A pragmatic analysis of some speeches use by leaders of burundian political parties during the 2010 electoral campagn
/ by Abraham Niyonsaba; Antoine Ntaziryayo, directeur
. - Bujumbura : Université du Burundi, Faculty of arts and Social Sciences, 2015
. - VII-85 f. ; 30 cm.
A dissertation submetted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degre "Licence en Langue et Littérature Anglaises
Résumé
Language es the main tool of communication is not an easy thing. Being able to understand a given language requires becoming familiar with the culture of its speakers. The hearer is not always direct while transmitting his message. The indirectness of a language may mislead the hearers as the exact inter interpretation is concerned.
In fact, taking into account the misunderstanding and misinterpretation that mays occur for an utterance, the context of use is the crucial elemnt that helps to find out meanings behind words used in constructing an utterance. It is obvious that speeches in general and political campaign speeches in particular embody a language that can be decoded when the hearer considers the context in which utterance are oriented. Therefore, this study puts emphasis on a pragmatic analysis of some speeches used by leaders of Burundian political parties during the 2010 electoral campaign. The necessary data were collected from the Public Radio and Television (RTNB).
After the analysis, we found out that some messages used by campaigners are note direct to the audience because some of them contain figurative language or images. For instance, when the public sings, "... uri imfura y'Uburundi uhore kw'ivora.." (.. you are the oldest son of Burundi, hold onto the steering wheel...), 'the steering wheel' is contextually referred to as 'power'. Some utterances are also linked with the culture. So, the meaning cannot be deciphered in the plain sense. By using 'isiha' (Gambian rat), the campaigner refer to 'selfish and greedy animal' and contextually, he means 'embezzlers'. We also found out that the language used by campaigners can affect the minds of the hearers which can push them to adopt a certain behavior. It is pragmatics which is of paramount importance to a good understanding that pushed me to conduct this study especially on campaign speeches.