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5SOME LINGUO-STYLISTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH POLITICAL DISCOURSE (BASED ON THE ANALYSIS OF SOME PUBLIC SPEECHES OF U.S. PRESIDENTS)
Abstract
An increased attention of modern linguistics towards discourse analysis determined the area of research described in the article below. The article aims to study some linguo-stylistic features of contemporary English political discourse. The leading method for the study is the two-step comparative linguo-stylistic analysis of four public speeches delivered by U.S. presidents. The linguistic phenomena under investigation include evaluative statements and political labels. The study reveals a close connection between these linguo-stylistic features of English political discourse and the situation in which public speeches were delivered. The results of the study may be useful for those who are interested in the analysis of political discourse, as well as serve as a start for further research on the topic. The practical value is determined by the ability to use the material and the results of the study in lectures on linguistics and stylistics.
Keywords
institutional communication, political discourse, public speech, two-dimensional content
analysis, evaluative statements, political labels
AUTHORS
Larisa V. Milyaeva
PhD, Associate Professor, Chair of English Philology, Tula State Lev Tolstoy Pedagogical University, Tula 125, Lenin Avenue, Tula, 300026, Russia E-mail.ru: lauramila777@mail.ru
Dmitrii A. Tsarev
Undergraduate student, Department of Foreign Languages, Tula State Lev Tolstoy Pedagogical University, Tula 125, Lenin Avenue, Tula, 300026, Russia E-mail.ru: danhendanhen@mail.ru
1. Introduction
Language is the most important means of human communication. Practically no activity or interaction between people can successfully occur without linguistic communication. However, in the course of time human language has also become an important means of exercising power in the society. Language is considered one of the most useful tools in political strategies, e.g. persuasion or propaganda. Using language for such purposes enables political leaders to control and manipulate with public opinion, impose certain views on the society, influence people's behavior, make them obey certain decisions, agree with certain plans, etc. This important function of language makes it necessary to study a specific type of institutional communication, which is called political discourse.
It is an open secret that in modern linguistics one can hardly find an interpretation or definition of the term "discourse" accepted and recognized by every scientist. Not only the term "discourse" itself, but also its differentiation from such notions as
"communication", "speech", "text", "dialogue", etc. is a matter for constant debate among modern linguists (Dijk, 1983; Bogdanov, 1990; Makarov, 2003; Romanov, 2005). In this article, without belittling the importance of discussions of that kind, we will adhere to the following definition of discourse: "discourse (from French discourse, "speech") is a coherent text in conjunction with extralinguistic — pragmatic, sociocultural, psychological and other factors; text,considered from the point of view of event; speech, viewed as a purposeful social action..." (Yartseva,1990).
Indeed, our study of scientific literature on discourse analysis has proven that the majority of modern scholars, both Russian and foreign, stress the fact that discourse is not an abstract text, but a text viewed through the situation (or the communication setting) in which it is produced and operates (Dijk, 1983; Stubbs, 1983; Karasik, 2006; Chernyakovskaya, 2006). Thus, discourse can be defined as a text, which is "immersed" in the situation of communication (Karasik, 2006). At the same time, Stepanov notes that discourse presents a "special use of language...; which entails the activation of certain linguistic features (Stepanov, 1995).
This article aims to study some linguo-stylistic features of modern English political discourse based on the material of public speeches delivered by four U.S. presidents. Before we proceed to the results of the study, let us dwell on the notion of political discourse in a bit more detail. From our point of view, political discourse can be viewed as a form of institutional communication. The language of politics is realized within a frame of an important social institution - the institution of power. In this article the term "institutional communication" is referred to the type of communication which occurs within a particular social institution, e.g. religion, politics, science, etc. Following the works of Y. Karaulov. I. Khaleyeva, E. Kamenskaya, V. Maslova, we dare assume that discourse is the reflection of the knowledge of the world in the society, the mirror of the social mentality and its linguistic interpretation of the worldview (Karalulov, 1987; Kamenskaya, 1990; Khaleeva,1999; Maslova, 2018). Political discourse, in its turn, is the reflection of the linguistic view of the political world. Thus, analyzing political discourse one may get such sociocultural data that may give the wholesome linguistic view of the political world of native speakers. Comparing different political discourses enables the researcher to find similarities and differences in the ways societies describe and reflect political reality.
Among the scholars who study political discourse there is no common understanding of this term. For instance, A. N. Baranov defines political discourse as "the total of all speech acts used in political discussions, as well as the rules of public politics, sanctified by tradition and proven by experience" (Baranov, 1999). According to the researcher, the essence of political communication consists in creating prerequisites for reaching agreement in society.
E. I. Sheigal has a contrary point of view and considers political discourse the major instrument in struggling for power in society. In her works, she argues that with the help of political discourse the members of society fight for power, exercise, preserve, stabilize and redistribute it (Sheigal, 2000). We find similar ideas in the works of V. I. Karasik, who believes that the principal purpose of political discourse consists in the preservation and redistribution of power in society (Karasik, 2006).
In this article we accept the point of view expressed by E. I. Sheigal and also believe that the main function of political discourse is to be a means of exercising political power. It means that the use of political discourse for certain purposes can lead to the unification of the behavior and wishes of large masses of people; explain or justify certain political decisions; draw the picture of political reality in the minds of people, encourage political actions, etc. (Sheigal, 2000). All these become possible only with the activation of certain features of the language, which will be discussed next.
2. Literature Review
Modern linguists show significant interest in discourse analysis. Studies on this subject can be focused on such problems as the differentiation between political discourse and other types of discourse, influence of the discourse on the public opinion by means of the language, the choice of linguistic means of persuasion, the image of a politician, etc. Our study is based to some extent on the previous researches and aims to establish a possible connection between some linguo-stylistic features of political discourse and the situation (communication setting) in which it is produced and operates.
The exercise of political power in any society would be hardly possible without certain influence of a political leader on public opinion. Analysis of scientific literature on political discourse revealed two effective persuasive devises used by politicians, which are still not fully described in modern linguistics. These includes evaluative statements and political labels used in public speeches, which we consider distinctive linguo-stylistic features of English political discourse.
Political leaders influence public opinion and impose their views on large masses of people by assessing a particular state of affairs, certain events, incidents, decisions, plans, etc. Therefore, public speeches of politicians contain a large number of evaluative statements, which can express different attitudes. Some statements convey satisfaction/dissatisfaction, others convey pessimism/optimism (Shiryaev, Sigelmen, 1996).
After studying the evaluative statements in public speeches delivered by different politicians L. Sigelmen and E. Shiryaev came to the following conclusions:
- the predominance of optimism combined with dissatisfaction or pessimism is characteristic of public speeches written during a crisis or war;
- the predominance of satisfaction combined with optimism is characteristic of speeches written for visits abroad or international contacts (Shiryaev, Sigelmen, 1996).
Another distinctive feature of political discourse and an essential element of public speaking in the United States is the use of certain communicatively important key words -so called "political labels", by means of which an orator can skillfully affect feelings and shape emotions of the audience.
The term "political labels" was initially proposed by D. Green, who used it with reference to words and phrases which reflected the political idea of particular time and were used in public speeches of political leaders with high frequency in order to exert pressure on audience and to form public opinion (Green, 1987).
A politician can use two types of political labels: a set of longstanding political labels which reflect the "image of the presidency" and the "ideas of power", as well as those political labels that appear effective only in a particular situation and that are used by politicians to complete the "super-tasks"(Green, 1987; Postnikova, 2003). Following L. V. Postnikova, we will call labels of the first type basic political labels, and labels of the second type situational political labels (Postnikova, 2003).
According to this model, basic political labels include such labels as "image of the presidency", "ideas of power", "freedom and independence", "greatness of the nation", etc. (Postnikova, 2003).
The labels reflecting the "image of the presidency" and "ideas of power" are based on the following words and expressions: president, presidency, responsibility, leadership, Oval Office, White House, Washington, Congress, Government, trust, administration, policy, political, reports, my (fellow) Americans, power, strength, pronouns I, you, we, verbs must, shall, should, ought to, etc. (Postnikova, 2003).
The labels "freedom and independence" and "greatness of the nation" are expressed through the frequent use in speech of words and phrases containing the ideas of freedom
and independence, e.g. freedom, peace, security, America/Americans, humanity, liberty, democracy, unique, people, mankind, pronouns we, our, ourselves, etc. (Postnikova, 2003).
3. Materials and Methods
The study presented in the article was conducted on the texts of one of the most typical genres of English political discourse, which is a public political speech. There are four U.S. presidents whose public speeches were analyzed: John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. The selected speeches can be grouped according to the type of communicative situation in which they were delivered: 1) an inauguration ceremony; 2) a state visit.
The following four speeches were selected for the study: inaugural addresses of President Kennedy (Washington, 1961) and President Trump (Washington, 2017) and public speeches delivered during the U.S. President's official visit to a foreign country - Reagan's Moscow State University address (Moscow, 1987) and Obama's speech at Cairo University (Cairo, 2009).
The analysis of the selected material was conducted in two stages:
1) two-dimensional content analysis (Shiryaev, Sigelmen, 1996).
2) analysis of political labels (Green, 1987; Postnikova, 2003).
An inauguration ceremony is a formal ceremony of swearing a person into office. Since the U.S. President Inauguration is of great symbolic and ritual importance, it attracts attention not only within the United States, but also the attention of the entire world community; the ceremony is carefully planned and prepared in advance according to the scenario which was developed in the course of history.
As opposed to the inaugural address, U.S. President's talk to the audience of foreign students occurs in a warmer atmosphere and is accompanied by fewer formalities. Such speeches usually convey some personal experience of the speaker and information which is interesting for young people. However, the texts of such speeches are also written in advance and their target audiences much wider than a group of foreign students.
As will be shown next, these characteristics of the communicative situation determine to a great extent linguo-stylistic features of the public speeches.
3.1. Step 1. Two-dimensional content analysis
This analysis is based on two types of evaluative statements found in political texts, which can express either satis faction/dissatisfaction or optimism/pessimism (Shiryaev, Sigelmen, 1996). Then the statements of each type are grouped together and counted and their percentages are calculated. The type of statements with the highest frequency of use is called the dominant attitude. Other types of evaluative statements play a subordinate role. This analysis can be illustrated on a fragment of Donald Trump's inaugural address. In the text below letters S, D, O and P stand respectively for satisfaction, dissatisfaction, optimism and pessimism:
These are just and reasonable demands of righteous people and a righteous public (S), but for too many of our citizens, a different reality exists (D): mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities (D); rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation (D);an education system flush with cash (S) but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge (D); and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential (D).
This American carnage stops right here and stops right now (O). We are one nation, and their pain is our pain. Their dreams are our dreams. And their success will be our success. We share one heart, one home, and one glorious destiny (S). The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all Americans.
For many decades we've enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry (D), subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military (D). We've defended other nations' borders while refusing to defend our own (D), and spent trillions and trillions of dollars overseas while America's infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay (D).
In this passage of the speech there were found 13 evaluative statements. The percentages of each type are as follows: 70% of evaluative statements express dissatisfaction, 23% - satisfaction and 7% - optimism. Statements expressing pessimism were not detected. Thus, dissatisfaction is the dominant attitude in this fragment of speech while satisfaction and optimism are subordinate. It is worth noting that throughout the whole text there turned out to be percentages which are different from these.
During the two-dimensional content analysis of the inaugural speech of President Kennedy we detected 67 evaluative statements. In Trump's speech the number of statements is 94. In the speeches of Reagan and Obama delivered to foreign students we counted 70 and 176 evaluation statements, respectively. The results of the two-dimensional content analysis are presented in Table 1.
TABLE 1 - THE RESULTS OF TWO-DIMENSIONAL CONTENT ANALYSIS OF THE US PRESIDENTS' SPEECHES
President Type of attitude
Satisfaction Dissatisfaction Optimism Pessimism
John F. Kennedy 45% 15% 37% 3%
Donald Trump 27% 26% 45% 2%
Ronald Reagan 43% 0% 53% 4%
Barack Obama 23°% 36% 34% 7%
Thus, in Kennedy's inaugural address satisfaction and optimism are the dominant attitudes. It proves that the speech was delivered not in a period of crisis, but in a normal, non-crises situation. Somewhat different trends can be observed in Trump's inaugural address, in which optimism and satisfaction dominate together, but satisfaction and dissatisfaction have approximately the same weight. The predominance of optimism in the speech combined with a high level of dissatisfaction indicates that the speech was delivered in the situation of a crisis. At the same time in both speeches pessimism is expressed only slightly and functions as a subordinate tendency. If to compare the presidential elections in the United States in 1960 and 2016, it is necessary to say that the competition between D. Trump and H. Clinton was much tougher and even unfair than the competition between J. F. Kennedy and R. Nixon. D. Trump's victory also brought about numerous protests in many cities and parts of the country. Many American public figures, world leaders, TV channels and even American pop stars expressed their negative attitude to Donald Trump in public. For this reason, the situation in which Trump uttered his inaugural address can be considered a crisis.
In Reagan's speech, the dominant attitude is optimism, followed by satisfaction. Pessimism serves as a subordinate tendency and statements expressing dissatisfaction were not detected at all. In Obama's speech, there is a slightly different trend: optimism and dissatisfaction are both dominant while satisfaction and pessimism serve as subordinate tendencies. Taking into consideration the historical and political context in which the presidents uttered their speeches, it can be concluded that R. Reagan delivered his talk to students in a non-crisis situation because at that time the relations between the United States and the Soviet Union enjoyed a significant thaw. In contrast, President Obama's speech was delivered shortly before the "Arab spring" — a series of protests and uprisings in
the Arab world, supported by Americans. It points to the fact that the speech was uttered in the time of a crisis.
3.2. Step 2. Political Labels Analysis
The public speeches of all four presidents contain both basic political labels as well as situational political labels.
The following words and phrases are basic political labels extracted from the inaugural addresses of presidents Kennedy and Trump: the citizens of America (fellow Americans, fellow citizens, citizens of our country, the/our people, we/our/us), the United States of America (America, our/your/this country, our/this nation, our land), government/govern, power/powerful, control/controlled, party, world (earth, globe), loyalty (allegiance), proud/pride, free/freedom (liberty), strengthen/strength/strong/strongly, man (human), humanity (mankind), the rights of man (human rights) friend and foe, enemies, peace, allies/alliance, Washington (Washington, D.C., our nation's capital), forebears, revolution/revolutionary, heirs/heritage, patriots/patriotism.
Situational political labels in Kennedy's speech are the following words and phrases: unite/united, all, belief, citizens of the world, generation, committed, pledge, hope, supporting/support, help, both sides, both, negotiate, fear, absolute, summon, battle/embattled, struggle, arms, effort, endeavor, balance, light, renewal/renew/ new/anew, join, terror, call, bear, against.
Situational political labels in Trump's speech are one, together, same, forgotten, American hands (American labor, American workers), pain, righteous, right here and right now, from this day forward, movement, back (giving back, bring back, get back), again, great, dream, prosperity/prosper, wealth/wealth, rich/enhanced, victory, triumph, stops, success, winning, Shine, big/bigger, only, celebrate/celebration, America first, protect/protection/protected, men and women, transfer/transferring/transition, oath, other countries (other nations).
Basic political labels in the speeches of presidents Reagan and Obama include the following words and phrases: we/our/us/ourselves, the United States (America, my country), Americans (the American people), world (globe), the Soviet Union (your country, your land), peace/peaceful, government/government, free/freedom (liberty), democracy/democratic, independent/independence, right, human beings, equal/equality, responsibility, President, secure/security, legitimate/legitimacy.
Situational political labels in Reagan's speech include the following words: message, hope/hopeful, together, friend/friendship, revolution, computer/computing, technological/technology, information, economy/economic/economist,
entrepreneur/enterprise, faith, truth/true, change, future, growth, dream, reform, Perestroika, culture/cultural, human/humanity, progress, generation, conflicts.
Situational labels in Obama's speech: Islam/Islamic, Muslim, together, tradition, communities, tension, West/Western countries, cooperation, conflict, religion/religious, hostile/hostility, violent/violence, extremist/extremism, respect, mutual, common, tolerance/tolerate/integral, share, Christian, Jewish/Jews, Arab/Arabs/Arabian, civilization, dignity, nuclear, innocent, issue, partner/partnership, kill/killing, aspirations, interest/interests, opportunity, commit/committed/commit, woman, women, development, deny/denying/denied, combat/combating, prosperity/prosperous, confront, each other, one another, stereotype, principle, true/truth, a new beginning, recognizing/recognize/ recognition.
The percentages of basic and situational political label in the presidents' speeches are given in Table 2. In order to calculate them, the number of uses of each type of labels was divided by the total number of uses of political labels in each speech.
TABLE 2 - THE RESULTS OF THE ANALYSIS OF POLITICAL LABELS IN THE U.S. PRESIDEN TS' SPEECHES
President Type of political labels
Basic political labels Situational political labels
John F. Kennedy 62% 38%
DonaldTrump 58% 42%
RonaldReagan 45% 55%
BarackObama 41°% 59%
4. Results
The results of the two-step comparative linguo-stylistic analysis can be presented in the following way:
1. In a non-crisis situation in the speech of the political leader there is a predominance of evaluative statements expressing satisfaction and optimism. In the situation of a crisis, optimism comes first and is followed by dissatisfaction. There can also be a more complex picture where the amounts of satisfaction and dissatisfaction are approximately equal. Studying the historical and political context, in which a particular speech was uttered, helps to define the situation as the situation of a crises or a non-crises one.
2. The study of political labels in the texts of the presidents' speeches revealed the following tendencies: in the speeches of all four presidents there are two types of political labels: basic, which are common for different situations in which the speech is delivered, and situational, which, on the contrary, are chosen in accordance with the situation. In an inaugural address of the president, which is delivered in the atmosphere of high solemnity, there is a predominance of basic political labels, while in the speech delivered to foreign students, dominate situational political labels.
5. Discussions
As it has been already noted in Literature Review, the research conducted by the authors is based to some extent on previous researches conducted by other scholars. Its findings turned out to be consistent with those of previous studies, namely it confirmed the theory of E. Shiryaev and L. Sigelmen and proved that in the situation of a crisis the orator is likely to use those evaluative statements which express optimism and dissatisfaction or pessimism, while in a non-crisis situation the speech of a political leader contains statements which express satisfaction and optimism (Shiryaev, Sigelmen, 1996).
At the same time our study made its own contribution to the analysis of political discourse by establishing a connection between the prevailing type of political labels used in the speeches and the communication setting in which the speeches were delivered.
The research findings fully correspond to the fact that political discourse is situated i.e. occurs within a specific communication setting.
6. Conclusion
This study revealed a close connection between some linguo-stylistic features of public speeches of the U.S. presidents and the characteristics of the communication setting in which the speeches were uttered. The results of the study also confirm the provision that a particular type of discourse should be considered in a close connection with the communication setting in which it occurs because the setting affects how the message is produced, i. e. linguo-stylistic features of the text. The present research was aimed at studying of only two such features, which were evaluative statements and political labels. However, they are among the most effective means of persuasion used in political public speeches, which affect emotions and feelings of people rather than minds and make them accept certain values and viewpoints, shape particular worldview, etc.
7. Recommendations
The results of the study may be useful for those who are interested in the analysis of political discourse, as well as serve as a start for further research on the topic. Besides, the material and the results of the study can be used in lectures on linguistics and stylistics.
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