A neo-aristotelian and visual rhetorical analysis of SWAPO’s people’s liberation army of Namibia’s the combatant

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Date
2022
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Namibia
Abstract
This study offers a neo-Aristotelian and visual rhetoric analysis of two purposively selected volumes of the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN)’s revolutionary magazine, The Combatant. The aim of the study was to examine how the magazine employed rhetoric devices in its advocacy for exposing the evil tactics of the apartheid regime in Namibia. The study thus investigated how the magazine employed the three canons of rhetoric: invention, arrangement and style, as well as visual patterns to convey its intended communicative and rhetorical potential. Moreover, the study sought to find out the extent at which The Combatant incorporated other rhetoric al devices in its quest to function as a tool that exposes colonialism. Couched within the theoretical foundations of Neo-Aristotelian Rhetorical Theory and Visual Rhetorical Analysis, the study examined the rhetorical and communicative potentials of the magazine in the context of the Namibian liberations war. The study adopted a qualitative research approach - which was explorative in nature and also utilising content analysis in analysing the collected data which was purposively sampled. The major findings of the study revealed that the magazine integrated invention, arrangement and style in assembling the magazine, which confirms that The Combatant was an intentional and intelligent rhetorician. The findings of the study further revealed that The Combatant used visual images as means of persuasion and poems were incorporated as rhetorical devices. The study concludes that the faculty of rhetoric is of utmost importance in political discourse and it is a skill every Politian must possess in order to persuade and impose ideologies on an intended audience.
Description
A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (English studies)
Keywords
Neo-aristotelian, Visual rhetorical, SWAPO, PLAN
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