The document discusses the relationship between language and politics, noting that politicians use language to promote and legitimate their power and visions. It also examines rhetorical devices like metaphor, simile, parallelism, and euphemism that are used as tools for persuasion in political speeches and discussions about power. Language shapes ideas and representation is never truly neutral as it reflects the views and assumptions of its users.

1. Language and Politics

2. What do we mean by ‘politics’?
 Any social relationship which deals with
power, governing and authority.
 What does politics mean to you? Think of your
everyday life – what situations do you engage in that
can be described as dealing with power, governing
and authority relations?

4. Rhetoric
 The art of persuasion
 Invention
 Arrangement
 Style
 Memory
 delivery

5. Obama’s inaugural speech
 Politicians use language as the site at which they
promote, protect and legitimate their power and voice of
authority, and rationalise their visions of political order
and their representations of social harmony. Political
speeches are a critical locus for translating those visions
and representations of reality into words. Presidential
political speeches are elaborately composed,
scrupulously revised and edited – resulting in numerous
drafts – in order to carry the voice of authority and
power of the presidents which they are carefully crafted
to be heard as the voice of the collectivity. Boussofara-
Omar (2006)

6.  ‘My fellow citizens.’
 We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and
Hindus, and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every
language and culture, drawn from every end of this
Earth.

7. Metaphor
 Forty-four Americans have now taken the
presidential oath.The words have been spoken
during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters
of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst
gathering clouds and raging storms. At these
moments, America has carried on not simply
because of the skill or vision of those in high
office, but because We the People have remained
faithful to the ideals of our forebears, and true to our
founding documents.

8. Metaphor
 Metaphor is a figure of speech
 Aristotle defines metaphor as ‘giving the thing a
name that belongs to something else’ (Poetics 1457b:
6-9)
 Used to create pictures in the mind
 To make connections between things not often
thought as related

9. Metaphor
 Forty-four Americans have now taken the
presidential oath.The words have been spoken
during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters
of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst
gathering clouds and raging storms. At these
moments, America has carried on not simply
because of the skill or vision of those in high
office, but because We the People have remained
faithful to the ideals of our forebears, and true to our
founding documents.

10. Metaphors
 ‘Metaphor is the omnipresent principle of thought.’
(I.A. Richards 1936: 92)
 Talking about things in metaphorical form influences
the way we think and behave (Lakoff and Johnson
1980)
 Metaphors can be used as tools to understand new
and complex ideas using familiar language.

11. Simile
 A simile establishes an association between things by
saying that something is ‘like’ something else. ‘She
smells like a rose.’ ‘She’s a good boss because she
acts like a man.’
 Simile’s and metaphors are used to connect concepts
in a way that is beneficial for the speaker.

12. The rule of three
 That we are in the midst of crisis is now well
understood. Our nation is at war against a far-
reaching network of violence and hatred. Our
economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed
and irresponsibility on the part of some but also our
collective failure to make hard choices and prepare
the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost, jobs
shed, businesses shuttered. Our health care is too
costly, our schools fail too many, and each day brings
further evidence that the ways we use energy
strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

13. Parallelism
 On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope
over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty
grievances and false promises, the recriminations
and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have
strangled our politics.

14. Euphemism and dyseuphemism
 Euphemism is used when there is a constraint on
being explicit for fear of causing offence or distress –
often related to taboos (death and bodily functions).
They highlight the positive and background the
negative
 Dyseuphemisms do the opposite – they highlight the
negative and background the positive.

15. Euphemism and dyseuphemism
 On September the 11th, the enemies of freedom
committed an act of war against our country. Fellow
citizens, we’ll meet violence with patient justice –
assured of the rightness of our cause, and confident
of the victories to come (George W. Bush: 22 Sept.
2001)

16. Euphemism and dyseuphemism
 Today is the day that Harry Reid has scheduled a
vote to try and cram the ‘financial reform’ bill down
our throats. This bill is a terrible bill. It needs to be
killed.
 By which they mean bring it up for debate using a
majority vote. That’s cramming it down your throat
in tea party speak.

17. Tools for persuasion
 Pronouns
 Metaphor
 Simile
 Rule of three
 Parallelism
 Contrastive pairs
 Euphemism
 diseuphemism

18. Representation is interested
 Language is not neutral. It is not merely a vehicle which carries
ideas. It is itself a shaper of ideas, it is the programme for mental
activity (Whorf, 1976). In this context it is nothing short of
ludicrous to conceive of human beings as capable of grasping
things as they really are, of being impartial recorders of their
world. For they themselves, or some of them at least, have
created or constructed the world and they have reflected
themselves within it. (my emphasis)
 Spender, D. (1980)
04:19

19. ‘But I didn’t actually say that.’
 Presupposition and Implicature
 You can have an intended message but not state it openly. We
use the techniques all the time. We only tend to talk about
them when we are concerned with power ideology and
persuasion.
 Assumptions: something taken for granted.
 Presupposition: something assumed only by a
particular form of the sentence.
 Implicature: a conventional conclusion based on
what is said – it depends on what we know about the
world and the communicative situation.

20. Presupposition and Implicature
 I forgot to ask my cousin for her umbrella.
 It’s about to rain? – Implicature
 I have a cousin, she is a woman - presupposition
 I didn’t forget to ask my cousin for her umbrella.
 Negate the sentence and the presupposition still stands

21. Presupposition and Implicature
 Examples:
 We will save the NHS
 Put country before party this election
 Invest in a future we can all enjoy
 Make the difference
 The green alternative to a better life
 We will transform our schools and colleges to meet the demands
of a new age.
 Doesn’t each day bring further evidence that the ways we use
energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet?
04:19

22. The death of Stephen Gately
Jan Moir: A strange and troubling death (Daily Mail 16/11/09)