A Stylistic Analysis of Campaign Posters Student Presidential Candidates Use at Two Tertiary Institutions in Tanzania

Abstract

This article analyses the stylistic features of campaign posters used by student presidential candidates at two Tanzanian tertiary institutions: The University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) and the National Institute of Transport (NIT). It seeks to determine graphetic, graphological, lexical, and syntactic features that student presidential candidates employ in their campaign posters. The study collected four posters, two posters from each of the UDSM and the NIT, all of which were analysed using Crystal and Davy’s (1969) stylistic approach. The Grammar of Visual Design (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006) was used to interpret the meanings of the visuals. The two posters from UDSM were collected by passing them around the university and photographing them with a digital camera during the Students’ Union election season. The two posters from the National Institute of Transport (NIT) were collected from the NIT Instagram page using Microsoft Snipping Tool. Findings indicate that the graphetic and graphological features in the posters are in four styles: text modifications (e.g., italicisation, capitalisation, etc.); the position, size, gaze, and smiling in the photos of the candidates; buildings, logos, and background sights in the posters; and the shades of colour in the whole posters and the use of ticks. Lexically, the words used are emotive to entice the electorate to vote for a certain candidate. Syntactically, short phrases and sentences are used to help voters remember them easily.