On the road to the presidency: a pragma-rhetorical analysis of the campaign speeches of John Agyekum Kufuor.

Abstract

The thesis explored and compared the deployment of rhetorical and pragmatic strategies in the campaign discourse of President John Agyekum Kufuor (JAK) as a challenger and as an incumbent respectively in Ghana’s 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Nine of his campaign speeches were selected for the study, using largely qualitative research design supported by the Pragma-Rhetorical Theory (Hie, 2006) and Functional Theory of Political Campaign Discourse (Benoit, 1999). The rhetorical analysis revealed that as a challenger JAK employed negative campaigning rooted in bellicose rhetoric. He also resorted to can-do optimism and marketed himself as an agent of change and the quintessence of the cure-all for Ghana’s problems. Conversely, as an incumbent the study showed that JAK appealed for continuity using temperate rhetoric. He flaunted his achievements and appropriated the ethos of traditional rulers to create a viable image of himself as a performing president. The pragmatic analysis, based on Searle’s (1979) classification of speech acts showed a preponderance of assertive. However, as a challenger, JAK performed more assertive acts (52.8%) than as an incumbent (47.2%). This result suggests that as a challenger JAK’s campaign discourse was more informative and descriptive in terms of the socio-economic conditions in the country. These findings underscore JAK’s adroitness in the tactical selection of varied rhetorical and pragmatic strategies to reflect his challenger-incumbent status for the achievement of his persuasive and communicative intentions. The findings of the study have implications for challengers eager to win power and incumbents keen to maintain power.