Language in HIV/AIDS Public Health Campaigns in Cross River State: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Public health communication about HIV and AIDS is a site where language choices carry significant consequences for stigma reduction, behaviour change, and community mobilization, making it an important domain for applied linguistic investigation in Nigerian health contexts. This study critically analyses the language used in HIV and AIDS public health campaign materials distributed in Cross River State between 2021 and 2024, examining how linguistic framing constructs the epidemic, its affected populations, and recommended responses. A corpus of forty campaign materials including posters, radio jingles, pamphlets, and social media graphics was assembled from the Cross River State Agency for the Control of AIDS and associated NGOs. Critical discourse analysis was applied to examine lexical choices, pronoun use, imperative constructions, and visual-verbal meaning integration. Findings reveal persistent use of war and battle metaphors that construct HIV as an external enemy, a framing that can reinforce stigma by implying moral responsibility for infection. Pronoun analysis reveals a consistent us-them distinction in materials targeting high-risk populations, which risks alienating the intended audience. Positive reframing through agency-affirming language appears in only approximately twenty percent of the materials analysed. The study argues that language reform in HIV communication can contribute to stigma reduction without compromising health messaging effectiveness, and recommends a participatory language review process engaging people living with HIV in the design of future campaign materials. Keywords: HIV/AIDS communication, critical discourse analysis, public health language, Cross River State, stigma.