Sentence Pattern and Usage in Nigeria’s 2015 Presidential Debate

This study of sentence pattern and usage in Nigeria’s 2015 Presidential Debate identifies and accounts for all occurring major and minor sentences, classifies the major sentences into simple, compound and complex subtypes, determines their typological and thematic distribution, and demonstrates how they were strategically employed to articulate each debater’s points. The data comprises 1876 sentences and was analysed using an improved version of the systemic grammatical model. Results show that major and minor sentences represent 92 and 8 per cent respectively and that while the simple sentence accounted for 77 per cent, compound and complex sentences make up 10 and 13 per cent respectively. Mean length of sentence was 13.6 words and clause density in respect of compound and complex sentences was 1.6 and 2.22 per sentence. Of the seventeen variants of the simple sentence isolated 21 per cent had their elements of structure realised by rankshifted clauses while 20 per cent were affected by multiplicity, mobility and inversion. Though the rest 59 per cent were kernel sentences of the basic SPCA structural pattern, it was not uncommon to find structurally complex groups as elements of clause structure. What determined which of alpha or beta was clause-initially was the focus of the message conveyed. So thematic fronting is not limited to the single clause sentence. Sentence length and type, positioning of clauses or parts thereof, and decisions on conjunctions and finite or non-finite clauses, were greatly governed by theme and the speaker’s mediate goals and grammatical sophistication. These are proofs of the strategic use of the sentence by politicians.

Optimizing Confiscation of Assets in Accelerating the Eradication of Corruption

Nowadays, corruption is still the most and biggest problem facing by Indonesian, due to its impacts on the nation. It caused huge loss to the state finance and even to the democratic life in this country. Various efforts have been resorted to fight corruption, but the results are unfruitful. Until recently, Indonesia is still the third most corrupt country in Asia according to the survey of Transparency International Indonesia (TII) in 2015, with the Corruption Perceptions Index of 36 points. The fight in eradicating corruption cannot be separated from the effort to deter the criminals through severe punishment. However, ICW’s most recent data shows otherwise. During the first half of 2014, there were 261 accused of corruption, with 242 of them were convicted guilty by the Corruption Courts. Among them, 193 were sentenced lenient (between 1-4 years imprisonment), 44 moderate (4-10 years), and only 4 with over 10 years imprisonment. The average length of sentence is therefore 2,9 years. The lenient sentence can also be found in criminal restitution. Only in 87 of the total cases state compensation is imposed, amounting 87.04 billion rupiahs in total. The amount is only 0.022% of the total financial loss of 3.863 trillion rupiahs. The weak penalty triggered then the idea of impoverishing corruptors as a strategic step to accelerate the eradication of corruption while restoring the loss to the state. In contrast to the criminal restitution, which is restricted only to the state loss caused by the perpetrators, criminal confiscation of assets has no limit in amount.

Effects of Offenders' and Victims' Characteristics on Severity of Punishment

244 undergraduates read a transcript of a murder case, then made recommendations for treatment of the offender. In Exp. 1, length of sentence for a convicted murderer was unrelated to his mode of attire. In Exp. 2, sentences were unrelated to intention but were longer with than without a motive. In Exp. 3, punishment was not consistently related to the victim's gender. Suggestions for research are given.