'One Book, One Pen, One Child, and One Teacher Can Change the World!'
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‘One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world!’ A study of personal pronouns, modality and rhetorical devices in a selection of Malala Yousafzai’s speeches. Arja Grenager Sørmo A Thesis presented to the Department of Literature, Area Studies and European Languages The University of Oslo Spring Term 2016 II ‘One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world!’ A study of personal pronouns, modality and rhetorical devices in a selection of Malala Yousafzai’s speeches. Arja Grenager Sørmo III © Arja Grenager Sørmo 2016 ‘One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world!’ A study of personal pronouns, modality and rhetorical devices in a selection of Malala Yousafzai’s speeches. Arja Grenager Sørmo http://www.duo.uio.no/ Trykk: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo IV Abstract 15 year old Malala Yousafzai caught the world's attention when she was shot in the head on a school bus in Pakistan by members from the terrorist group known as the Taliban. Since that day in 2012, Malala has built a national career as a global youth activist, who works hard to empower children’s rights to an education. Her work has focused on empowering especially girls’ rights and their role in world society. This thesis aims to analyse the vocabulary in speeches given by Yousafzai after she was shot. The investigation is based on nine speeches, which form The Malala Corpus. The study consists of an analysis of personal pronouns, modal auxiliaries and rhetorical devices. This has been done to figure out what kind of devices Yousafzai has applied to enhance the persuasive effect of her speeches, and create a strong appeal to the audience which has resulted in her political impact. The findings revealed that personal pronouns, modal auxiliaries and figurative language play an important role in her persuasive discourse, and the rhetorical elements that most frequently have been applied are a combination of appealing by the use of ethos and pathos. V VI Acknowledgements This thesis is dedicated to my mother. She is a true inspiration, has always supported me and had faith in me, no matter what I have set my mind to. Thank you. I have to give a special thanks to my brilliant supervisor, Professor Hilde Hasselgård, who had faith in my idea from day one. By giving me motivational feedback and showing positive attitude, she has guided me through this thrilling experience. I am truly grateful for all the great coffee breaks and conversations I have had with the students on the 8th floor. They have made this experience filled with irreplaceable moments, always been supportive throughout the process, and made me laugh too loud. To all my friends, thank you for always being there for me, and showing support throughout this process. I also have to thank my wonderful siblings and my other family for all their love and support, and Lisa, who motivated me with inspiring feedback in the final part of this journey. Last but not least, I want to express my love and thankfulness to Joel. He has made every day a bit brighter, and every frustrating moment a bit better. VII VIII Table of Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... V Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. VII Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................... IX List of Tables ......................................................................................................................... XIII List of Figures ....................................................................................................................... XIV Chapter 1: Introduction ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Aim and scope ............................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Who is Malala Yousafzai and what is her aim? .......................................................... 2 1.2.1 Thesis outline ....................................................................................................... 4 Chapter 2: Theoretical background ..................................................................................... 5 2.1 Rhetoric and persuasion ............................................................................................... 6 2.1.1 Ethos: personality and stance ............................................................................... 6 2.1.2 Pathos: emotional arrangement ............................................................................ 8 2.1.3 Logos: structure of argument .............................................................................. 10 2.2 Political speeches as a genre ...................................................................................... 12 2.3 Context of culture ...................................................................................................... 12 2.4 Ideology ..................................................................................................................... 13 2.5 Rhetorical devices ...................................................................................................... 15 2.5.1 Figures of speech ................................................................................................ 15 2.5.2 Metaphor ............................................................................................................ 16 2.5.3 Three-part lists .................................................................................................... 18 2.5.4 Contrastive pairs - antithesis .............................................................................. 18 2.5.5 Repetition ........................................................................................................... 19 2.5.6 References to religion and God .......................................................................... 20 2.5.7 Questions ............................................................................................................ 21 2.6 Personal pronouns – pronoun choice ......................................................................... 22 2.6.1 First person pronouns ......................................................................................... 23 2.6.2 Second person pronouns ..................................................................................... 23 2.6.3 Third person pronouns ....................................................................................... 23 2.6.4 Personal pronouns as a part of ethos .................................................................. 24 2.7 Modality..................................................................................................................... 25 IX 2.7.1 Modality defined through systemic functional grammar ................................... 26 2.7.2 Modality defined through descriptive grammar ................................................. 27 2.7.3 Modal auxiliaries ................................................................................................ 27 2.8 Previous research within this field............................................................................. 28 2.8.1 Activism ............................................................................................................. 29 2.9 Features of feminine rhetoric style ............................................................................ 30 2.10 Concluding remarks on linguistic devices ............................................................. 32 Chapter 3: Material and methods ...................................................................................... 33 3.1 Material ...................................................................................................................... 33 3.1.1 Speeches ............................................................................................................. 34 3.2 Methods ..................................................................................................................... 37 3.2.1 Corpus Linguistics .............................................................................................. 37 3.2.2 Does the material constitute a corpus? ............................................................... 38 3.2.3 Retrieving data for the investigation .................................................................. 39 3.3 Qualitative versus quantitative analysis .................................................................... 40 Chapter 4: Personal pronouns ............................................................................................ 41 4.1 First person pronouns ................................................................................................ 42 4.1.1 The use of I in the material ................................................................................. 42 4.1.2 Discussion of findings of I ................................................................................. 49 4.1.3 The use of we in the material ............................................................................. 50 4.1.4 Summary of the findings of we .......................................................................... 54 4.1.5 Me and us ..........................................................................................................