A Stylistic Analysis Of Diescho's Dictums

ABSTRACT 

This study analysed the stylistic features of foregrounding and figurative language as used by Diescho in his “Dictums” published in the New Era newspaper between January 2014 and December 2015, using the formalist theory. The researcher selected 20 of these dictums that dealt with social and political issues. Though Diescho is an author of several works, a political analyst and a commentator on various issues who is articulate and creative in style, especially when it comes to language use, no analysis has yet been carried out to study his authorial style that is linguistically fascinating. The study was guided by two objectives namely; to analyse Diescho’s use of foregrounding in the form of parallelism and deviation to effectively convey his message, and to explore how Diescho stylistically constructs meaning through figurative language and other linguistic expressions. The study adopted a qualitative research design. Being explorative in nature, the design aided in seeking to understand how Diescho used language through foregrounding and figures of speech to air his views on several issues. The study employed a purposive sampling procedure to select the sample; however, the selected sample cannot be claimed to represent the author’s entire style since it is only a small fraction of Diescho’s publications. The study found the following regarding Diescho’s style: (a)   Diescho is an archetypal scholar, author and a great writer whose authorial style can aid in creating great writers in Namibia. (b) Diescho is an author with multiple authorial styles, who creatively combine styles to write what he intends the readers to read (understand). (c) In addition to deviation and parallelism, Diescho employed other writing techniques such as reference, rhetoric questions and extensive use of quotes to strengthen and enhance his arguments, as well as to voice his views, beliefs and opinions on multiple issues.