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1992). In this way, we can anticipate a more precise definition of the genre of political speech which is the issue here.

Singularity vs. processuality/ sequentiality

Prototypically, in classical rhetorics a speech is considered a singular event which can be qualified by:

(a)the unity of time and

(b)space,

(c)the sequential unity of information, argumentation, audience response, and decision,

(d)the unity of audience itself,

(e)the unity of main subject,

(f)the unity of purpose, i.e. the persuasion of those present with regard to the point at issue.

Note that this model only pertains to pre-modern forms of democracy, as in the city states of antiquity where decisions concerning persons or states of affairs were taken by the assembly of all citizens. Pericles' speeches in the market place of the polis of Athensthe proper paradigmare no longer appropriately described, however, as the typical speeches of democracy.

In Holland, speeches are still made in town and city squares, of course, but in these cases we are mostly dealing with commemorative addresses and not with speeches calling for an immediate decision on the part of the audience. The Pericles-model, therefore, can no longer be taken as a guideline for the rhetoric of political speeches. Commemorative addresses, moreover, are losing their singular character, for they are embedded in a whole range ofsometimes even internationalcommemorations. That is also why the unity of audience can no longer be guaranteed: the audience can no longer be observed directly by the speaker, nor is there any insight into its configuration, so to speak. Hence, the orator, nowadays, is held to address different segments of the audience at once, and this, again, is not beneficial to the classical requirement of sequential unity (of information, argumentation and audience response). Additionally, media coverage has become an essential feature of contemporary speeches. In the current political context of the Netherlands, 'being there' in the media, or making sure that the media will report on one's speech event, has become more important than persuading the audience that happens to be around. The success of a public speech can no longer be measured by the applause of the people present, which means that the orator's feedback is received after the next day's media coverage, but no sooner than the television evening news. In Holland, it is not uncommon, moreover, for a news report to only show fragments of a political speech which are then followed by an interview with the orator. The orator explicates, as it were, the audience reception desired. Subsequently, reactions by prominent others are shown. It is only then that the news item has been completed and the next item can be introduced.

These features of media coverage show how sequentiality is produced. The Dutch Prime Minister, for instance, has a Friday evening television programme, entitled 'Conversation with the Prime Minister', in which he can reflect on the events of the past week. The interviewer mostly adopts the role of 'feeding' the

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prime minister certain key words. These 'conversations', in their turn, will be the subject of yet other media reports. In this way, different spaces and times are combined necessarily in order to give a specific news item (speech item) its adequate coverage position. In the evaluation of political speeches, the unity of time and space, therefore, is no longer decisive.

Modern parliamentary forms of debating and decision making can no longer be reduced to the incidental deliberations of a citizens' assemblyit is not even clear that decision making in antiquity is reducible in this way, as Ottmers (1996: 224) argues. These modern forms should rather be taken as tokens of the procedural,institutional concatenation of political (communicative) actions. In this way the processuality of these modern forms of debating and decision making can come to the fore. Important political decisions will be taken at the end of an elaborate procedure: different rounds of deliberation are already passed before public debate in parliament can take place. This is, in fact, paradoxical, since speeches apt to influence decision making are given in confined, internal parliamentary bodies. At the time of public debate, the decision has already been made. (At any rate this applies to the continental European system of parliamentary decision making). Most decisions in the Dutch parliament are made in parliamentary parties; public speeches can usually be characterised as additional explanations or clarifications for the general public of decisions already made, they are no longer relevant for decision making itself. Hence, we could say that most parliamentary speeches are redundantwhich is quite the opposite of calling them singular events according to the classical genus deliberativum.

This redundance implies that the persuasive character of public speeches no longer pertains to their being addressed to decision makers, but rather to the general public which is informed through the media. A public speech's relevance for decision making decreases; the public speech's legitimation afterwards, of something already cooked up, is taking its place (cf. Kammerer, 1995). Whether or not the objective of legitimation afterwards is successfully met, depends on the behaviour of the audience (the general public) in elections. In this way, the processuality of parliamentary debating is stressed by this orientation towards future purposes: delivering a political public speech will become a kind of play-acting, at least of theatricality (cf. Witteveen, 1992). Here we recognise the grounds of what has become a familiar reproach in certain sections of the media, namely that politics is untruthful. Whenever, for instance, the number of Dutch voters decreases, the media present this as yet another crisis in politics, related time and again to the disappointing quality of political speeches in particular and to politicians' meaningless or incomprehensible language in general.

Mono-/duotextuality vs. intertextuality

According to classical rhetoric, two sources of word and phrase choice influence public political speeches: texts created by opponents in a debate as opposed to certain typical, exemplary, often literary, 'standardised' texts. On the one hand, there is the embedding into a pro-con structure which even includes earlier speeches by the orator himself, on the other hand, there are

accredited texts that have already met with approval. The transition from monotextuality

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to duotextuality is made only implicitly, for, as indicated in the Introduction, the orator has to make sure that he appears trustworthy and honest (that he has ethos).He can achieve the latter only if he is able to avoid obvious contradictions between what he is actually saying now and what he has said before. He should adapt his current phrases to the words he used beforethat is, the audience should be able to (re-)construct the correspondence.

A second transition to duotextuality can be based on the topos that overt contradiction, between words and deeds of a debater or between what has been said before and what is being said now, needs scrutiny. Finally, to improve one's speech, classical rhetoric recommends proceeding in accordance with models of previously successful orations (imitatio). Ars bene dicendi,therefore, is seen as an acquired technical skill, adjustable and applicable to different practical circumstances time and again. In this way, as we could recapitulate the classical outlook, 'behind' the speech being delivered the presence of a 'second text' is always presupposed.

In the context of modern political communication, forms of duotextuality indicated above can still be observed. However, other forms of political communication are important as well, forms referred to by the term intertextuality.This term has been chosen to take into account a certain complexity of 'intertextual configurations' actualised by politics in general. Apparently, to produce political judgement a whole range of text types is being used. The range goes from leaflets via advertisements (in papers, on radio and television, in posters on the street, etc.) and the organisation of public (campaign) events to different speeches (opening and closing of an election campaign, debating with other candidates, addresses to groups, etc.). For the purpose of an analysis of political rhetoric, selecting just one text out of this wide rangeas usually happens in academic settings would be quite unsatisfactory, because we would only be able to conclude something about, for example, the 'subtle' quality of that text, knowing that the category of 'subtlety' itself is rather problematic. However, the assessment of such quality, if useful at all, depends on an account of the range of texts as a whole, i.e. on a reconstruction of the (political) intertextuality. Regarding the intertextual complexity of certain constellations, Fairclough (1995a: 15) distinguishes between sequential, embedded and mixed intertextuality. The distinction helps to construct a certain order through which our analysis can take effect.

If intertextual complexity in a certain case is considered as functional in that concrete situation, then the question of the orator's scope becomes pertinent. Letting this question take centre stage prevents us from exaggerated or inappropriate interpretations. Queen Beatrix, for example, as the head of a state travelling on official businesswhen she has to consult the Dutch government on any public speech in advancehas a scope different from Queen Beatrix delivering her annual Christmas radio addresswhen she is allowed a more personal say.

In the simplest case, intertextuality consists of a recurring reference to an 'accredited' text. A speaker thus intimates his wish to pay honour to the previous text, so that the audience can follow the speaker in this respect too and can accept the orator's actual text by comparing it

with the accredited pre-text. In earlier

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centuries, biblical texts have had this role of accredited text; in socialist settings, references were made in a similar way to texts by Marx, Lenin and others; in political dictatorships, all official texts produced have been made to relate to the dictator's ideology, usually formulated in books (for instance Hitler's Mein Kampf).This way of referring, however, has become obsolete in the era of mass media and parliamentary democracyat least in the Netherlands. To put it sharply, in Dutch political culture, perhaps different from other countries, accredited-text intertextuality is hardly ever used. Imitatio no longer has priority. 3 Occasionally, and then often ironically, an orator is criticised for having delivered what is branded as a 'sermon', but in these cases the tone of voice and the preacher-like performance are intended (what is called actio or pronuntiatio by the classical rhetoricians), less the use of bible quotations: the latter functions as a blend of at least two discourses.

In discourse analytical publications, intertextual relationships are normally analysed from the viewpoint of a text that 'combines' different voices within it: 'The question of how voices are woven together, how they are ordered with respect to each other, becomes decisive', as Fairclough (1995b: 84) puts it. In this section, however, I want to draw attention to the situation of the orator who tries to get at least some media coverage, by offering one voiceand a part of his speechto the audience and especially to the media audience. The orator, as we can see it now, desires and is obliged to be a sourcewith respect to other sourcesof an intertextually constructed media report. The (central) part of his speech (and his voice in radio and television broadcasts) could be covered by journalists only, if it is reformulation-oriented,i.e. prepared in order to be picked up by the audience. This orientation towards possible reformulations by (members of) the audience is already well-known in classical antiquity. Yet, under conditions of modern political communication and mass media coverage, the orator is challenged to anticipate strongly the increasing need for reformulatable, quotable, referable, alludable etc. passages.

In the Netherlands, indeed, the most important type of rhetorical intertextuality, concerning the point of view of the orator, is the embedding of reformulation-oriented passages in speech texts.Since political speeches are not ordinarily reported completely and verbatim by the media, what the public can read or hear and see is only a fraction of the whole text. The passage in question (a combination of sentences, a kernel sentence or at least some essential clauses or words) the orator attempts to be reported by the media should reflect the central claim of the speech. This specific orientation toward future reformulations of the relevant parts of a speech means that the orator has to stimulate the recollection of his central claim by finding adequate ways of problem-solving (concerning the structure of his text), expressing and formulating. A special technique of phrasing has to be developed: it is intended to ensure the audience noticing the passage or, at least, the audience's recollection of it. The passage should be easily remembered. However, the main target of passages like these is the media; a speech purporting to impact public opinion must be (re-)presented in the media. The rule that reporters cannot cover a public speech completely has only few exceptions: journalists limit themselves to the key passage. Therefore, the speech text must contain at least one real key passage.

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Intertextuality with respect to reformulation, then, means that content and structure of speeches are designed in such a way that journalists (and audience members too, of course) are able to find the relevant passage quickly and to transfer it to new texts, by quoting, paraphrasing, indirectly giving restatements or by other means. The modern political orator is obliged not only to take into account the persuasive effects of his speech, as did the Greek and Roman orator, but also to stimulate a specific type of media coverage. Therefore, this type of intertextuality cannot be derived from pre-speech constraints exclusively, such as the character of the whole election campaign or the (inter)dependence on other-party speakers, even though these constraints do determine the orator's actual scope. Additionally, the orator has to prepare a special relationship between the actual text of his speech and future texts written and designed by journalists. Intertextuality, therefore, should be accomplished by a speech text's propensity to apportion at least several passages to new journalistic texts. 4 The final words of a public speech are often particularly suitable for the establishment of such intertextuality, e.g. when a long awaited announcement is made (e.g. the plea for forgiveness expressed by German President Herzog in Warsaw 1995; cf. Ensink & Sauer, 1995).

With respect to analysis we should, therefore, take into consideration the pre-history of a speech (constraints and scope), its history (the speech event itself; the text) and its post-history (the speaker's orientation towards and enabling of media coverage; his ability to stimulate journalistic reformulations).

Individuality vs. representation

Within the paradigm of modern political communication, the speech text often has a metonymical character: it is not autonomous (see pp. 5) but rather part of a larger whole (pars pro toto).The significance of a political speech depends not only on its own content and design, but also on a broad spectrum of other speeches, interviews, written texts, articles, news reports, in short: discursive practices. That is why the orator is not considered to be an individual, but rather a public person. This implies a special kind of representation.5 Present-day political circumstances which determine a specific, contemporary model of representation (party-related or position-related) are different from the circumstances of antiquity, where the distance was small between the orator and the group to which he belonged and the groups the orator wanted to influence according to the theoretical recommendations of classical rhetoric. In antiquity, the domain of rhetoric was limited to the distance a well trained voice could carry.

A modern audience generally expects the orator to be at a certain distance: to avoid overly emotional appeals and personal perspectives (moreover, the audience also assumes that the orator knows their expectations). Instead, it expects the clear articulation of generally accepted values and norms. Only in those moments preceding official and public debate can an orator burdened with representational duties try to be innovative:he can set the tone for the discussion of certain subjects. Generally though, representation is modelled according to the expectations of the audience, not least in the case of speeches and interviews held during election campaigns.