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102 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Diagolism
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Dialogism refers to double-voicedness or double-wordedness.
It could also refer to the mixing of styles and intentions in political discourse. Dialogism also refers to the defining quality of language and its fundamental sense making capabilities. |
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Hybridity
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Hybridity implies the intermingling of linguistic and/or cultural traits from different social and historical backgrounds.
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Manifestos
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Written statements of political parties’ policies and beliefs.
Manifestos publicly display a political party’s intentions, motives and beliefs. The language used in political manifestos tend to be persuasive and are typical of political speeches. |
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parallelism
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Repeating a sound, a stretch
: phonic, syntactic, semantic (Language of Manifesto) |
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rhetorical
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that is, they involve the art of using persuasive discourse.
The political actors choose issues that are tellable, listenable, attract attention (called soundbites.) and cause an audience to accept it happily. Thus, the content is carefully chosen to make it context sensitive. (Language of Manifesto |
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Contrastive Pairs or Antithesis
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Using a two-part utterance in which the parts are in opposition.
A country once the sick man of Europe has become its most successful economy. (Language of Manifestos) |
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Intertexuality
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reference to faith and believe systems and to the Bible. I believe in Britain
We want an America that gives all Americans the chance to live out their dreams and achieve their God-given potential. (Language of Manifestos) |
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political pronouns
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personal/impersonal (I, we, third person reference—one, the president, etc.), agentive e.g., It has been found necessary to chose our friends carefully.
metonymic reference This manifesto will help bring Ghana out of the economic doldrums. closeness and distancing Personal involvement Accepting responsibility and giving agency to actions (showing who does what.) Being in touch with the whole country (closeness). Willingness to share blame, responsibility, fame, etc. with others. Multiple and Ambiguous Pronoun Reference e.g., The pronoun we could stand for the party, the state, the nation, etc. (Language of Manifestos) |
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Semantically Dense, Strong as well as Emotionally Valent Vocabularies
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only once, practically, must, fundamentally, appropriately, woefully, increasingly, commitment, we will always be prudent .
The only way to secure this future of opportunity is to stick with the Conservative programme of continuing reform. (Language of Manifestos) |
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Quoting figures (The number game)
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Quoting figures for self praise or other dispraise, especially figures which show how other has mismanaged the economy and how self intends to solve the problem or heal the economy/nation. (Language of Manifestos)
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Play on words
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I believe in Britain because it is great. (Language of Manifestos)
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Abstract nouns that have positive qualities
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truth, peace, dream, prosperity, values, community, conscience, integrity. (Language of Manifestos)
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Temporal cohesion
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Linking the past with the present and the future. Looking at past accomplishments, present ones and anticipated future goals.
Thus, the manifesto must construct the past, explicate the present, and project the future. Last century marked the birth of our infant democracy. Today, America is moving forward. Now we must move forward (Language of Manifestos) |
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Taking a strong and positive view of a party’s (or a country’s ) future.
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Language of Manifestos
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Noun
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(a)
Traditional Grammar: A noun is the name of a person, place or thing. Notions like ‘name’ and ‘thing’ are vague. For example, is 'beauty,' 'anger,' or 'truth' a thing? Morphology: Nouns inflect for case, number, etc. Thus, nouns: may be analyzed in terms of number, gender, case, countability, etc. Syntax: Nouns have specific distribution: they may follow a preposition, adjectives, etc. Functional Grammar: Nouns have specific functions: subject, object, etc. NP: has a noun as its head |
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Adjectives
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Traditional Grammar: Adjectives specify the attributes of nouns. They “modify” nouns.
Adjectives occur within a noun phrase. Adjectives function in the attributive position Adjectives can occur post-verbal or in predicative position Adjectives can be pre-modified by intensifiers, such as 'very,' 'quite,' 'fairly,' etc. Adjectives can be used in a comparative and superlative form either by inflection or periphrastically e.g., beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful; easy, easier, easiest. Not all adjectives satisfy all the above criteria. "A major question" * the question is major (a) A heavy smoker (b) The smoker is heavy "heavy" in sentence (b) is different in meaning from "heavy" in sentence (a) Syntax: Adjectives occur between a Determiner and a Noun [Det. —— Noun] e.g., the good speaker "The president’s fine young-looking educated quiet wife." Adjectives may be head of adjective phrases e.g., The president’s Speech was [very important] |
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Adverbial phrase
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Traditional Grammar: Adverbs specify the mode of action of the verb.
Morphology: Adverbs may be signaled by the use of the suffix {-ly} Syntax: Adverbs may be related to such questions as: how, where, when, and why and be classified as adverbs of manner, place, time, etc. Adverbials may be used as sentence connectors: e.g., however, moreover, actually, frankly, etc. |
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Verb
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Traditional Grammar: verbs are "doing words or action words. "
Do verbs like “be” or “seem” act in any way? Morphology: A verb displays tense, aspect, voice, mood, person and number. Functional Grammar: Verbs function as predicates (singly or conjointly with words like object, adverbial, etc.) Verb phrase: a group of words which together have the same syntactic function as a single verb e.g., “is eating” “was talking,” “may be coming,” “get up to.” One verb is the main verb (lexical verb) and the others are subordinate to it (auxiliary). A verb followed by a non-verbal particle such as a preposition or adverb is a phrasal verb. e.g., "She MADE FOR the fields" |
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Evidentiality
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Another form of intertextuality is Evidentiality (van Dijk, 1998)‹ information or knowledge, personal experience and observation, hearsay, the media, the courts, experts or scholarship, about political parties or politicians and political issues.
Evidentiality has variable implications for the credibility of the speaker. |
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Labeling
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Labeling may be based on race, nationality, religion, creed, sexual orientation, philosophical beliefs, language, clothing, population, food habits, among others.
Labeling arises, in part due to prejudicial and stereotypical images about the targeted or labeled group. |
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nationalism
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the movement for political and socio-economic independence.
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nationism
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indicates efforts focused on establishing a modern and efficient administration
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Nation/State/Country
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Political forms characterized by unity and independence. It is of a geographic import, etc.
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ethnic group
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: a community that may be politically and socio economically dependent on a dominant group.
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name calling
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Name-calling may be used to insult by using terms, distinctive appellations, or titles that are uncomplimentary, pejorative, negative, abusive, or derogatory.
Name-calling is thus used to motivate the formation of a prejudicial or a stereotypical image of the name-recipient. |
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pragmatics
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The study of language from the point of view of the users.
Looks at the choices speakers make, the constraints they encounter in using language in social interaction, and the effects their use of language has on the other participants in the act of communication |
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COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE AND CONVERSATIONAL MAXIMS
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Paul Grice: Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged'
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conversational implication
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a) Inferences generated from an utterance; (b) Such inferences tend to be beyond the semantic content of the sentence that is uttered.
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flouting a maxim
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Interactional participants may not cooperate with other discourse participants; they do so by opting out of, violating or flouting some of the maxims.
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SPEECH ACT/LOCUTIONARY:
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(a) The act of (simply) saying something.
(b) The minimum unit of a speech event. It occurs within a speech event. (c) It refers to the intentions of a speaker during an interaction and the effects of the speech on a listener. |
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Illocutionary Act:
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(a) The act of doing something by saying something. An act performed by a speaker by virtue of his utterance having been made.
(b) Examples: commanding, requesting, baptizing, promising, arresting. (c) Verbs that actually name the illocutionary act they are used to perform are called performative verbs. (d) Such verbs include: state, order, question, baptize, name, resign, etc. For example: I resign; I name this ship Mayflower, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; I wed thee. |
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Illocutionary Force
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illocutionary act performed by a given utterance.
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Felicity Conditions
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conditions that must obtain for the valid performance of an illocutionary act. These include appropriateness of participants, of participants? intentions, and of circumstances.
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presupposition
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Implicit assumptions about the world required making an utterance meaningful or appropriate.
A: What time is it? B: The mailman has come. B?s response is meaningful if A knows when the mailman usually comes. |
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implication
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presupposition may be described in terms of implication. The sentence “John wants more coffee” carries the implication or entails that “John has already had some coffee.”
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Direct Illocutionary Act:
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(a) It is a speech act performed by an utterance whose syntactic form matches its illocutionary force.
(b) For example, an imperative used to issue a directive. Examples: Shut the door You must shut the door Sit on the floor. (c) Direct speech acts perform their functions in a direct and literal manner. Such utterances tend to be plain, open, and involve candor. |
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Indirectness
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(a) An indirect speech act is an utterance that performs its functions in an indirect and non-literal manner (Stewart & Vaillette (1998:494).
(b) Searle (1975, p. 60) notes that indirectness involves utterances with two illocutionary forces because it involves performing an illocutionary act indirectly by way of another. Some Indirectness Strategies: Evasion, Circumlocution, Innuendo, Metaphor, etc. |
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S.
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situation (setting & scene). The physical and psychological setting and scene, time, place, kind of speech event, etc.
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P.
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participants (their ages, profession, social status, etc.)
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E.
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ends (the purpose or goal of the interaction. To inform, to get a good deal through bargaining? To convert the addressee, to change his belief systems, etc
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A.
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Act sequence (the message form and content.)
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K.
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key (manner or spirit in which a speech act is carried out “serious, humorous, etc.”)
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I.
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Instrumentalities (how is the message transmitted; oral, written, sign language, whistling, surrogate transmission-drums, clapping, prop, costumes, staff, etc.)
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N.
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Norms (norms of interaction and of interpretation; e.g., common knowledge, shared understandings, what is discounted, one-at-a-time as opposed to overlap, various meanings of silence, how to know when the answer is no, the speakable and the unspeakable, indirectness, etc.)
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G.
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genre (proverbs, idioms, advertisements, joke, story, lecture, greeting, conversation, etc.)
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Pronoun usage
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In political discourse, it is possible for specific personal pronouns to be used to index referents other than the ones conventionally associated with a particular form.
For example, the third person may, apart from its normal reference, may be used to index first person.- The use of the third person in self-reference and self-address is sometimes considered a form of modesty and may be used to convey the impression of absolute objectivity. An item that can substitute for a noun phrase or a single noun. |
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Propaganda
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a) propaganda refers to the spreading of ideas to help or injure someone (usually some one in public office), a group, or a country.
b) Using various actions (including communicative means) to bring a course of action that is either socially beneficial or socially harmful. c) Appealing to emotions rather than reason |
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Double Speak
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• A language which pretends to communicate but does not.
• Doublespeak is often used to mislead. • It alters our perception of reality, breads suspicion, cynicism, distrust and hostility. • Doublespeak may be done through the use of Euphemisms (words designed to avoid harsh or distasteful reality). • Euphemisms can sugar-coat the truth and distort reality. Examples Dying --- terminal living or negative patient care outcome. Killing --- unlawful or arbitrary deprivation of life. Kill --- immediate permanent incapacitation (Pentagon terminology), rooting out the enemy, pursuing the enemy, shock and awe, Kill the enemy servicing the target. Bombing civilian target collateral damage Tax increase revenue enhancement or tax-base broadening Layoff restructure, realign, redeployment, reshape, involuntary termination, downsizing. Lie reality augmentation (Canada), inability to recollect, improper recollection, thinking that one is telling the truth based on one's own semantics Bad economy unfavorable world economic order, a recession, severe adjustment process. Bribe normal gratitude (Russia); wash hands or do something (Ghana) Killing and destroying pacification Forcible removal of people population transfer, ethnic cleansing |
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Glittering Generalities
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• A politician identifying his program with virtue by the use of "virtue words."
• The political actor through words of virtue appeal to our emotions of love, generosity, and brotherhood. • The words suggest shining ideals which people of goodwill will readily accept. • Glittering generalities make us accept facts without examining them. • Makes an audience personify an idea. • Some words & expressions include: Patriotism, compassionate, truth, a uniter, loyalty, freedom to chose, honor, liberty, social justice, public service, the right to work, affirmative access, progress, democracy, the American way, Constitution-defender, |
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band wagon
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• Employing device(s) like symbols, colors, music, movement, dramatic arts to making people follow the crowd, accept program en masse.
• Band wagon involves harnessing fear, prejudices, hate, biases, convictions, ideals common to a group. E.g., Vote for someone who can win; don’t throw your vote away. Million-man March Million-woman March The American people want this. Common sense knows he won Florida Our course is just and we will prevail Good will prevail over evil Vote your conscience The Party of Lincoln |
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card stacking
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• Employing all the arts of deception to win support.
• Involves stacking the cards against the truth. • Using under-emphasis and over-emphasis to evade facts and dodge issues. • Resorting to lies, censorship, distortion, false testimony. • Omission of facts • Raising new issues to make old embarrassing one disappear or forgotten. • Employing sham, hypocrisy, effrontery (shameless boldness). • Used to build up a candidate, a political course of action including war. • Used to destroy another individual, political party or country by making one’s course of action seem or look credible although it may be worthless. |
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Transfer
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• Carrying over the authority, sanction, and prestige of something (e.g., church, nation, heritage) the electorate or public respects and revere to something a political actor would them to accept.
• Getting churches to go against abortion and then transferring that authority into one’s political program. • May involve the use of symbolism: crucifix for Catholicism, swastika for anti-Semitism or Nazism (often used by a hate group) |
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Testimonial
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• Making the public accept anything from a movie, a cultural truism, a to a program of national policy.
• Mr. Regan: Vote for the Gipper • Gipper = grandfather or movie character |
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Gobbledygook or bureaucratese
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Overwhelming the audience with words. Alan Greenspan testified to the United States Senate that: It is a tricky problem to find the particular calibration in timing that would be appropriate to stem the acceleration in risk premiums created by falling incomes without permanently aborting the decline in the inflation-generated risk incomes.
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Inflated Language
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• Words and expressions used with the aim of making the ordinary seem extraordinary
• Words and expressions used to make everyday things seem impressive • Words and expressions used to give an air of importance to people or situations, to make the simple complex. Congressional projects of national significance; Using our mental faculties to mitigate and avoid bears trading/market. |
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jargon
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• Use of specialized language of a trade, profession or similar group such as, lawyers, doctors, politicians, etc.
• Jargons allows professional to carry out effective communication. • When professionals use jargons to speak with non-professionals then it becomes doublespeak. |
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Presidential Slogan
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A political slogan is a catchword or rallying motto distinctly associated with a political party or other group.
Like any newly created words, the effectiveness of a slogan depends on its acceptability by the general public. Slogans are generally brief statements of a single idea. They are easy to remember and repeat. They are usually three to four words Examples: the square deal (Theodore Roosevelt) the new deal (Franklin D. Roosevelt the fair deal (Harry Truman) just say no (Reagan) War on drugs (Bush) The new freedom (president Woodrow Wilson, 1912) |
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Spin
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Spin involves taking a political issue and protracting or making an even bigger issue out of it.
It may involve interpreting an issue in a way suitable to a politician and often unsuitable and/or hurtful to his/her political opponent(s). During spinning, politicians give the most sensationalist portrayals of political events. They may put the best or worst possible construction on political events and speeches. A spin-doctor's aim is often to fool or deceive political actors' opponents or the general public about a political issue. Press secretaries, presidential spokespersons, and political actors themselves act as spin-doctors. The spin-doctors aim may be to: Celebrate a success Ridicule an opponent's failure Down-play the spinner's party's failure, The main focus of a story determines how the spinning is doctored. |
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Semantics
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Semantics is that branch of Linguistics devoted to the study of meaning in language.
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Philosophical semantics
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: examines the relations between linguistic expressions and the phenomena in the world to which they refer.
Philosophical semantics also examines the conditions under which linguistic expressions (referring to specific phenomena) can be said to be true or false and the factors which affect the interpretation of language as used. |
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meaning
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: refers to what language is about, the concepts that words and linguistic patterns refer to. A concept is a unit of cognitive experience, a way people have of abstracting over their experiences in the world. Meaning may be derivable by composition or inferred from other knowledge.
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information content
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Meaning communicate or reveal information about the world around us (relationships between objects situated in the world)
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dictionary definitions
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There is more to the meaning of a word than its dictionary definition.
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mental images
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The meaning of an expression is not just a mental image, since mental images seem to vary from person to person more than meaning does (e.g., terrorist, freedom fighter, politics, etc).
Also mental images tend to be only of typical or ideal examples of the things they symbolize e.g., although ostriches and penguins are birds they are not typical or ideal birds. Not all words have corresponding mental images e.g., what mental images are associated with the, aspect, a . |
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meaning and reference
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Things a word refers to. Thus, meaning involves a relation between language and the world.
Meaning is not the same as reference because two or more expressions may refer to the same individual but mean different things. Also, words such as "forget, the, in for, at, truth, & peace" refer to no real world entities. |
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Meaning, Truth Conditions, and Truth Value
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Knowing the meaning of a sentence involves knowing the conditions under which it would be true, so explaining the meaning of a sentence can be done, in part, by explaining its truth conditions.
In the sentence, "John is a thief,” the individual designated by the word "John" must be in the condition designated by the words: "is a thief." Another facet of a sentence's meaning, is its truth-value (that is, knowing whether or not the sentence is really true); this is always true or false. |
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possible scenarios
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One way to look at the meaning of a sentence is to equate it with the set of all possible scenarios or possible situations in which the sentence is true.
Being able to distinguish possible scenarios in which the sentence is true from possible scenarios in which the sentence is not true. Possible scenarios are needed to describe the meaning of "counterfactual sentences" Counterfactual sentences are sentences in which the possible scenarios are implied to be incompatible with what is actually true, e.g., "If I were a millionaire, I would fly to Mars." Using possible scenarios, we can give meanings (reference) to such words as "unicorn, sphinx, and Santa Claus" which exist in non-actual scenarios. |
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meaning and language use
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knowing the meaning of an utterance involves knowing how to use it, so conditions on language use also form an important aspect of meaning.
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word sense
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Sense: refers to the literal meaning of an expression independent of situational context.
Speakers of a language may use one word such as "cat" to refer to a cat and to lions, tigers, and other animals that look and act like cats. Oftentimes, it is the most familiar or unmarked member of a category or sub category whose name is used as a cover term for all the members of the sub category. The noun "chicken" can refer both to a particular kind of bird (an object) and to a kind of meat made from this bird (a mass). The extension of chicken to include a new sense seems reasonable because the two senses are closely related. Categories that make up the meanings of words are semantic categories. |
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semantic extension
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The general situation involved in extending the meaning of a word (Xerox (n); Xerox (v). When the meaning of a word is extended, this is done on the basis of some kind of relationship between the old meaning and the new. This is referred to as a conceptual relation.
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What is Language?
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(a) Parole or performance: the concrete act of speaking in a given situation.
(b) Langue: the language system shared by a community of speakers |
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Language and Dialect
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If two or more varieties are mutually unintelligible, then they are different languages.
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Dialects
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Dialects are subdivisions of language and are mutually intelligible. A dialect is a regionally or socially distinctive variety of a language, identified by a particular set of words and grammatical structures.
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idiolect
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the linguistic system that underlies a person’s use of language in a given time and place. This may be extended to the whole of a person’s language (e.g., Shakespeare’s language)
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FACTS PERTAINING TO ALL LANGUAGES
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a. Language is an integral part of human existence. Wherever you have people you are bound to have language.
b. All languages are equally complex and equally capable of expressing any idea(s). c. All languages are capable of expanding their vocabularies to include new words, describe new concepts, etc. d. Languages change over time. e. The relationships between the sounds and meanings of spoken languages and between the gestures and meanings of sign languages are for the most part arbitrary. f. All grammars contain rules of a similar kind for the formation of words and sentences. g. Every spoken language has a class of vowels, a class of consonants, and a class of prosodies. h. Similar grammatical categories such as noun and verb are found in all languages. i. There are universal semantic properties like "male" or "female," "animate" or "human," found in every language in the world. We may also speak of kinship properties like "mother," "father," etc. found in every language of the world. j. Every language has syntactic properties like ways of negating, forming questions, issuing commands, referring to present, past, or future time, and so on. k. Speakers of all languages are capable of producing and comprehending an infinite set of sentences. Every language has a way of forming sentences. l. Any normal child, born anywhere in the world, of any racial, geographical, social, or economic heritage, is capable of learning any language to which he or she is exposed. FEATURES UNIQUE TO HUMAN LANGUAGE Exclusive human communication features are studied under: Anthroposemiotics (a) Arbitrariness: apart from onomatopoeic words in which there is a connection or link between form and meaning, the connection between form and meaning in a vast majority of words in all languages in the world is arbitrary because given the form, it is impossible to predict the meaning and, that, given the meaning, it is impossible to predict the form. b) Duality: the property of having two levels of structure, such that units (combination of sounds, words, phrases, etc.) of the primary level are composed of elements (sounds) of the secondary level and each of the two levels has its own principles of organization. c) Productivity: ability to construct and interpret new sentences. (d) Discreteness: In most human languages, the occurrence of one sound may reduce the possibility of the occurrence of the other. This quality helps reduce misunderstanding in poor conditions of signal-transmission. E.g., [sit] and [set] are discrete so if a vowel between [i] and [e] is produced, the resultant unit will be seen either as a mispronunciation or as not being a word at all in English. (e) Learnability: Human language can be learned. Human language is acquired by children with no external instruction and may be used creatively rather than in response to internal or external stimuli. |
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circumlocution
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Circumlocution involves the use of more words than is necessary to express a meaning.
It may be used when attempting to avoid an awkward or sensitive word. It may attract criticism in some cultures. Through circumlocution politicians are able to avoid the obvious and save face. They are also able to make relevant (and often irrelevant) additions to points being made and are thus able to elaborate, in detail, their own group's beneficial actions and/or the horror stories about their enemies (Van Dijk, 2000). Politicians may resort to selection, mentioning only information that is helpful to their course and thus deleting information hurtful to them for partisan reasons. Selection and exaggeration are important features used in stretching the truth. |
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Politics
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The process, art or science of winning and holding control over a government (Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 1993).
Plato viewed politics as “nothing but corruption.” |
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political
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a. An issue that demands serious analysis and requires an action possibly leading to a change for the good of society.
b. An issue relating to government or the conduct of government. c. An issue relating to party politics. |
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politicize
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An issue is said to be politicized if it is given a political tone or character.
An issue is said to be politicized if it is assumed to be wrong and is therefore being analyzed and/or changed for the benefit of society. |
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Political Discourse
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A collection of genres such as:
Political speeches of politicians Cabinet meetings Political slogans The national budget Political Discourse could also be about: Immigration Social security Medicare The environment Prescription drugs Education National security / defense Political propaganda etc. |
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Important Factors in Making a Speech Political
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(a) Context features: political setting, participants (their political roles and goals.)
(b) Social domain of politics. (c) Political implications (they are part of the political process, and influence decisions or policies of politicians.) (d) Aim or function (e) Places politicians and their views (Basic Ideological Concepts) Political Labels Political labels are reference for journalists, political commentators and politicians. Labels specify a politician’s ideological values. Labels are used for in-group and out-group reference. Labels may carry positive or negative connotations. |
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Left: socialists or radicals.
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Political actors on the left typically advocate for governmental or collective ownership and control of the administration and distribution of services and goods.
They are ideologically often between capitalism and communism. They may be seen as or referred to as radicals. They often advocate extreme measures to restore or change political state of affairs. Left-winger: A left-winger is a socialist or radical with strong views to the left or a radical on the extreme edge of the leftist ideology. |
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Right
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Political actors on the right are seen as conservatives and often belong to nationalist groups.
They often support or adhere to existing and established institutions, values—especially so-called traditional values. Nationalists often elevate or place their nations above all other nations. They place primary emphasis on promoting their nation's interests and culture rather than those of other nations. Right-winger: A right-winger is a conservative with strong views to the right or a conservative on the extreme edge of the conservative ideology. |
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Center
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Politicians on the center are often seen as being between the Left and the Right.
They could either be on the right of the left or on the left of the right. They often tend to hold less radical views. They may be called left-of-center or right-of-center. In political discourse, the participants and contexts in which the above terms are used may determine whether they have positive or negative connotation. |
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Evasion
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• Manage to avoid by slyness, craftiness, or skillfulness
• To elude • Circumventing or avoid answering directly. • Avoiding facing up to real tricky or difficult discourse issues. • Refusing to answer a question with or without explaining. |
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Features of Evasion
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Ignoring the question asked
2. Acknowledging the question without answering it 3. Questioning the question 4. Attacking the question 5. Apologizing 6. Stating that the question being asked has already been answered. 7. Declining to answer the question 8. Repeating an answer to a previous question to make a political point 9. With yes/no questions, providing a response not located on a positive/negative spectrum. 10. With who-questions, delimiting an answer to see whether they satisfy the propositional organization of the question. 11. In a discourse, how a respondent reacts to a question and how the questioner reacts to the respondent’s response can help determine whether there was an evasion. |
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metaphor
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A semantic mapping from one conceptual domain to another, often using anomalous or deviant language. (Crystal, 1994)
A metaphor involves using a word or phrase to establish a comparison between one idea and another. |
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cognitive theory
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cognitive theory of metaphor holds that when a speaker uses a metaphor, the speaker maps from a source domain onto a target domain in the mind of the listener
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Conventional Metaphor
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a metaphor which forms a part of our everyday understanding of experience, and processed without effort, such as to “lose the thread of an argument.”
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conceptual Metaphors
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: functions in speaker’s minds which implicitly conditions their thought process. e.g. “I attacked his views” (based on the notion that ‘argument is war.’
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Functions of a Metaphor
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(a) make predictions
(b) provide explanations (c) restructure a people’s knowledge (d) influence public opinion (e) fight battles & win wars (f) start and finish relationships (g) give exact image of a referent or a situation (e.g. wickedness, inefficiency, cunning behavior, power, admiration, wisdom, neglect, indifference, criminal) (h) avoid candor, especially where candor is considered counterproductive. (i) engage in face-work. Metaphors may soften or totally eliminate the inherent face-threat in an utterance. (j) reinforce the point being made in an utterance. (k) make appeal to emotions. (l) attract and hold attention of an audience. (m) aesthetic device (to beautify language and depict the political actor as as good public speaker) (n) Ground human conceptual system in terms experiential/familiar terms. (o) Praise one’s self or one’s political or ideological system (p) Criticize other political actors |
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Rhetoric
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Q: What is rhetoric?
A: The art of persuasion. |
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Ethos
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: Persuasion through personality. A kind of proof created by a speaker’s appearance as credible and appealing.
An appeal to the reputation, disposition, or character of a speaker or writer. (Rhetoric) |
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Pathos
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Persuasion through arousal. Proof relying on appeals to personal motives and emotions. An appeal, which touches the feelings of the reader or listener -- “emotion, experience.”
(Rhetoric) |
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Logos
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: Persuasion through reasoning. A form of proof that makes rational appeals based on facts and logical argument. An appeal to evidence and the reasoning based directly on that evidence “word, thought, reason”
(Rhetoric) |
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Rhetorical Features
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1. Repetition
Sounds (alliterations and rhymes) Sentence forms (parallelism) Meaning (semantic repetition) for drawing attention to preferred meanings and to enhance construction of such meanings in mental models and their memorization in ongoing persuasion attempts or later recall. 2. Euphemism (also dysphemism) 3. Hyperbole E.g., We have opened the floodgates "Immigrants are milking not only the taxpayers but also the caring services." The immigrants are parasites “These immigrants are coming to this countries daily in their millions.” 4. Deletion—deleting information for partisan reasons 5. Indirectness and implicitness 6. Substitution: using and expressing a concept different from what one would expect in the present context (use of irony, metonymy and metaphor) 7. Positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation (describing oneself and one’s political group in metaphorical meanings that derive from conceptual fields with positive associations, and describing the political opponents or enemies in not so good manner.) Making relevant and irrelevant additions (verbose style). Political actors elaborate, in detail, their own or their group's beneficial actions and the horror stories about their enemies. Politicians or soldiers may be characterized as 'good' (strong, valiant, brave, persistent) animals such as lions, tigers or bears; those of the Others will be preferably represented as cunning (foxes) or dirty (hyenas, rats, dogs, cockroaches). 8. Making appeals to the emotions of the recipients by starkly emphasizing the situation of those they speak for, viz., the elderly, poor tax payers, and refugees 9. Generalize from single examples 10. Arguing from impressions and not evidence. 11. Metaphor 12. Simile 13. Personification 14. Paradox |
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semantic parallelism
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using words from the same semantic field.
E.g., Friends, comrades, fellows Nelson Mandela 1990: “Friends, comrades and fellow South Africans. I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and freedom for all.” |
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Contrastive Pairs or Antithesis
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Using a two-part utterance in which the parts are in opposition.
Neil Armstrong’s words when he first landed on the moon. "One small step for man: one giant leap for mankind." Mandela 1990 "I stand before you not as a PROPHET but as a humble SERVANT of you the people." In most contrastive utterances, the negative comes before the positive so as to stress the positive. |
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Vocabularies that are strong in meaning
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E.g., Only once, practically, must, fundamentally, appropriately, woefully, increasingly, commitment, we will always be prudent.
Quoting figures (The number game) Quoting figures for self-praise or other dispraise. |
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Rhetorical Questions
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Questions not supposed to be answered.
Such questions have implied answers. E.g., “Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?” |
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Similes
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Figurative language that draws comparison
Similes occupy an important place in political discourse. Their primary function is to vividly portray the situation created between two political actors or ideological positions. Similes mainly characterize events and characters and create an atmosphere that allows the recipients to live through the experience of the describer. |
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Analogy
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An analogy is a parallel instance referred to because it helps the process of explanation.
Brain and computer Heart and a pump Analogies may involve comparison on a large scale. People/Objects that are compared must have certain elements in common. There is often an assumption that: if the persons/objects compared share certain things, then they may have other things in common as well. Analogies may be used to show a politician's ideological position. An analogy can be used to make predictions, provide explanations, and restructure our knowledge. |
