A Study of Tropes and Figures in Mandela’s speech at Harvard University

Abstract

This paper studies Nelson Mandela’s speech at Harvard University with a view to investigating tropes and figures of speech. Figures of speech are one of the prominent stylistic devices that make a speech more effective. In the analysis, it was found that Nelson Mandela used many figures of speech but metaphor, hyperbole and litotes, alliteration and assonance, and homoeoteleuton are most common and skillfully used. Mandela used these tropes and figure with a view to stirring the audience’s certain emotions, breaking monotony, and mitigating and intensifying certain issues.