ARISTOTELIAN RHETORIC IN PASTOR SAM ADEYEMI’S THE PARABLE OF DOLLARS
Keywords:
economic emancipation, Aristotle's artistic proofs, motivational rhetoric, Pastor Sam Adeyemi, rhetorical stylistics, religious discourse, Nigerian PentecostalismAbstract
Nigerian Pentecostal leaders increasingly engage secular and socio-economic concerns through written discourse. As such, this paper explores the motivational rhetoric of Pastor Sam Adeyemi's book, The Parable of Dollars: Proven Strategies for Financial Success. It reveals the economic themes and principles created through the biblical re-interpretation, examines the stylistic and rhetorical techniques that communicate them and assesses the efficacy of Aristotle's artistic proofs as a tool for examining persuasive texts. The study uses Aristotle's traditional rhetoric model which includes three artistic proofs: logos (logic), pathos (emotion) and ethos (credibility) as its framework. The study adopts a qualitative method and purposive sampling to select extracts from each of the eight chapters (including the introduction and title) of the book for analysis. The study reveals that Pastor Adeyemi recommends planning, passion, positive thinking, savings and investment, and giving back, and condemns corrupt leaders. The author employs metaphors, antithesis, repetition, parallelism, imagery and metonymy to persuade while using the three proofs. Aristotle's rhetorical model is an effective model for analysing motivational texts. Adeyemi is a writer-pastor who provides spiritual and economic advice.References
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