Masaryk university faculty of education

1. Syntax

1. 
   It is with sadness that the hospital informs you of the death of the injured child.
   

In this impersonal example, it is the hospital, acting as an institution, announcing unpleasant news, even though it is clear that there was a particular person, a doctor or a nurse, who had been in charge. The identification of the agent is unclear on purpose, perhaps protecting, perhaps hiding the responsible employee of the hospital.

2. 
   It is with sadness that we inform you of the death of the injured child.
   

The second example gets more personal, using a pronoun we, and the name of an actual department, narrowing down the options for the responsible party.

3. 
   It is with sadness that I inform you of the death of the injured child.
   

Another part of syntactic analysis is the focus of each speaker, or so-called topicalization. Speakers not only choose various lengths of speech, but also decide how much of their speech will be allotted to the introduction of the topic, the background information or the reasoning or planning. Lincoln’s 1861 speech contains 6,390 words, and out of these he dedicated 2,500 words to the mere introduction and background information leading up to the actual event, which was the declaration of war on the Confederacy (or the secessionists). The same action by Roosevelt following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor took just 307 words. Based on this example, it is evident that topicalization should play an important role in discourse analysis and all the more in a political discourse analysis.

1. Topics

2. Semantics

It might be that the single, most important point of every political discourse or message is determining its meaning. Semantics deals with exactly this, and it is in no way an easy task. Lyons explains this well when he suggests that “there are many meanings or senses of meaning; it is rather that these several meanings are interconnected and shade into one another in various ways.” (p. 5) To make sense of all these different senses and meanings, the discourse will be assessed in terms of lexical analysis and all of its components, which are described in the following paragraphs.

2. 
   Lexical Analysis
   

As the analysis of crisis rhetoric is the focus of this work, lexical analysis will play a key role in identifying, comparing and contrasting lexemes and their meanings. Though communicating a fairly similar message of an upcoming or current conflict, speakers differ in choice of words and expressions, for various reasons. Lim agrees that “discerning the pattern of occurrence of keywords facilitates insight because keywords give a quick approximation of the lexical sense of any body of rhetoric.” (p. 331) For example Lincoln uses the term adversary, Roosevelt chose an identification based on nationality, that is Japanese forces and Bush chose the term evil doer. Though all three identify the enemy, each president had his reasons for choosing a different expression with a different connotation. This section of the analysis will also include the use of archaisms and neologisms, judged from a modern-day point of view.

3. 
   Archaisms
   

The reason for including a section dealing with archaisms in this thesis is largely due to the age of some of the speeches. Lincoln, McKinley and Wilson all spoke long ago, and in their discourse can be found words like avowedly, menaced or garrison, which are, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “outmoded or old-fashioned.” That said, these words also have a definite charm and refinement and contribute to the overall linguistic sophistication of the discourse.

4. 
   Emotive expressions
   

Politicians often use wording or language structures that contain a combination of facts and feelings that in turn evoke an emotional response from the audience. These emotions are fear, anger, sense of security and loyalty, and are often linked to survival. When using emotive expressions, the objective is to first rationalize the emotion “in order to set up a social norm, which will readily be incorporated” into the discourse. (Reyes-Rodriguez, p. 368) Consider the following example:

We face a new decade - I have called it 'the dangerous decade' - in which the challenges to our security and to our way of life may if anything be more acute than in the 1970s. The response of Western nations and their leaders will need to be firm, calm and concerted. Neither weakness nor anger nor despair will serve us. The problems are daunting but there is in my view ample reason for optimism.

Margaret Thatcher

In this speech, the speaker is trying to evoke in the audience the feelings of fear and concern at first, using words like dangerous, security or daunting; then moves onto the need for being firm, calm and concerted and the need to avoid weakness, anger and despair; and finally finishes feeling optimistic, using the adjective ample for emphasis. The speaker was able to use effective vocabulary evoking a wide range of emotions in the audience, starting from bad through careful and finishing with good, giving the audience the impression of positive development. By carefully navigating the audience’s emotions, the speaker is hoping to also manage the audience’s attitude towards the message.

5. 
   Binary conceptualization and juxtaposition
   

Chilton suggests that “the tendency in much political discourse is towards antonymous lexical choices, and other lexical choices that must lead to hearers making mental models that are binary in character.” (p. 203) Though the concept of binary conceptualization can be compared to that of linguistic opposition or contrast, it should be noted that the first has a broader and deeper implication in terms of mental grasp and physical proximity. For example the linguistic contrast in big/small or good/evil is clearly defined in the very denotative meaning of each word. On the other hand, binary conceptualization has a less clearly defined meaning, often hidden behind abstract concepts or metaphors, yet meeting within a paragraph or even a single sentence, often being juxtaposed. Consider the text below:

The essence of a community is common rights and responsibilities. We have obligations in relation to each other. If we are threatened, we have a right to act. And we do not accept in a community that others have a right to oppress and brutalise their people. We value the freedom and dignity of the human race and each individual in it.

Tony Blair, speech on Iraq

Even from this short example, the audience can understand the juxtaposed feelings of good and bad within just one paragraph, depicting both ends of the story. We have obligations, common rights and responsibilities, therefore we are good. Others oppress and brutalize their people, therefore they are bad. There is no actual mention of good or bad, but the reader is able to infer the correct meaning from the combination of connotation and a powerful use of pronouns and adjectives.

6. 
   Parallelism
   

This is a frequent feature of many speeches, enabling the speaker to re-iterate an idea without unnecessary repetition of the same phrase. The reasons for use are not just for emphasis but also as a powerful memory strategy used to ingrain an important idea in the minds of the audience.

7. 
   Presupposition
   

When a politician says ‘Let’s do it better!’, it presupposes that what was done earlier was not done well enough. This example sums up the basis of presupposition, a tool also frequently used in speeches. Some presuppositions are more obvious than others and Brown and Yule explain that “presuppositions are what is taken by the speaker to be the common ground of the participants in the conversation.” (p. 29)

8. 
   Metaphor
   

According to Chilton and Shaffner, “a crucial conceptual and semantic mechanism in the production of political meanings is metaphor,” used in order to explain or simplify certain facts or concepts. As for the definition, Lackoff and Johnson suggest that, “the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.” (p.5) The choice of a metaphor is as particular as the speaker himself, reflecting his political beliefs and principles. The metaphor, “self-questioning is essential to the health of any society,” personifies society, implying that it can pose questions to itself or be healthy. (Thatcher) Similarly, other speakers take advantage of metaphoric language to get the message across in a simpler or more poetic way. That said, it is important to realize that a “political metaphor…can hide aspects of reality…which can lead to human degradation.” (Lackoff and Johnson, p. 236) Consider the following metaphor:

It is a new type of war. It will rest on intelligence to a greater degree than ever before. It demands a difference attitude to our own interests. It forces us to act even when so many comforts seem unaffected, and the threat so far off, if not illusory.

Tony Blair

In this excerpt, the speaker suggests that war has human-like qualities, demanding people change their attitude and act even when they do not want to. Further, it is insinuated that it is not the speaker who demands these changes but the war. Whether a metaphor highlights or hides its true meaning will be suggested, however, the reader will have to “evaluate the hypothesis in the light of their own social and political experience,” as is the recommended approach for all findings in this thesis. (Chilton and Schaffner, p. 228)

9. 
   Metonymy
   

As a subgenre of metaphor, metonymy is also a frequent tool in the hands of politicians. Lackoff and Johnson perceive metonymy as “using one entity to refer to another that is related to it.” (p. 35) The metonymy, ‘Get me Prague on the phone!’, uses a geographical location to refer to some person. Metonymies are especially numerous in political speeches, as politicians refer to political entities in terms of geographic labels in order to provide visual support or emphasis for the audience.

10. 
    Frames
    

The linguistic term frames might be defined as “an area of experience in a particular culture.” (Chilton, p.51) In other words, frames are mental schemata or plans, including times, places or relationships evoked in our minds through various words in discourse that share certain similarities. For example words like Al Quaeda, Iraq, armed forces, war on terror, extremism, etc., might evoke in our minds examples of geographical frames: Middle East; moral frames: shameless people; war frames: homeland security and others, depending on the audience. Of course, each person will envision a particular frame based on their own experience, which is something that should be taken into account by the speaker.

11. 
    Analogy
    

Comparing two objects with certain features in common is making an analogy. The higher the degree of similarity between the objects and the relevance to the argument presented, the stronger the analogy. (Beard, p. 27) People store various images and memories of events in their minds, and this “analogical conflation of stored representation of events, consciously worked through discourse or not, can play a role in the construction of mental contexts.” (Chilton, p. 157) A politician can use analogies to access people’s ‘mental contexts’ in order to evoke a particular emotion or response and thus gain support.

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