1st Edition
The Language of Persuasion in Politics An Introduction
This accessible introductory textbook looks at the modern relationship between politicians, the press and the public through the language they employ, with extensive coverage of key topics including:
- ‘spin’, ‘spin control’ and ‘image’ politics
- models of persuasion: authority, contrast, association
- pseudo-logical and ‘post-truth’ arguments
- political interviewing: difficult questions, difficult answers
- metaphors and metonymy
- rhetorical figures
- humour, irony and satire
Extracts from speeches, soundbites, newspapers and blogs, interviews, press conferences, election slogans, social media and satires are used to provide the reader with the tools to discover the beliefs, character and hidden strategies of the would-be persuader, as well as the counter-strategies of their targets. This book demonstrates how the study of language use can help us appreciate, exploit and protect ourselves from the art of persuasion.
With a wide variety of practical examples on both recent issues and historically significant ones, every topic is complemented with guiding tasks, queries and exercises with keys and commentaries at the end of each unit. This is the ideal textbook for all introductory courses on language and politics, media language, rhetoric and persuasion, discourse studies and related areas.
Chapter 1: Politics and the language of persuasion.
1.1 POLITICS IS CONDUCTED THROUGH LANGUAGE
1.2 PERSUASION AND RHETORIC IN A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY
1.3 SPIN AND THE SPIN-DOCTOR
Chapter 2: Evaluation: what’s good and what’s bad.
2.1 EVALUATIVE LANGUAGE. GRAMMATICAL, TEXTUAL AND LEXICAL EVALUATION
2.2 EVALUATION BY LANGUAGE CHOICE. DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION
2.3 INSIDER AND OUTSIDER WORDS
2.4 HOORAY AND BOO WORDS
2.5 EVALUATION BY SELECTION OF INFORMATION: WHAT TO LEAVE IN AND WHAT TO LEAVE OUT
2.6 EVALUATION AND MODALITY
2.7 WHEN PERSUASION IS SUPERFLUOUS TO REQUIREMENTS, EVEN IN SOME DEMOCRACIES
Chapter 3: Ways of persuading
3.1 IDEATIONAL AND INTERPERSONAL PERSUASION;
3.2 THE APPEAL TO AUTHORITY
3.3 COMPARISON AND CONTRAST
5.3.1 Us and Them
5.3.2 Beyond Us and Them: Temporal, geographical, conceptual contrasts
3.4 THE PROBLEM-SOLUTION MODEL
3.5 THE HYPOTHESIS – EVIDENCE – EXPLANATION MODEL
3.6 ASSOCIATION
Chapter 4: Cave Emptor! Arguments good and bad, true and false, logical and non-logical.
4.1 EUPHEMISM AND DYSPHEMISM
4.2 THE AD HOMINEM ARGUMENT
4.3 THE SLIPPERY SLOPE ARGUMENT; BINARY OPPOSITION (FALSE DICHOTOMY)
4.4 FALSE PARALLELS (ODD COUPLES)
4.5 CAUSATION OR CORRELATION?
4.6 CONCLUSION
Chapter 5: Rhetorical figures: The rhetoric of freedom, liberty, emancipation.
5.1 BINOMIALS AND BICOLONS
5.2 THE THREE-PART LIST (OR TRICOLON)
5.3 THE CONTRASTING PAIR (OR ANTITHESIS)
5.4 OXYMORON
5.5 RHETORICAL FIGURES IN TIMES GONE BY: LIBERTY, FREEDOM AND EMANCIPATION
5.6 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
5.7 THE GETTSYBURG ADDRESS
Chapter 6: Metaphors and company: the subtle persuaders.
6.1 METAPHORS
6.1.1 How metaphors work and how they are used in politics
6.1.2 The dangers of metaphors: how a metaphor nearly started a war
6.2 SIMILES
6.3 METONYMIES
6.4 A CASE STUDY IN METONYMY: HOW THE ARAB WORLD IS SEEN AND HOW IT SEES ITSELF
6.5 BEWARE OF ARGUMENTS THAT EMPLOY METAPHOR, SIMILE OR METONYMY
Revision exercise: I Have a Dream, Rev. M Luther King
Chapter 7: Questions and responses.
7.1 INSTITUTIONAL DISCOURSE
7.2 FROM DEFERENCE TO HOSTILITY
7.3 DIFFICULT QUESTIONS, DIFFICULT ANSWERS: ASSERTIONS AND PRESUPPOSITIONS
7.4 QUESTION STRUCTURE
7.5 TAKING RESPONSIBILITY (OR NOT): ATTRIBUTION AND NEUTRALISM IN QUESTIONS
7.6 PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCES
7.7 FIGHTING BACK
Chapter 8: Elections and referendums.
8.1 THE RHETORIC OF ELECTION CAMPAIGNS
8.2 REFERENDUMS
8.2.1 The wording of the question matters
8.2.2 The Scottish referendum: the campaign language
8.2.3 The UK referendum on EU membership: the campaign language
Chapter 9: Humour, Irony and Satire: The spices of persuasive political rhetoric
9.1 POLITICS AND HUMOUR
9.1.1 Humour and subversion
9.2 IRONY AND SARCASM
9.2.1 Irony
9.2.2 Sarcasm
9.3 DEFINITIONS OF SATIRE
9.4 ANIMAL FARM (GEORGE ORWELL, 1945)
9.5 MODERN SATIRES
Chapter 10: Conclusion: praise and blame.
Biography
Alan Partington is Professor of Political Linguistics at Bologna University, Italy. He is the author of Patterns and Meanings in Discourse (with Alison Duguid and Charlotte Taylor, 2013), The Linguistics of Laughter: A Corpus-Assisted Study of Laughter-talk at the White House (Routledge, 2007), Persuasion in Politics (with Charlotte Taylor, 2006) and The Linguistics of Political Argument (Routledge, 2003).
Charlotte Taylor lectures in English Language and Linguistics at the University of Sussex (UK) and is editor of CADAAD Journal. Her publications include Mock Politeness in English and Italian (2016), Patterns and Meanings in Discourse (with Alison Duguid and Alan Partington, 2013) and Persuasion in Politics (with Alan Partington, 2010).
