Applying the Discourse-Comprehension Approach to the Analysis to Robert Graves’ Recalling War in First and Second Years at Some Colleges in South Kivu Province

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to apply the Discourse-Comprehension Approach to analyze Robert Graves’ poem Recalling War with first and second-year college students in South Kivu province. Methodology: The study adopted a qualitative descriptive design based on the discourse-comprehension approach. The poem was analyzed at both formal and semantic levels by examining its structural organization, grammatical categories, rhetorical devices, discourse interactional factors, themes, tone, subject matter, scenario, feelings, effects, punctuation, paralinguistic features and the poet’s communicative intention. The analysis integrated linguistic, stylistic, semantic, pragmatic and reader-oriented perspectives to provide a comprehensive interpretation of the poem. Findings: The analysis revealed that Recalling War is a five-stanza narrative poem organized around the enduring physical, psychological and social consequences of war. The poem employs a rich combination of nouns, verbs, adjectives, metaphors, imagery, repetition, oxymoron, simile, alliteration, personification, contrast, ellipsis and other rhetorical devices that reinforce its anti-war message. The discourse-comprehension analysis identified war trauma, destruction, fear, hopelessness, psychological suffering and post-war memory as the dominant themes. The serious and warning tone, the selected linguistic and paralinguistic features enable readers to experience pity, compassion, fear and pain while understanding the poet’s intention enables readers to preserve collective memory and warn future generations against the devastating effects of war. The analysis further demonstrated that discourse elements such as language clues, punctuation, interactional context and rhetorical organization work together to facilitate literary comprehension. Unique contribution to the theory, Policy and Practice: This study contributes to literary studies by demonstrating the effectiveness of the discourse-comprehension approach as an integrated framework for interpreting poetry through linguistic, semantic, stylistic, pragmatic and communicative analysis. It provides literature teachers with a practical model for teaching poetry that promotes deeper comprehension beyond traditional paraphrasing and thematic analysis. The study also offers national curriculum designers a structured analytical framework that can strengthen poetry instruction, literary interpretation and critical thinking in literature courses by integrating discourse analysis into poetry teaching.