Language and Persuasion: An Exploratory Analysis of Rhetorical Elements in Celebrities’ Social Media Posts
Albert Abban 
, Dorah Mensah , Manuella Rich Oppong Akosah & Kwabena Badu Amponsem
Issue: Vol.5 No.3 Issue Article 3 pp.190-204
DOI: https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.2024533 | Published online 1st March, 2024
© 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
This paper adapted the framework of rhetorical devices developed by Michalik-Suchanek to examine the language used in social media posts of Ghanaian celebrities, focusing specifically on the use of rhetorical elements. Instagram and Twitter were chosen as the primary platforms for analysis due to their popularity among Ghanaians. The dataset consisted of posts from 15 Ghanaian celebrities, sourced from either one or both platforms. The study adopted the embedded mixed-methods approach. A total of 130 celebrity posts from Instagram and 70 from Twitter, all from April 2022, were collected using mobile phones and laptops through an observational guide. Through a critical analysis of the sampled data, 22 rhetorical devices were identified, with syntactic devices being the most commonly used. The study revealed that most Ghanaian celebrities prefer to use Standard English in their posts. It was also revealed that these rhetorical devices were employed by celebrities to establish unique relationships with their followers, persuade them to take action, express intentions, caption videos and pictures, and enhance the overall meaning of their posts. The research showed that the use of rhetorical devices was effective in enriching the language of the posts. Based on these findings, it was recommended that further studies be conducted to explore the use of rhetorical elements in social media posts of politicians, businesspeople, entertainers, and other public figures in Ghana. Such studies would contribute to a deeper understanding of how rhetorical strategies are employed in the digital communication landscape. This study contributes to existing knowledge on social media research conducted in Ghana.
Keywords: Rhetorical Elements, Language, Persuasion, Celebrities, Social Media, Ghana
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Albert Abban is a Teaching and Research Assistant at the Department of English, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi-Ghana. He holds BA. English with French as a minor from the same university. His research interests cover topics in the areas of Rhetoric and Technical Communication, Sociolinguistics, Language Education, Discourse Analysis, and English and French for Academic Purposes. He is also a Teaching Consultant at Education USA Kumasi – ACE Consult where he handles lessons in standardized tests – SAT,IELTS and TOEFL.
Dorah Mensah is a Tutor at the Department of English, Akrokerri College of Education. She holds MPhil and BA in English from KNUST. Her research interests are in the areas of Language Education, Pragmatics, Sociolinguistics, and Discourse Analysis. She teaches courses in English Education, Semantics, Syntax and Stylistics.
Manuella Akosah is a BA English graduate in the Department of English, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi- Ghana. She has research interests in Multilingualism, Rhetoric and Technical Communication, and Language Education.
Kwabena Badu Amponsem is a tutor at the Department of Ghanaian Language, Akrokerri College of Education. He holds M.Phil in Ghanaian Language Studies (Twi). His research interests are in the areas of Ethnography, Sociolinguistics and Discourse Analysis.
Abban, Albert, Dorah Mensah, Manuella Rich Oppong Akosah & Kwabena Badu Amponsem.“Language and Persuasion: An Exploratory Analysis of Rhetorical Elements in Celebrities’ Social Media Posts.” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 5, no.3 (2024): 190-204. https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.2024533
© 2024 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Journals. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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