POLITICS OF WORDS, WORDS OF POLITICS: ANALYSIS OF RHETORICAL DEXTERITY IN SELECTED YORÙBÁ FILMS. Esther Títílayọ̀ Òjó and Abíọ́dún Oyèsọjí Ọyágbénjó

POLITICS OF WORDS, WORDS OF POLITICS: ANALYSIS OF RHETORICAL DEXTERITY IN SELECTED YORÙBÁ FILMS

Esther Títílayọ̀ Òjó (Associate Professor)

Department of Linguistics, African and Asian Studies Faculty of Arts, University of Lagos, Akoka-Yaba. Email-etojo@unilag.edu.ng

Abíọ́dún Oyèsọjí Ọyágbénjó Department of Linguistics, African and Asian Studies Faculty of Arts, University of Lagos, Akoka-Yaba. E-mail: abiodunoyaone@gmail.com Abstract Words are wonderous things that evoke great emotions, create a sense of urgency and compel the audience in earnest to do what is unbelievable. When rhetorics speak, a layman just enjoys the amplification, heuristic and aesthetic dexterity without much concern about the elements that constitute the dexterity. This study, therefore, substantiates an interface between four Yorùbá recent epic movies using the mode through which the rogues and rebels satirise the society and effect changes with political words in their rhetorical media provided. We employ Roman Jacobson’s Communication Models in Structuralism to survey rhetorical acts in four Yorùbá selected films –Jagunjagun and Agẹshinkólé by Fẹ́mi Adébáyọ̀, Lísàbi by Adébímpé Oyèbádé-Adédiméjì and Fúnmiláyọ̀ Ransome-Kútì by Bọ́láńlé Austen-Peter. The playwrights’ stance against oppression through the characterisation of Gbọ́tìjà, Agẹsinkọ́lé and Lísàbi in Jagunjagun, Agẹshinkólé, Lísàbi and Fúnmiláyọ̀ Ransome-Kútì respectively serve as reference points in each film. Text pragmatics and quantitative analysis of data are adopted. Findings reveal the instrumentality of emotive, conative, phatic, poetic, referential and metalanguage functions and ratifies that conative and phatic functions of the language where audience roles take prominent roles in rhetorics’ speech are the most vital pragmatic tacts used by the rogues in these films. Hence, the selflessness of the rhetoric excites and propels the audience to yield unimaginably to the messages. This demonstrates that the four personas as freedom fighters and active competent speakers, who champion the course of the masses using relevant stylistic devices as weapons of conveyance of values. The study recommends the production of movies of this rhetorical and filmmaker-linguist collaboration for the sustenance of such excellent productions, with the liberation of the oppressed and national development in sight.