Lexicalisation of Discursive Strategies in Selected Fault-based Divorce Proceedings in Oyo

A fault-based divorce proceeding is a legal process in which one spouse seeks dissolution of a marriage by proving the other's marital misconduct. Extant studies on Nigerian courtroom discourse have explored speech acts, transitivity, and pragmatic acts. Little attention has been paid to the lexicalisation of discursive strategies in divorce proceedings. This study therefore examines how lexical choices realise discursive strategies in fault-based divorce proceedings adjudicated at the Customary Court, Oyo. Anchored on Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics and Wodak's Discourse-Historical Approach, the study adopts a qualitative design using two audio-recorded proceedings transcribed into a 15,620-word corpus and seventeen excerpts were generated in total. Findings reveal four discursive strategies: referential nomination which employs legal-institutional and labels to position litigants as procedural subjects; Intensification uses emphatic adjectives and adverbs to amplify allegations; perspectivation draws on victimhood constructions to enhance credibility and Argumentation is realised through euphemistic and metaphorical expressions that justify marital breakdown. Overall, lexicalisation functions as a strategic resource for constructing blame, credibility, and legitimacy within Nigeria's adversarial divorce process, enriching understanding of the relationship between lexical choice and discursive strategy in legal discourse.