1schaffner_christina_editor_analysing_political_speeches
.pdffulfil. Or, we can start from the macro-level, i.e. the communicative situation and the function
Page 3
of a text and ask which linguistic structures have been chosen to fulfil this function. For both perspectives, the political situations and processes can be linked to discourse types and levels of discourse organisation by way of an intermediate level: that of strategic functions. The most important such strategic functions are coercion, resistance, opposition and protest, dissimulation, and legitimisation and delegitimisation (see Chilton & Schäffner, 1997).
Political speeches are, as we have said above, not a homogeneous genre. Instead, there is a range of subtypes determined by the particular communicative situation, including the characterisation of the communicative partners (i.e. who is speaking to whom? when? where? why?). Based on these criteria, a discourse analysis can look into all levels and aspects of language, into pragmatics (i.e. the interaction amongst speakers and hearers), semantics (i.e. meanings, the structure of the lexicon), syntax (i.e. the internal organisation of sentences), phonology/phonetics (i.e. intonation, stress patterns, pauses).
Epideictic addresses
Usually, politicians do not deliver speeches as individuals, but rather as representatives of political parties, governments, or nations. In these conditions, they are limited as political actors as to what they can do and say and how. Commemorative addresses are a case in point, and both papers in this CILS issue refer to one and the same event: an address which the Dutch Queen Beatrix delivered to the Knesset on the occasion of her 1995 state visit to Israel.
The two main contributors are both from the Netherlands, working in the Department of Language and Communication at the University of Groningen.
In his paper, Titus Ensink focuses on the aspect of footing,i.e. the particular speaking and hearing roles which the participants are assigned. In fact, he looks more closely at the complex set of relationships between addresser, addressees, and third-party 'overhearers' or observers. For this purpose, he analyses, in a very detailed way, the personal pronouns (I, we, you)that are used in the address. This analysis shows that the speaker, Queen Beatrix, represents her country, the Netherlands, whereas the audience, the Knesset, representsin the context of the state visitIsrael, but is also seen by the Queen as being representative of the Jews in general. In some instances, the exact referent of a personal pronoun is difficult to identifya feature which is typical of political speeches. His analysis also reveals that parts of the Queen's speech, i.e. those relating to the situation of the Dutch Jews during the Second World War and the role of the Dutch people in this respect, are actually aimed at being received by Dutch society. The reason for this is that the Queen's comments are not in accordance with opinions that were traditionally held in the Netherlands.
Christoph Sauer discusses more general aspects of analysing political discourse. He argues for more consideration of rhetoric within the framework of political discourse analysis. He compares the definition of rhetoric in classical antiquity (as ars bene dicendi)to the conditions of modern political communication, discussing the characteristic features of singularity vs.
processuality/sequentiality (criterion: time), mono- /duotextuality vs. intertextuality (context), individuality vs. representation (orator), homogeneous public vs. multiple addressees (addressees), direct contact vs. mass media (medium),
Page 4
genus deliberativum vs. typological diversity (type of speech), and persuasion vs. political (campaign) success (aim). He characterises political addresses as a hybrid genre of the epideictic address,a genre that combines the goal of reaching persuasion with the offer of verbal means that are used to establish consensus regarding norms and values in society.
He shows how these criteria for the epideictic address are reflected in Queen Beatrix' address to the Knesset, e.g. her attempt at getting media attention by having a specific passage in her text which is meant to fulfil the rhetorical function of stimulating (and controlling) journalistic reformulations. He concludes that any public speech is part of a larger, more extensive communicative process, and that it can be characterised as a strategic move in an overarching communicative plan. It can therefore be assessed properly only if the larger context is taken into account.
As becomes clear in the debate, the analysis of political speeches in particular and political discourse in general should relate linguistic structures to larger contexts of communicative settings and political functions. This integrated approach is advocated by critical discourse analysis, as Norman Fairclough stresses in his reply.
References
Bochmann, K. (ed.) (1986) Eigenschaften und linguistische Analyse politischer Texte
(Linguistische Studien LS/ZISW/A 152). Berlin: Zentralinstitut für Sprachwissenschaft.
Chilton, P. and Schäffner, C. (1997) Discourse and politics. In T.A. van Dijk (ed.) Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction (Vol.2). Discourse as Social Interaction (pp. 20630). London: Sage.
Dieckmann, W. (1981) Politische Sprache. Politische Kommunikation.Heidelberg: Carl Winter
Universitätsverlag.
van Dijk, T.A. (1994) Discourse analysis and social analysis. Discourse & Society 5, 163-4.
Page 5
The Footing of a Royal Address: An Analysis of Representativeness in Political Speech, Exemplified in Queen Beatrix' Address to the Knesset on March 28, 1995
Titus Ensink
Department of Language and Communication, University of Groningen, P.O. Box 716, NL-9700 AS Groningen, Holland
On several formal occasions, politicians perform speeches the main task of which is to establish and express a perspective which is representative for the nation. In this paper I propose a systematic approach of the analysis of such speeches, based on Goffman's concept 'footing'. This concept allows us to distinguish several functional aspects of the roles speakers and hearers perform in speech situations. At the linguistic level, these roles are expressed most explicitly in deictic formulations. The approach is exemplified in the case of the Dutch Queen Beatrix addressing the Israeli Parliament on the occasion of a state visit to Israel. The analysis shows that both the Queen as the speaker and her audience as the hearers are representative of nations, peoples, their histories, their relationships, and their responsibilities. At the same time, the Queen's speech appears to be addressed simultaneously to larger audiences.
Introduction: The Nature of National Representation
In the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant an article was published on July 27,1996, about the role of the Olympic Games in American society. In this article, the story is told of the 1980 Winter Games at Lake Placid, in which the American ice hockey team beat the Russian team:
With another ten heavy minutes to go, the Americans defended a never dreamed-of 4 to 3 lead. The Soviets, considered to be unbeatable, did not succeed in getting past goal-keeper Craig again.
After the game, there was a tremendous outpouring of emotions. In the dressing room, the players sang 'God bless America', although almost no one knew all the words. Coach Brooks could not control his emotions and fled to the corridor. There he met a small group of policemen who were crying like children.
The emotions in the nation were no less impressive. The meaning of Olympic victories was simple. 'The communists are bad, the Americans are good'. The world, divided into two parts, was considered unsafe, and the playing of the 'Star Spangled Banner' at the Olympics counted as a song of praise to democracy, just as the Russian anthem glorified the communist doctrine. (Volkskrant,27 July 1996, my translation.)
This story exemplifies the symbolic and mass psychological power of sport. This power rests on symbolic metaphors that may be irrational, but are strongly felt by the great majority of people. The sports (wo)man or sports team are not just a casual individual or an accidental group of individuals. Instead, they
Page 6
represent the nation. They are a metaphor for it, they exemplify it. (The sportsman does not win, we win.) Immediately following the victory, the sportsman does not celebrate his own person, but takes the flag of the country and makes a victorious lap of the arena. By the same token, being the best in a sporting contestalthough this is an activity which is sealed off from reality, and limited in every respect, as regards time and placeis a metaphor for being the best in reality: the winning of the American team means that America is the best.
I have made reference to participating in sport events as a form of (national) representation because these events give rise to some questions:
(1)What are the grounds for the representation?
(2)Which other events or objects have similar representational functions?
(3)How should a person who represents a country behave in view of this?
Seeking an answer to these three questions will introduce the topic I will discuss in this paper: representative political speeches.
Grounds for representation
In the Olympic Games, national representation is at the core of the organisation. Only nations that are members of the International Olympic Committee are entitled to be represented by their athletes at the Games. Thus, to perform as an athlete at the Olympic Games (or any other international sports events) involves representing one's country officially. Although this does not account for the above-mentioned strongly felt emotions, there is at least a justification for projecting these emotions on to the event. I propose, however, a more speculative reason in order to explain why these feelings are so strong. Elias Canetti (1960) tried to describe the intricate ways in which people find themselves time and again as part of a crowd, and the way in which their behaviour is affected by being part of this. When a person feels himself to be a member of a group, he loses his personal boundaries: all persons are the sameor even stronger: onewithin the mass. There is a strong psychological tendency towards this feeling. Whenever a mass is forming itself, it is very difficult not to become a part of it. Sports events have a few characteristics which make them particularly suitable for forming masses:
·a sports event offers opportunities for showing your emotion, emotion being the most characteristic property of a crowd;
·a sports event is a contest, or a fight; as such, the fighters are the protagonists of a Hetzmasse (a hunting mass), themselves being a Meute (a hunting pack);
·a mass may be formed by a complementary counter-mass; the paradigm case of complementary masses are two countries at war. Such a model does not fit in with, for example, the running of the marathon in which runners from many countries compete. However, it fits in perfectly with matches fought between teams of two countries, as in soccer
championships. Hence it is no wonder, that often two complementary groups of fighting supporters of both teams extend the fight beyond the sports arena.
Other events having similar representational functions
There are, of course, many forms of officially staged events or objects in which
Page 7
representation 1 is involved. The national flag, the national anthem, parades and speeches at national commemorative events or national celebrations are examples of these. The meaning and use of these objects, and the occasions for the events, are clear, and subject to rather precise rules. 2 Apart from such officially sanctioned representative objects and events, there are many more occasions which occur unofficially. A large business corporation has its own independent economic goals and operates on the basis of those goals. Nonetheless, the corporation may be felt to be a nation's possession, or a nation's pride.3 Similarly, most people tend to consider scientific research an activity outside their own sphere of interest or identification. Yet, the winning of a Nobel Prize for physics by a fellow-countryman evokes national pride, probably because the feeling of winning may be projected on to an activity which in normal circumstances has insufficient points of identification.
On the other hand, sometimes representation is seen or felt in circumstances in which such representation is neither intended, nor officially acknowledged. For example, after running the marathon at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, the winner, Fatuma Roba from Ethiopia, said she dedicated her victory to 'all African women', thus indicating that she considered herself representative of that group in the first place. Of course, 'African women' are not a ratified group at the Olympics. Roba's dedication may be warranted by her own scheme of relevance. This scheme, however, lacks any official endorsement.4
In general, then, situations of emotional salience related to persons or objects that may be perceived to belong to one's own social sphere, may evoke socio-psychological processes of group identification. Although people may feel genuinely involved in, and represented by, the symbols and events mentioned above, it is hard to think of any real activities that have such a strong symbolic and mass psychological power as sports victories in the context of international contests. The element of contestand to have proven to be the best in this contestadded to symbols of representation may account for this.
How should a country's representative behave?
In the examples discussed so far, we have seen a multiplication, or at least a duplication, of the roles one person assumes, whenever that person does something representative. Of course, these examples exhibit considerable differences. Sportsmen and women at the Olympics represent their nation as such. They are sent out by their country. During the contest, they wear sports clothes in a national design; often the colours of the national flag are used in that design. When they win a medal, the anthem of their country is played at the ceremony at which they receive their medals. At the same time, the flag of their country is hoisted. Participating in the contest, and especially winning the contest, is inextricably linked with one's willingness to represent one's country.5
Other patterns are present in other examples. Probably, the DASA directors (see Note 3) were surprised to see themselves fight a war against Holland. In general, physicists who are awarded a Nobel Prize are citizens of some specific country, but they are involved in a general activity
not bound to any one nation. Drunken tourists in Spain (see Note 2) are, as such, not representative of anything,
Page 8
but use a national representative symbol in order to provoke latent aggression, on the basis of competitive feelings between two nations.
These examples show the pluriformity of representation. They have in common that official representation is not involved. Businessmen, scientists and tourists become representative of their country on the basis of an accidental course of events, in which their role nevertheless may be perceived as representative, and so eventually is perceived thus. The main concern of the persons involved, however, is to succeed in their own activity. The representative character of the activities is just an accidental by-product.
Let us now consider political functions. A member of parliament represents voters, or, perhaps rather, a political party. Parliament itself is considered representative of the people. A member of the government (a minister) although in general chosen for that function because of a high ranking position in a political partyrepresents the government. A government is, in general, based on a political majority, consisting of one or more political parties in parliament. Nevertheless there is only one government, which represents the nation.
Now let us compare these political functions with those of ambassadors and heads of state. I suggest that there is a gradual scale of (national) representativeness, ranging from (less representative) members of parliament, through members of government, to (fully representative) ambassadors and heads of state. Ambassadors and heads of state are functions the main characteristic of which is that the incumbent represents his/her nation on the basis of the function itself. Hence, any activity performed by such a functionary is, in principle, representative of the nation. Indeed, many times they have to be present on some official occasion (ceremony, wedding, funeral, etc.) in order for their country to be represented.The relation between an activity and representation is thus reversed in this context. Whereas a sportsman has to fulfil a representative role as a consequence of his sports activities, an ambassador or head of state has to look for activities which fit best the representative function. Most of these activities involve undoubtedly the use of language.And languagedifferent from sports or flagshas content, (propositional) meaning and style. 6
Let us take as an example a case in which national representation was unintentionally involved. In October 1986, Newsweek published an interview with the German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl. In this interview he compared the then Secretary-General of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, to Goebbels, because of the fact that they 'are both good at public relations'.7 Although Kohl made these comments to journalists, the Soviet Union was nonetheless offended. The Soviet ambassador to Germany, Kwizinski, wrote a letter of protest which was published. From this letter I quote the following passages:
Sollte er [Kohl] vergessen haben, daß es sich in diesem Falle um die Ehre und Würde eines Staates, urn die eines Volkes handelt [. . .] so sind wir gezwungen, ihn daran zu erinnern.
Im Hinblick auf all das erfordert elementare Redlichkeit und Anständigkeit in der Politik, daß bei der entstandenen Situation völlige Klarheit geschaffen werden muß.