A Linguistic Analysis Of Rhetorical Strategies In Selected Narratives Of Alice Walker

As such, this study helps to expand the body of investigation relating linguistics to literature and medium to message. To address the problem, the writer relied upon the method of discourse analysis, specifically employing the linguistic tools of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, as well as a combination of theoretical frameworks, including Paul H. Grice's conversational implicature, Gill Seidel's discourse analysis, Edward Finegan's concepts of language use, George Yule's theoretical writings, Edward Said's colonial discourse theory, and certain feminist reductionist concepts.

Even more specifically, the writer examined Walker's phonological processes; the patterns of word formation; the syntactic features that Walker employed to negotiate with her readers, including negation, verb deletion, tense variation, subordination, voice variation, and co-ordination; her rhetorical use of ambivalence as a semantic device; and her manipulation of fronting, code switching, and negation as pragmatic strategies.