EMOTIONAL RHETORIC IN 172 DAYS NOVEL BY NADZIRA SHAFA

Abstract

Emotional rhetoric is a language strategy intended to evoke readers' emotions through linguistic elements that strengthen message delivery. 172 Days, a novel by Nadzira Shafa, portrays themes of love, struggle, loss, and religious values through expressive language capable of touching readers emotionally. This study aims to describe the forms of emotional rhetoric employed in 172 Days and examine their implications for Indonesian language learning at the senior high school level. The study employed a descriptive qualitative method. The data source was the novel 172 Days by Nadzira Shafa, while the research data consisted of words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs containing emotional rhetoric. Data were collected using the reading and note-taking technique and analyzed through data reduction, classification, data presentation, and conclusion drawing. The findings revealed 38 instances of emotional rhetoric, consisting of 11 figures of speech, 5 structural rhetorical devices, and 22 instances of imagery. Imagery was identified as the most dominant form of emotional rhetoric, whereas structural rhetorical devices appeared least frequently. Emotional rhetoric in the novel functions to evoke various emotional responses, strengthen persuasive effects, establish emotional closeness between the author and readers, clarify the characters' inner experiences, and create lasting impressions. These findings indicate that 172 Days is relevant as an alternative teaching material for Indonesian language learning in senior high schools, particularly in literary appreciation and the analysis of linguistic features in accordance with the Merdeka Curriculum.