Rhetorical Stylistics in the Selected Speeches of Wangari Muta Maathai

This study collected data through the means of close-textual reading, which facilitated the analysis of the rhetorical stylistics in eight selected speeches of Wangari Maathai. By utilising content analysis, the present study breaks new ground within literary discourse on how rhetorical stylistics as a technique of persuasion has been employed. What makes this study unique and worth scholarly attention is how Maathai utilises rhetorical stylistics to appeal to her audience to buy into her ideologies and beliefs, and also to persuade them. For that, our study seeks to break new ground by analysing how Wangari Maathai positions herself within different social and cultural locations, how she uses her brand for persuasion, and how she is able to adapt different subjectivities. To advance the research question and objective, the selected speeches are eye openers to her ideologies and expectations, and that is why they are worth our attention. Our current study is of an analytical design and qualitative in its nature, grounded in Kenneth Burke’s theory of identity, whose main tenet is that persuasion cannot occur unless there first exists identity. For the selected speeches, non-probability sampling is employed, through which Maathai’s speeches are subjected to document analysis. The items are judgmentally selected because of their intense plot, vivid description, presence of rhetorical stylistics, as well as analysability. The study reviews literature on identification, speeches, narrative voice, as well as other works done by Wangari Maathai. The study aims to fill the gap in the areas of rhetorical stylistics and how they are used for persuasion. Since the study relied on archived data, materials of speeches that have been retrieved from the Green Belt movement, it fell short of analysing non-verbal elements