Manipulative and Pragmalinguistic Aspects of Political Discourse

The paper is devoted to exploring allusion, metonymy, and metaphor-the linguistic devices used in political rhetoric. The analysis is envisaged from the perspective of linguistic manipulation. The theoretical framework has been designed considering the theoretical implications derived from the research of the late 20 th and early 21 st centuries on political discourse conducted by e.g. Atkinson, M., Chilton, P.A., Fairclough, N., Naciscione, A. The methodology of this inquiry has applied general principles of qualitative research, and it has been based on the discourse analysis of the authentic source materials published in The Baltic Times (2006) and The Times (2006). In this respect, the authors of the paper have been guided by selected principles of text linguistics and text pragmatics. One of the conclusions that the authors have arrived at is that the linguistic manipulation can be considered as an influential instrument of political rhetoric.

Political language is not in essence any different from other manifestations of language and therefore its specificity must be sought instead in the particular relationships that are established between the discourse itself and the extralinguistic context (Van Dijk, 1997, p. 24). It is there, within that framework of specific historical, economic and social coordinates, where the forms of political language appear in a more extreme way than in other textual genres and where the relationships between the explicit and implicit meanings become especially relevant. Whatever the case may be, when it comes to defining the limits of this discursive genre it would be wise to distinguish, at least initially, between political discourse in the strict sense of the term and other forms of public discourse with potential political implications (e.g. scholarly discourse, legal discourse, etc.). In this chapter, we will focus on analysing the first of these two discursive practices, so we will refer mainly to the first-frame participants in political discourse, such as politicians going about their parliamentary activity, being interviewed by journalists from the media, confronting each other in parliamentary and electoral melees or giving speeches before overjoyed followers at public addresses. Of the many subjects that can be discussed in the analysis of this type of discourse in the literature, in these pages we will review several pragmatic aspects of these verbal interactions in which politicians usually participate, such as some strategies and formats used by politicians in their interactions with journalists in political interviews (section 2), the different types of audiences faced and the tactics they usually display in order to seduce them (section 3), the face-work exhibited in conflict discourses between antagonists during political debates (section 4), or the increased number of mediatisation and conversationalisation processes in the way politics has been ‘doing’ in recent times (section 5). Now, considering the complexities of dealing with all these issues around the world, in this introduction we will focus mainly on political discourse pronounced in western democracies and, in particular, on the communicative behaviour that politicians usually display in some of the abovementioned subgenres and types of media, especially TV. Nevertheless, for space reasons, the new interactive media, in which politicians have recently begun to establish new forms of interaction with people (blogs, chats, social networks, etc.) will be dealt with only in passing (see section 5).

Ena da Kultura, 2023

The article examines political discourse as an object of study in linguistics. In this regard, various definitions of political discourse and an analysis of its main functions are given, which leads to consideration of this concept from the perspective of a narrow and broad understanding. Within a narrow understanding of political discourse, it is assumed that speech activity is actualized exclusively by a politician in a political situation. When broadly understood, political discourse includes a wide range of subjects and objects associated with the political sphere. Within this interpretation, either a sender, an addressee, or a topic of communication is related to politics. In this case, we are talking not only about official political communication, but also about messages on political topics in the media, various Internet resources related to politics (blogs, websites, comments), these can also be scientific articles about politics, etc. This understanding of political discourse is associated with the processes of globalization and the increasing influence of various types of media on people. Attention is paid to the distinctive features of political discourse as a special type of communication, since the solution to political problems largely depends on how these problems are reflected in the language.

Arab World English Journal (AWEJ), 2020

Manipulation is a discursive phenomenon used by speakers to affect the thoughts ( and indirectly the actions) of the recipients. This study is concerned with manipulation in two political speeches; one in English delivered by the American President Donald J. Trump, while the other in Arabic delivered by the Iraqi President Barham Salih to be the study's data. Each one of these two speeches is divided into serial-numbered extracts( henceforth Ext.). The study aims at investigating the semantic and rhetorical devices utilized as manipulation strategies in these speeches. To this end, the qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis will be followed in this study. The significance of the study stems from how the ideological dimension based on bettering off the speaker's image and derogating others' image plays a vital role in the political speeches. This study draws on Van Dijk's ideological approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of political discourse, and accordingly, it is adopted as a model. Results revealed that both speakers use lexicalization, a list of three, repetition, and citing as effective techniques in their two speeches to affect their recipients' minds. The study concluded that the ideological framework of "positive self-presentation" and "negative other-presentation" is the central umbrella under which manipulation can exist and work freely. The findings might help linguists and political analysts to understand how politicians use the linguistic features in their discourse to affect the audience's thoughts and behaviors manipulatively.

2009

Bu makale, siyasi retorikte kullanilan kinaye, mursel mecaz, ve metafor gibi dilbilimsel araclarin kullanimini ele almaktadir. Analizler dilbilimsel bakis acisina gore ele alinmistir. Teoretik cati, 20. yuzyilin sonlarinda ve 21. yuzyilin baslarinda Atkinson, M. Chilton, P.A Fairclough, ve Naciscione A. ‘nin ortaya koymus olduklari siyasi soylemin theoretik etkileri ile ilgili yapmis olduklari arastirmalar uzerine insa edilmistir. Arastirmanin metodolojisi ‘The Baltic Times (2006)’ ve ‘The Times (2006)’ gazetelerinde yayinlanan ozgun makaleler ve kaynaklara dayandirilmistir. Bu baglamda, calismanin yazarlari metin dilbilim ve metin edimbilim prensiplerine bagli kalmislardir. Calismanin ortaya koymus oldugu sonuclardan biride dilbilim manipulasyonun siyasi soylemde etkili bir arac olarak kullanilabilecegidir

This study aims at investigating the devices used in generating manipulation of meaning in political discourse. The study will investigate the devices used by politicians to manipulate the truth and achieve political aims. First, it will shed light on the theoretical ground on which this phenomenon is based. Then, it will investigate the linguistic devices used to create this manipulation. The study will be limited to the lexicalsemantic devices used in this type of discourse. Also, it will pay more attention to the term "democracy" in its investigation since it is the most used in political communities, yet the most questionable one in its use among politicians.

Revista Amazonia Investiga

This paper attempts to explain what manipulation means and how it differs from other linguistic and manipulative technologies. The article deals with a number of issues related to the definition of manipulation since both in modern language and in specialized literature the concept of manipulation is used in many meanings. The purpose of the article is to eliminate the ambiguity surrounding the concept of language manipulation. We put forward the hypothesis that manipulation is an illegitimate linguistic process justified by the structure of human consciousness and the mechanisms of social life. The discourse analysis, descriptive and contextual methods made possible the linguistic analysis of fragments of political speeches of famous American politicians. As a result, the linguistic markers for deciphering the manipulative discourse strategy are identified, and the discourse structure of a political manipulative speech is described. The main types of strategies for exercising manip...

Propósitos y Representaciones, 2021

The article is devoted to the analysis of manipulative strategies and tactics in political discourse. The analysis is based on Donald Trump’s speech, which was delivered at the UN General Assembly in 2018. The paper studies the manipulative speech strategies and tactics used by the politician, their characteristic features, linguistic peculiarities of their implementation and the aims of their use. Political discourse defines the necessity to use certain speech strategies and tactics in political speeches, which altogether are aimed at creating an image of a politician and manipulating the consciousness of listeners. Implementation of such strategies and tactics in a proper way can evoke the desired emotional response and have an effect on choices people make. Every politician is unique in using their own strategies and tactics, but, in most cases, such tactics are more or less similar as their target is to create a positive image and make people follow or believe this or that polit...

LOGOS & LITTERA Journal of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Text, 2014

The language of politics is commonly studied within discourse analysis, whereby its linguistic features relating to vocabulary, grammar structures, textual and intertextual aspects are investigated using various methodologies. This paper presents an analysis of political discourse from a syntactic-semantic point of view. The corpus studied has been extracted from five. Montenegrin dailies and the analysis attempts to describe the genre as effectuated in the Montenegrin political discourse. As a result, the functions of political language are extrapolated and illustrated and its style is described in terms of intertextuality and other linguistic strategies commonly employed in political discourse. The paper aims to give a contribution to the understanding and linguistic profiling of political language.

Armenian Folia Anglistika, 2021

The article considers political discourse as a global unit attaching special significance to its linguistic characteristics that play an essential role in the formulation of political speech. The article reviews the theoretical background of the basic approaches and theories studying political speech and tries to outline their role in the context of the critical analysis of political discourse. The article also touches upon the main components of politics: language, action, conflict and cooperation, etc.