A Stylo-Rhetorical Analysis of Obafemi Awolowo's "It is not Life that Matters"

This paper focusses on stylistic analysis of one selected speech of Obafemi Awolowo; a Nigerian, lawyer, philosopher and statesman. Awolowo occupied a significant position in Nigeria politics. Rhetorical communication has a special relationship with leadership and society and Nigerian leaders have adopted the medium as an effective way of making direct contact with the people. Political speeches are made by leaders to persuade, inform, correct and manipulate the audience. The text for this study is drawn from a collection of Awolowo s speeches as contained in Voice of Courage 1981a titled “It is not life that matters but the courage you bring into it”. The speech is purposively sampled to demonstrate Awolowo s language use as a weapon of influencing his audience. The analysis is done within the framework of Halliday s Systemic Functional Grammar and New Rhetoric Approaches which concentrate on the examination of language forms and evaluate the ideas put forward in speech. Findings from the study show that Awolowo employed the use of the English language as a strategy of persuasion to gain the support of his audience. The analysis reveals the effectiveness of Awolowo s language use.