Collocational choices in the discourse activities of select paramilitary formations in Nigeria

This paper investigated the collocational choices used among three Nigerian paramilitary formations in their official discourse activities with a view to ascertaining the contextual meanings of the lexical choices. Data for the study were collected by means of participant observation and key informant interview (KII) of randomly selected segments of members in the office environment, patrol duties and muster parades. The findings showed that personnel of the formations used peculiar collocational choices in their formal discourse engagements with a high level of competence that enhanced in-group mutual intelligibility and solidarity. Categorically, the collocational choices occurred in eight different combinations: noun-noun, adjective-noun, verb-noun, adverb-adjective, adverb-verb, adverb-noun, noun-adjective and verb-adverb lexically compatible to advance institutionally modelled meanings. The lexical collocations are prominently two content words in the open class system consciously devised to communicate professional orientation for the discharge of their security and safety-related statutory duties.