Riassunto esame inglese, prof Demata, libro consigliato The language of persuasion in politics, Partigton

THE LANGUAGE OF PERSUATION IN

POLITICS

Corso di Laurea Triennale in Scienze Strategiche e della Sicurezza

Contents

1 Politics and the language of persuasion 3

1.1 politics in conduced through language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1.2 persuasion and rhetoric in a democratic society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1.3 professional persuaders and the art of the ”spin-doctor” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

1.4 epilogue: when persuasion is superfluous to requirements, even in some ”democracies” . . . . . . 4

2 evaluation 5

2.1 evaluative language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.1.1 grammatical evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.1.2 textual evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.1.3 lexical evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.2 evaluation by language choice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.2.1 denotation and connotation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.3 ”insider” words (good) and ”outsider” words (bad) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.4 Hooray words and boo words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.5 evaluation by selection of information: what to leave in and what to leave out . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.6 evaluation and modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.6.1 modality as your degree of commitment to a belief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.6.2 modality and evaluation in political comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2.7 extension task. What examining grammatical evaluation can reveal: a case study of the US

Declaration of Independence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

3 ways of persuading 8

3.1 authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

3.2 comparison and contrast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

3.2.1 ”us” against ”them” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

3.2.2 beyond ”us” against ”them” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

3.2.3 surprise tactics and the garden path diversion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

3.3 problem - solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

3.3.1 the simple problem - solution model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

3.3.2 the complex problem - solution model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

3.4 the hypothesis - evidence - explanation model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

3.5 association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

4 The rhetoric of liberty, freedom, emancipation 11

4.1 binomials and bicolons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

4.2 the three-part list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

4.2.1 beyond three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

4.3 the contrasting pair (or antithesis) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

4.3.1 chiasmus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

4.4 oxymorons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

1

5 metaphors and company: the subtle persuaders 12

5.1 metaphors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

5.1.1 how metaphors work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

5.1.2 metaphors and irony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

5.2 similes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

5.3 metonymies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

5.4 the danger of metaphors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

6 the language of election and referendum campaigns 14

6.1 the US presidential election campaign of 2016 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

6.1.1 campaigning on social media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

6.1.2 gendered evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

6.2 referendums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

2

1 Politics and the language of persuasion

1.1 politics in conduced through language

Language is vital to the process of transforming political will into social action, any political action is prepared,

accompanied, controlled and influences by language. How politicians express themselves determines who they

are and whether they will succeed in their profession. It is difficult to think of any political action which does

not involve using language

Politics is:

• The working of institutions

• The interrelation of social groups, some with more power than others

The language of politics is:

• The language used by institutions of governance to conduct their business, to communicate with other insti-

tutions and with the rest of society

• All the discourses produced by social groups which relate to issues of the management of power and social

governance

Most of the time our experience of politics is ”mediated”, that is, we experience it via the media, the tv

and radio.

1.2 persuasion and rhetoric in a democratic society

We must make a difference between the use of language in politics in an absolutist or totalitarian regime and

in a democratic society:

• In an absolutist or totalitarian regime those in power rule by using the twin weapons of coercion and the

manipulation of information

• In a democracy, instead, the principal use of language in politics is for persuasion and debate. This art

was developed by Ancient Greeks. In fact, they created the term rhetoric, that is the art of persuading

others.

Rhetoric has three main fields of application:

• For politics;

• For law;

• For speeches of public praise or blame

Democratic policy is ”the art of persuasion” also known as rethoric.

Persuasion is achieved principally by the skilful use of language. Persuasion is neither good nor bad, neither

beneficial nor harmful, can be both or neither.

We have three definitions of rhetoric:

• Aristotle thinks that rhetoric is the art of persuasion in the attempt to influence the behaviour of others.

A natural and everyday human activity. Aristotle also identified three basic appeals of rhetoric:

– Ethos: the means by which a would-be persuader attempts to establish the credentials to justify why

they should be listened to; for instance, by claiming to be honest, or interesting. An adversary may

well attempt to delegitimise your ethos, by questioning your character or discrediting your credentials

– Logos: the attempt to present a plausible argument in a logical or at least apparently logical way

– Pathos: the attempt to appeal to the audience’s emotions.

• Plato thinks that rhetoric is the manipulation of an audience for personal ends and the use of a complex-

sounding language to hide the truth or the speaker’s ignorance (Plato)

• Grandiloquence or the use of high-sounding but empty language.

We employ the art of persuasion every day in our normal and natural relations with other people. People use

language all the time ”to attempt to influence the beliefs and the behaviour of other people”

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1.3 professional persuaders and the art of the ”spin-doctor”

In modern times the word ”rhetoric” has a bad reputation.

If persuasion is such a powerful tool in those societies where speech is relatively free, for obtaining, wielding

and contesting power, then it is no surprise that such societies host a wealth of different kinds of professional

persuaders.

Fenomenon of spin:

The spin is the tailoring of news and information on its release to the public to cast a favourable light on the

institutions of authority. The term itself is a metaphor deriving from baseball: the politician or his/her agent

hopes to spin their political message so that it will reach the public without the intervention of a critical press

In a democratic country all the major political parties have press officers, responsible for maintaining relations

with and communicating the party’s message to the media. These officers