SOURCE:

Faculty: Arts
Department: English Language & Literature

CONTRIBUTORS:

Eze, C.T.
Ephraim Chukwu

ABSTRACT:

Abstract
This research investigated the use of rhetorical devices in the political speeches of two African political activists, Nelson Mandela and Nnamdi Kanu. Although politicians employ rhetoric devices in their political discourse due to its tendency to persuade, there are politicians that are reluctant to wholly embrace rhetorical devices in their speeches. They resort to hate speech while addressing their audience. Their speeches are usually made up of hate speech that incites inequality and bias. Political speeches have been grammatically, pragmatically and sociolinguistically analyzed, but little research has been carried out on the use of rhetorical devices and hate speech in political discourse, As a result, this research attempted to discover if the use of rhetoric devices and/or hate language in political speeches can help politicians persuade their audience and make them align with their political ideologies. The research derived its theoretical framework from Persuasion Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis. The population of the study comprised political speeches that contain rhetorical devices and hate speech. Data for the study comprised excerpts from three political speeches made by Nelson Mandela and three political speeches made by Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and these are harnessed from the internet. The method of analysis was textual. Textual analysis was employed to answer the research questions and evaluate the data. The result of analysis showed that these political activists copiously used rhetorical devices to persuade their audience and influence them to align with their political ideologies and pledge their unalloyed support to their political struggles. Nnamdi Kanu, however, used hate speech to incite hatred in the hearts of his followers, while Mandela used only emotive languages that evoke emotional responses from readers or audiences. Kanu equally used hate speech to enact power, social power abuse, dominance, inequality and bias, and used these tools to achieve discursive control over his followers and supporters. The researcher chose these two activists because both want emancipation for their people and were chastised by their governments. A related study may be carried out using other political speeches by some other political activists in Africa.