Abstract:
When Corona virus was discovered in Wuhan China, many countries, Kenya included, did
not have a lot of information about the virus. Despite that, the citizens were looking up
to the government together with other leaders to provide information about the virus. In
Kenya, after sometime, leaders started issuing statements about the virus with an
intention of providing public education to help contain the virus. Some of these were
government officers while others were members of parliament and other pressure
groups that deal with human rights. The purpose of this research was to look at the way
the Kenyan leaders used language to communicate to the masses about Covid-19. The
approach used was that of Critical Discourse analysis (CDA). Chunks of utterances from
selected leaders that appeared in a Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation between 1st April
and 30th April were analyzed using CDA parameters. The findings revealed that the
utterances showed underlying social issues and disparities together with power relations
and domination. A number of the utterances did not take into consideration the needs of
the people or even the effects of the statements on the masses. Some appeared to give
orders to people that did not resonate well with the masses. There is need for the
leaders making statements to be more considerate, educative and diplomatic in their
approach to make their messages more effective and to obtain the desired result. This
could be done by allowing those who are experts in a given field to take charge in
disseminating information to the populace.
