1schaffner_christina_editor_analysing_political_speeches

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Analysing Political Speeches

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CURRENT ISSUES IN LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY

Editor:Sue Wright

Editorial Board:Dennis Ager, Paul Chilton, Helen Kelly-Holmes & Christina Schäffner

Other Books in the Series

Children Talking: The Development of Pragmatic Competence

Linda Thompson (ed.)

Cultural Functions of Translation

Christina Schäffner and Helen Kelly-Holmes (eds.)

Discourse and Ideologies

Christina Schäffner and Helen Kelly-Holmes (eds.)

Ethnicity in Eastern Europe

Sue Wright (ed.)

Language and the State

Sue Wright (ed.)

Languages in Contact and Conflict

Sue Wright (ed.)

Monolingualism and Bilingualism: Lessons from Canada and Spain

Sue Wright (ed.)

Other Books of Interest:

Encyclopedia of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education

Colin Baker and Sylvia Prys Jones

'Francophonie' in the 1990s Dennis Ager

Language, Culture and Communication in Contemporary Europe

Charlotte Hoffmann (ed.)

Language Planning: from Practice to Theory

Robert B. Kaplan and Richard B. Baldauf, Jr

Language Reclamation

Hubisi Nwenmely

Mass Media in the Asian Pacific

Bryce T. McIntyre (ed.)

Quebec's Aboriginal Languages

Jacques Maurais (ed.)

Please contact us for the latest book information:

Multilingual Matters Ltd, Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon, BS21 7HH, England

Web pages: http://www.multi.demon.co.uk

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Analysing Political Speeches

Edited by

Christina Schäffner

Multilingual Matters Ltd

Clevedon · Philadelphia · Toronto · Sydney · Johannesburg

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Analysing Political Speeches/Edited By Christina Schäffner Based On A Series Of CILS Seminars

Includes Bibliographical References

1. Political Oratory. 2. Public Speaking. 3. Language And LanguagesPolitical Aspects. 4. Discourse Analysis. I. Schäffner, Christina

PN4193.P6A53 1997 808.5'1'08835dc21 97-33503

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 1-85359-401-6 (hbk)

Multilingual Matters Ltd

UK: Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon BS21 7HH. USA: 1900 Frost Road, Suite 101, Bristol, PA 19007, USA.

Canada: OISE, 712 Gordon Baker Road, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2H 3R7. Australia: P.O. Box 586, Artamon, NSW, Australia.

South Africa: PO Box 1080, Northcliffe 2115, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Copyright © 1997 Christina Schäffner and the authors of individual articles.

This book is also available as Vol. 3, No. 3 of the journal Current Issues in Language and Society.

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Short Run Press Ltd.

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Editorial: Political Speeches and Discourse Analysis

Christina Schäffner

Institute for the Study of Language and Society, Aston University, Birmingham B4 7ET, UK

Language and Politics

When we think of politics, we think of it mainly in terms of the struggle for power in order to secure specific ideas and interests and put them into practice. This process of manifesting a political will and transforming it into concrete social action is realised first of all between political parties. In this process, language plays an important role. In fact, any political action is prepared, accompanied, controlled and influenced by language. We could easily add other verbs to this list, such as guided, explained, justified, evaluated, criticised, . . .

The study of language has recently become more central to those academic disciplines concerned with politics. However, political scientists on the one hand, and linguists, or discourse analysts, on the other hand, focus on different aspects when they discuss the relationship between language and politics, and they also apply different theories and methods in doing so. Political scientists are mainly concerned with the consequences of political decisions and actions for (the history of) a society, and they may be interested in the political realities which are constructed in and through discourse. Linguists, on the other hand, have always been particularly interested in the linguistic structures used to get politically relevant messages across to the addressees in order to fulfil a specific function. But also a more narrow linguistic analysis of political discourse cannot ignore the broader societal and political framework in which such discourse is embedded. Van Dijk has recently argued, that 'despite some studies on "political language", discourse and conversation analysis has thus far had little to offer to political science', and he has called for discourse analysis to be a 'genuine social, political or cultural analysis' (van Dijk, 1994: 164). Such an interdisciplinary perspective should in all probability yield most promising results.

One problem in the complex of language and politics, however, is how to define what is political. Particularly in the twentieth century, as a result of the massive expansion of print and electronic media, more and more people are exposed to discourse that may be characterised as political in nature. In addition, more and more people are involved in their daily life in political action, by, for example, being asked to cast their votes in an election, or by watching the news on TV or reading a newspaper, or simply by talking with friends about the consequences which recent decisions of the government might have for each individual. The opportunities for each person to bemore or less activelyinvolved in political discourse have increased enormously.

Looked at it from the point of view of linguistics and discourse analysis, we have to admit that political language, political discourse,and political text themselves are vague terms. In linguistic literature, political language has been used either to

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denote the use of language in the context of politics, i.e. a specific language use with the purpose of achieving a specific, politically motivated function, or it has been used to denote the specific political vocabulary, i.e. words and phrases that refer to extralinguistic phenomena in the domain of politics (see Dieckmann, 1981). From the point of view of language use, we can again differentiate between internal and external political communication, based on the setting and the communicative partners involved. Internal political communication would refer to all forms of discourse that concern first of all the functioning of politics within political institutions, i.e. governmental bodies, parties or other organisations. The texts in this context discuss political ideas, beliefs, and practices of a society or some part of it. External political communication, on the other hand, is first of all aimed at the general public, i.e. non-politicians. These two types of communication are realised by a variety of text types, or genres, which may sometimes function both in internal and external communication. Political discourse includes both inner-state and inter-state discourse, and it may take various forms. Examples are bilateral or multilateral treaties, speeches made during an electioneering campaign or at a congress of a political party, a contribution of a member of parliament to a parliamentary debate, editorials or commentaries in newspapers, a press conference with a politician, or a politician's memoirs. Here we concentrate on political speeches as a specific sub-genre of political texts.

Political speeches

The characterisation of a text as political can be based on functional and thematic criteria. Political texts are a part of and/or the result of politics, they are historically and culturally determined (see the contributions in Bochmann, 1986). They fulfil different functions due to different political activities. Their topics are primarily related to politics, i.e. political activities, political ideas, political relations, etc. Another characteristic feature is thatin the majority of cases they are meant for a wider public.

Political speeches are a case in point, and they were the special focus of the series of CILS seminars which forms the basis of this issue. Looking at these speeches from the functional perspective, we can probably differentiate sub-genres. The speakers are normally leading politicians, and they can speak either to members of the same political or ideological group (e.g. a leader addressing delegates at the annual party conference), which would be an example of internal political communication. Other settings are a politician addressing the whole nation (e.g. the annual New Year's Eve address of a head of state, or the American president's televised reports on the state of the nation), which would be examples of external, albeit inner-state political communication. An example of inter-state political communication would be a leading politician addressing politicians or members of the public during a visit abroad.

A linguistic analysis of political discourse in general, and of political speeches in particular, can be most successful when it relates the details of linguistic behaviour to political behaviour. This can be done from two perspectives: we can start from the linguistic micro-level and ask which strategic functions specific structures (e.g. word choice, a specific syntactic structure) serve to