and
reported speech framing. The findings reveal that authority in this context is not directly
claimed but drawn from external sources. Fact-checkers minimise their own voice, rely on
named institutional sources, and position claim producers along a scale of delegitimisation,
most notably through a marked preference for the term “claimed” over “said.” Authority is
maintained not through direct responses to critics but through anticipatory and thorough
evidentiary support tailored to the nature of each claim. These insights extend Verschueren’s
framework to short-form, platform-based, and multi-organisational communication, offering
an African-centred perspective on how corrective legitimacy is established, one word at a time,
across a politically contested electoral timeline.
Keywords: metapragmatics, positioning theory, fact-checking, epistemic authority,
Nigerian electoral discourse, X