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Title AN ANALYSIS OF THEMES AND LINGUISTIC DEVICES IN POLITICAL AUTOBIOGRAPHIES

Author(s) Mr. Mukhtiar Muhammad

Abstract ABSTRACT Title: Postmodern Discourse: A Thematic and Linguistic Analysis of Political Autobiographies This study aims to explore, through critical discourse analysis of political autobiographies, activistic themes in political discourse and how these themes are communicated to readers with the use of linguistic devices. This research analyzes two autobiographies of contemporary political personalities, Nelson Mandela and Barack Hussein Obama. Their selection is based on their similarities of struggle in contemporary political world and political importance in the world politics. Each of them is connected with the concept of ‘change’ in one way or another. Each of them does not represent the traditional hierarchy of politicians. They have futuristic view with abolition of ‘apartheid’ in different shapes and have emancipatory agenda. The study is important as it offers deep scholarship in terms of its scope and application not only in Pakistani context but also in global political and historical context. The Postmodern wave of democratization and the emphasis on democratic values and right to expression make it imperative that the political discourse be studied with more and full attention. In this regard, one genre that is almost totally ignored in Pakistani context and little attention has been paid to it even at the global level, is autobiography. Autobiography is a special kind of composition in which the author gives a picture of the evolution of the self and its relation with the external world throughout this evolutionary process. The famous political autobiographies Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela and Audacity of Hope by Barack Hussein Obama were, therefore, selected as the basic units of analysis. Through content analysis different topics are separated from the original text. These topics are then grouped under different categories of van Dijk’s theory of Political Discourse Analysis. The exploration and analysis of linguistic devices are also carried out. Besides Van Dijk’s Political Discourse Analysis (PDA), Huckin’s approach to text and Corpus Linguistics’ quantitative methodology aided the systematic in depth analysis. Methods of both the qualitative and quantitative research have been utilized for this study as the researchers believe that quantification of data along with qualitative description produce reliable results.

Type Thesis/Dissertation

Faculty Languages

Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2020-01-17

Subject English Linguistics

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