Discourse Features of Radio Broadcasting in Hausa: A Study of Kaduna State Broadcasting Service

This study examines the discourse features of Hausa-language radio broadcasting at the Kaduna State Broadcasting Service, North West Nigeria, with a focus on news and magazine programme formats. Hausa-language broadcasting is one of Nigeria's most extensive indigenous media systems, yet formal discourse analyses of its broadcast language have been limited in scope and currency. The research adopts a discourse analysis methodology informed by the framework of broadcast talk and mediated discourse. Data were collected through systematic recording of six weeks of Hausa programming across news, current affairs, and audience participation formats at the station. The recordings were transcribed and analysed for discourse organisation, intonation patterns, deixis, formality registers, and the management of host-audience interactional sequences. Findings reveal a structured differentiation between news and magazine programme registers, with news discourse characterised by high lexical density, formal morphological constructions, and minimal audience address, while magazine programmes exhibit extensive accommodation to colloquial Hausa, audience call-in management, and code-switching with Pidgin and English in youth-targeted segments. The study also documents the influence of Arabic register in religious programming on the station. The research contributes to the discourse analysis of West African broadcast media and recommends further investigation of the relationship between broadcasting language and Hausa language standardisation. Keywords: Hausa broadcasting, radio discourse, Kaduna, broadcast talk, language standardisation.