Abstract:
The study examines how the English language has been used by President John
Dramani Mahama in three of his political speeches. The main focus of the study is to
analyse the use of lexical items and the functions they play in political discourse from
the stylistic perspective. The Linguistic and Stylistic Categories by Leech & Short
(2007) and the Ideational metafunction in the Systemic Functional Grammar Theory by
Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) are applied as theoretical frameworks. A purely
descriptive and interpretative approach is used in analysing the lexical items in terms
of their frequency and meaning making. The study finds out that nouns are
predominantly used to refer to various concrete and abstract plans and policies that the
government wishes to carry out, while verbs, adjectives and adverbs are used
respectively to indicate the kind of positive actions that are required to accomplish the
plans and policies, give in-depth description of these plans and policies in order to make
them comprehensive and to indicate the manner in which the government wishes to
carry out these plans and policies. The study also reveals that Mahama uses simple
vocabulary in order to reach his audience from different levels and backgrounds
whereas the cognitive domains analysis reveals Mahama’s background as a historian
who believes in the political ideologies of Nkrumah.
Description:
A THESIS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH EDUCATION, FACULTY
OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES EDUCATION AND COMMUNICATION,
SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES, UNIVERSITY
OF EDUCATION, WINNEBA IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY
(ENGLISH LANGUAGE) DEGREE.
OCTOBER, 2017