Henriksen, B.E. ‘Language and politics’ in Mooney et al. Language, Society and Power. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011) third edition
[ISBN 9780415576598] pp.48–68.
Irwin, A. ‘Language and the media’ in Mooney et al. Language, Society and Power. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011) third edition [ISBN 9780415576598] pp.69–90.
Beard, A. The Language of Politics. (London: Routledge, 2000)
[ISBN 0415201780].
Cameron, Deborah Working with Spoken Discourse. (London: Sage, 2001) [ISBN 0761957731] Chapter 9.
Carter, R., A. Goddard, D. Reah, K. Sanger and N. Swift Working with Texts: A Core Introduction to Language Analysis. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008) third edition [ISBN 9780415414241].
Fairclough, N. Language and Power. (London: Longman, 2001)
[ISBN 9780582414839].
Holmes, J. An introduction to Sociolinguistics. (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 2008) third edition [ISBN 9781405821315] Chapter 14.
Mills, S. Feminist Stylistics. (London: Routledge, 1995) [ISBN 0415050286].
Montgomery, M., A. Durant, N. Fabb, T. Furniss and S. Mills Ways of Reading: Advanced Reading Skills for Students of English Literature. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006) third edition [ISBN 9780415346344].
Richardson, J.E. Analysing Newspapers: An Approach from Critical
Discourse Analysis. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)
[ISBN 9781403935656].
Talbot, M., K. Atkinson and D. Atkinson Language and Power in the Modern World. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003)
[ISBN 0748615385].
Trew, A.A. ‘Theory and ideology at work’ in Fowler, R.G., G.R. Kress,
A.A. Trew, R.I.V. Hodge (eds) Language and Control. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979) [ISBN 0710002882] pp.94–115.
Wales, K. A Dictionary of Stylistics. (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2011) third edition [ISBN 9781408231159].
Caldas-Coulthard, C. and C. Coulthard ‘Preface’ in Caldas-Coulthard, C. and C. Coulthard (eds) Texts and Practices: Reading in Critical Discourse Analysis. (London: Routledge, 1996) [ISBN 0415121434].
Chandler, D. Semiotics: The Basics. (London: Routledge, 2007) second edition [ISBN 9780415363754].
Cockcroft, R. and S. Cockcroft Persuading People: An Introduction to
Rhetoric. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) second edition
[ISBN 9781403921826].
Edlund, J.R. ‘Ethos, logos, pathos: three ways to persuade’. Available at:
www.calstatela.edu/faculty/jgarret/3waypers.htm (accessed on 19 May 2011)
Goatly, A. Critical Reading and Writing: An Introductory Coursebook. (London: Routledge, 2000) [ISBN 0415195608].
Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson Metaphors We Live By. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980) [ISBN 9780226468013].
Thomas, J. Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics. (Harlow: Pearson Education Limited, 1996) [ISBN 9780582291515].
Lakoff, G. ‘Metaphor and war: the metaphor system used to justify war in the Gulf’ (1991), http://georgelakoff.com/writings/allwritings/#online_articles [accessed 15 April 2012].
Dimbleby/Patten interview (28.2.93) 'On the Record'; John Patten interview at: www.bbc.co.uk/otr/intext92-93/Patten28.2.93.html (accessed 30
April 2011).
Usborne/Block interview, 'All Things Considered'; NPR (7/3/2003) at:
www.npr.org/programs/atc/transcripts/2003/mar/030307.usborne.html (accessed 30 April 2011).
Many political resources can be found on the University of Keele’s very comprehensive politics website. Go to: www.politicsresources.net/
In this chapter we consider some more ways in which you might approach discourse analysis. Once you have learnt a few basic strategies, the types of texts you can analyse, both written and spoken, are almost limitless, bound only by your enthusiasm and your interests. Many students are interested in print media texts of one kind or another; for example, newspapers, advertisements or magazines. Another possibility could be a literary text or, if you are interested in institutional settings, those texts produced by large organisations or by workplaces. A further idea is political material such as political party manifestos or other publicity related to politics. In short, there are lots of possibilities and we can only consider a small selection in this chapter, focusing mainly on examples from the language of politics. Your task will be to extend your knowledge further by reading more on the concepts and terms introduced, and applying them to as many texts as you are interested in. As is often the case, the more you try out and apply what you have learnt, the better you will become at doing it. In the final section of this chapter, we draw your attention to an approach for textual analysis called Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Many analysts following this approach use the tools we will outline in this chapter in their work. To begin with, however, we will start by considering some rhetorical or persuasive strategies, because these are used in many text types in order to convince audiences of particular points of view.
Politicians use many rhetorical devices, knowingly or unknowingly, when they speak (and in their writing too). Cockcroft and Cockcroft (2005, p.3) refer to rhetoric as the ‘art of persuasive discourse’. The word ‘rhetoric’ comes from Greek. As Beard (2000, pp.35–36) summarises, the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC) wrote a great deal about rhetoric, believing it to be a very important skill. The term is often used today in connection with formal public speaking skills. In addition, it is also sometimes the case that the ability to argue, debate or speak persuasively is considered as more important than the actual beliefs a person holds. What we’re going to do is to look at some common persuasive devices and rhetorical strategies and to consider examples of how politicians use them in the language that they choose.
Activity
Here are some examples of rhetoric: advertisements, politicians’ speeches, love letters. Although these texts are quite different, what is their common denominator? What other texts can you think of?
Aristotle classified the way in which people are persuaded into three strategies:
Cockcroft and Cockcroft (2005, p.4) describe these strategies as:
It is worth noting, however, that the strategies are not mutually exclusive: you may find evidence of more than one in any particular text, but it is often the case that one may be predominant. Consider, for example, a type of magazine advertisement which is commonly found in UK women’s magazines today where a celebrity is advertising a beauty product such as some anti-ageing skin cream. The advertisers will be using the celebrity’s reputation and character to advertise the product (ethos). In addition, they might also be appealing to the ideal of feminine beauty as something to aspire to (pathos). The advertisement may also mention scientific sounding terms in an effort to support the claims the advertisers are making for the product (logos).
Activity
Can you think of some other contexts where more than one rhetorical strategy might be used? Try to identify the strategies and give examples of what these could involve.
There are a great number of rhetorical devices which can be used in persuasive texts on either a visual or a verbal level (or both). In this section, we take a look at some of the most common ones, including metaphors, metonyms, three-part lists and contrastive pairs.
Broadly speaking, metaphor is concerned with describing something in a way that invokes a similarity between concepts. For example, if your friend comes back from a holiday and you ask them how it went and they reply ‘It was a nightmare’, you know they are not describing a bad dream they had but they are expressing the fact that they had an awful time on holiday. The qualities of a nightmare become transferred to the description of the holiday. To illustrate this further, we can consider the point that metaphors of war and sport are commonly used in politics as the following example shows:
The gloves came off in the Conservative leadership race yesterday as David Davis launched a thinly veiled attack on the appeal to ‘image politics’ of his chief rival, David Cameron (The Times, 10 October 2005).
Argument is frequently expressed or experienced as war or as a battle:
He attacked every weak point in my argument.
I’ve never won an argument with him.
If you use that strategy he’ll wipe you out.
(Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, p.4.)
Lakoff and Johnson’s book, Metaphors We Live By (1980) is widely regarded as seminal. We reproduce below an extract from it where they discuss the importance of metaphor. This is followed by some observations by Lakoff about the first Gulf War in 1991:
… metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.
The concepts that govern our thought are not just matters of intellect. They also govern our everyday functioning, down to the most mundane details. Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people. Our conceptual system thus plays a central defining role in defining our everyday realities. If we are right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then the way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor.
(Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, p.3)
Metaphors can kill. The discourse over whether to go to war in the gulf was a panorama of metaphor. Secretary of State Baker saw Saddam Hussein as ‘sitting on our economic lifeline.’ President Bush portrayed him as having a ‘stranglehold’ on our economy. General Schwarzkopf characterized the occupation of Kuwait as a ‘rape’ that was ongoing. The President said that the US was in the gulf to ‘protect freedom, protect our future, and protect the innocent’, and that we had to ‘push Saddam Hussein back.’ Saddam Hussein was painted as a Hitler. It is vital, literally vital, to understand just what role metaphorical thought played in bringing us in this war.
(Lakoff, 1991, p.XX)
Activity
Try to sum up the first quotation by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) in your own words. What do they mean when they say that ‘our ordinary conceptual system […] is fundamentally metaphorical in nature’ and ‘what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor’? Then try to think of other examples of ‘metaphors [that] can kill’. You may want to look at a newspaper article or a speech about war.
Another closely related device to metaphor is metonymy. Metonymy, like metaphor, also involves a process of substitution, but instead of substituting one thing for another which is like it in some way, we substitute one thing for another thing that is associated with it in some way. Metonymy works by a process of contiguity (Chandler, 2007, p.129). The classic example, given by Lakoff and Johnson (1980, p.35), is one in which a waiter says to another waiter: ‘The ham sandwich is waiting for his check’ (‘check’ is the American term for ‘bill’). In this example, it is obvious that ‘ham sandwich’ is being substituted for the customer in the cafe who ordered a ham sandwich to eat. He/she is being referred to by something that is ‘part’ of him/her (as far as the two waiters are concerned anyway!). Here are some further examples of metonymy that are very commonly used:
The White House: This stands for the US president and their government.
Buckingham Palace: The building signifies the British monarchy.
Downing Street: This refers to the British Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Activity
Can you think of another word that stands metonymically for the US Government?
Activity
Read the following extract from a transcript of an interview between Peter Usborne from the British newspaper the Independent and Melissa Block from NPR discussing the likelihood of a war in Iraq in March 2003 which was broadcast to a US audience. Can you pick out some examples of metonymy and metaphor in the extract? Can you think why these devices may have been used? Consider why metaphor and metonymy might be useful devices in times of conflict.
USBORNE: Tony Blair stands shoulder to shoulder with President Bush, has done all the way through, but he has always made it plain to the White House that he needs UN legitimacy for anything that he does, and every single public opinion poll since then has borne that out. And the only way that Tony Blair can sell it to his own audience is if it comes wrapped in the cloak of UN approval. Now it seems that as we go down this last kilometer of the path that that may not happen.
BLOCK: How do you explain that the position of Prime Minister Tony Blair at home is so much more tenuous, perhaps than that of President Bush here? Opposition in both countries to this war is quite significant.
USBORNE: Yes, but I think it’s much more significant in all of Europe, not just in Britain. The sense over on the other side of the Atlantic is that America is rushing this unnecessarily, that we haven’t had clear evidence of all the things that Saddam Hussein is accused of, and indeed, that the repercussions of an invasion, however quick the war may be, could be very dangerous for the region. And after all, we’re closer to the Middle East than America is. So Tony Blair really faces quite dire political consequences. He is sitting fairly comfortably politically in the sense that there are no elections coming up, but there has been talk of challenges to his leadership of the Labour Party if he finds himself running to war with George Bush. He’s often accused of being George Bush’s poodle in this regard, and especially if things start going wrong for him.
Atkinson (1984) cited by Beard (2000, p.38) draws attention to the fact that many political speeches involve lists of three. In your Essential reading this is referred to as ‘the rule of three’. But these lists of three are not only used in political speeches. Many people use them when speaking or writing because they sound ‘complete’. If you look back over some of your academic writing to date or make observations about your own or others’ speech in conversations you have, or that you listen to on television, you will see that they are very common. Here are some examples which you can find in Beard (2000):
It doesn’t have to be the same word that is repeated, as in these examples:
Activity
Can you think of some more three-part lists? Draw on your knowledge of nursery rhymes, religion, jokes, song titles etc.
As Henriksen (2011, p.51) points out, the three-part list is not the only rhetorical device that relies on some type of repetitions. There are other kinds of parallelism that are frequently used in politics. One of them is the contrastive pair.
This is another very common strategy that politicians make use of. Beard (2000, p.39) shows us that while three part lists ‘go together’ or give a sense of completeness, contrastive pairs put elements in opposition while, at the same time, using repetition to complete the effect. The example he gives is a ‘classic’, making use of the first words uttered by Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, when he stepped out onto the lunar surface in July 1969:
‘One small step for man: one giant leap for mankind.’
Activity
By dividing the utterance into two, can you make some observations about the repetition and contrast across it? It might help you to break it down in the following way:
one - one
small - giant
step - leap
for man - for mankind
It might also help you to think about what Neil Armstrong was actually doing at the time and also the political and social background to the situation. Some of the utterance is literal and some of it describes situations metaphorically. It is also evident that the utterance is very ‘neat’ in its patterning (Beard, 2000, p.40) and it is therefore extremely unlikely to have been spontaneous.
There is a whole range of devices which may be relevant to the text analysis you are undertaking. We concentrate on a small selection, including presuppositions, implicatures, active/passive voice, modality, euphemisms and pronoun use, but you will find others as you read and research this area further. After you have completed your Essential reading, especially Chapter 3 ‘Language and Politics’ in Mooney et al. (2011), you can read a little more in depth by turning to Chapter 3 in Richardson (2007) or the work by Carter et al. (2008).
Most people would agree that people who become career politicians spend much of their time speaking and trying to persuade people that their way of thinking and their world view (their ideology) makes sense and will benefit other people; that is, you. They are therefore usually quite skilled at manipulating audiences and also at side-stepping or avoiding difficult issues. First of all, we are going to outline two tools which are commonly used in both advertising and political discourse: presupposition and implicature. These two tools are very useful in various ways as we shall see. After that, we will look at some other strategies which are often relevant to an analysis.
Presuppositions are assumptions made by a speaker or writer which are not made explicit. So if a witness is asked in court: ‘Did you keep in touch with the defendant after the incident?’, the presupposition, embedded in the question (but not explicitly stated), is that the witness was in touch with the defendant before the incident. A key feature of presupposition is that the presupposition remains in place even when the utterance is negated. For example: ‘Clinton’s dishonesty was frowned on by the majority of Americans’. Even if you say ‘Clinton’s dishonesty was not frowned on by the majority of Americans’, the utterance presupposes (but doesn’t actually say) that Clinton is dishonest. (This example comes from Goatly, 2000, p.341.)
Presuppositions in interviewer questions can make it very difficult for a politician to answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to a question (see Beard, 2000, Unit 6). By answering ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, the politician may sometimes show him or herself to be agreeing with things they may not want to agree with.
Activity
Read the following extract, where the political news interviewer, Jonathan Dimbleby, was interviewing John Patten, then the Secretary of State for Education, on BBC television in the UK in 1993.
JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Secretary of State, do you regret the impression that you’ve given of being somewhat arrogant and overbearing in your approach to your task?
JOHN PATTEN: I think one of the most important things in political life, like in private life, is to say those things you believe in. Now I can remember a year ago – when I was a minister of state in the Home Office, saying the sorts of things in the House of Commons that Tony Blair’s been saying recently, about the need to balance responsibilities with rights. I used to be howled down in the House of Commons by Labour then, it’s now become very fashionable, so by the same token I think when you come to a world of education which has been very much inward looking as though an educational establishment which has had a grip on education, it’s very important to bring it out into the open, make it a matter of public debate, and that’s what I’m determined to do, whether it’s over surplus places, truancy or whatever else.
Activity
What would have been the effect if Patten had said either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to Dimbleby’s question? What does Patten try to do instead?
Implicatures work in a similar way to presuppositions because the listener or reader may infer something which has not been said explicitly. The difference is that implicatures are more dependent on shared knowledge and the context of the situation. Consider the following example:
INTERVIEWER: Will you condemn the violence on the picket lines?
SCARGILL: I condemn the violence of the police and the National Coal Board.
(Quoted in Cameron, 2001, p.76)
Activity
What could you infer from Scargill’s response? It may help you to know that this extract was part of an interview which occurred during the 1980s when there was a miners’ strike in the UK which was long and involved quite violent action between the miners and the police. Arthur Scargill was the leader of the National Union of Mineworkers.
Note: You should take note of the correct usage of imply and infer. They are commonly confused in English.
Modality indicates a writer or speaker’s attitude or judgment and the degree to which they are committed to whatever is being written or said. Modality in English is often expressed by the use of modal verbs (for example, can, may, might, could, shall, should, will, must) or adverbs (certainly, probably). Consider the following example from the Daily Mail, 2005:
Britain could suffer a Madrid-style terrorist attack in the run up to the Royal Wedding and General Election, the country’s most senior police officer warned yesterday.
(Richardson, 2007, p.60)
Activity
What is the effect of the modal claim in the extract? There is another verb in the extract which accentuates the sense of threat. Can you identify it?
There are two voices in English: the active voice and the passive voice. Here is an example which illustrates this:
The gunman shot the boy.
This is an active sentence which emphasises the gunman and his actions.
The boy was shot by the gunman.
This is a passive sentence: the affected entity (the boy) is now in the subject position.
The boy was shot.
Using the passive voice allows us to delete the agent entirely.
Activity
By studying the example above, can you suggest why using the passive voice might be a useful device in newspaper reporting and politics?
Activity
Read the chapter by Tony Trew in Fowler et al. (1979). This gives an analysis of two newspaper reports of the same event and demonstrates how the active and passive voice highlights the attitude of the two newspapers towards the event.
When we use euphemistic expressions or words, we use a more pleasant or ‘nicer’ expression for something that is unpleasant or taboo. A good example of this is the way we speak about death in Western cultures. There are many euphemisms or ‘nice’ ways of expressing death.
Activity
Make a list of as many euphemistic expressions or ways of talking about death as you can think of. Then reflect on what you think the effects of describing death more ‘positively’ might be.
You might want to refer back to Chapter 7 where Carol Cohn’s article about the nuclear defence intellectuals and their ways of talking about nuclear weapons was discussed. Euphemism has become very common in relation to war and the military. By using terms such as ‘surgical strikes’ or ‘clean bombs’, the positive connotations of, for example, ‘surgical’ and ‘clean’ are emphasised, while what is actually happening (that people’s lives are being devastated, because they are being bombed and killed) is obscured.
Beard (2000, p.45) remarks that by choosing their pronouns carefully, politicians can show themselves as authoritative, they can take credit for the things people will like, and share the blame with others when they say things people will not like:
Here are some examples from speeches and manifestos.
The strategies we have included are a small proportion of those you could consider when analysing political material. By doing some further research and reading the books we list in this chapter, you will be able to familiarise yourself and learn about these and others. This will enable you to try and analyse some political speeches or election campaign materials yourself. You will also be able to analyse other texts (perhaps some of the types of texts referred to in the introduction, such as articles in newspapers, advertisements or extracts from books) making use of these and other rhetorical strategies.
Many analysts who engage in the type of analysis we have outlined in this chapter regard themselves as Critical Discourse Analysts or Critical linguists. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) describes an approach to text analysis (whether written or spoken) where analysts are particularly concerned with exposing how language constructs and maintains power relationships. Many CDA studies investigate social inequality and the ways it is expressed and how language is used to do this. Typical areas of research that CDA analysts have been concerned with are political discourse, advertising language, newspaper reporting, or medical textbooks. The aim and areas of interest of CDA is captured in the following quote.
Discourse is a major instrument of power and control and Critical Discourse Analysts […] feel that it is […] part of their professional role to investigate, reveal and clarify how power and discriminatory value are inscribed and mediated through the linguistic system: Critical Discourse Analysis is essentially political in intent with its practitioners acting upon the world in order to transform it and thereby create a world where people are not discriminated against because of sex, colour, creed, age or social class.
(Caldas-Coulthard and Coulthard, 1996, pp. xi–xii: this chapter also provides a good
overview of CDA)
Discourse, according to CDA, is seen as language use that reflects and perpetuates ideologies in ways that are frequently not obvious to the reader or listener. The range of rhetorical and other linguistic devices that we discussed above demonstrates how language can be used to project specific ideological stances. Frequently as readers we need to have a little experience to detect which of these linguistic tools are used and in what ways they are used, in order to be able to understand the hidden agendas of a text.
Activity
Read section 4.2 of ‘Language and the media’ by Anthea Irwin in Mooney et al. (2011). Irwin focuses especially on news coverage about asylum seekers. Read her chapter and then find other written media texts which capture this ‘‘threatening’ discourse of asylum’ which she describes (Irwin, 2011, p.71). When you analyse these newspaper articles think about how linguistic devices are used to convey ideological meanings. You may want to focus your analysis on pronoun use, on actives and passives, on implicatures, presuppositions and modality. You will certainly also discuss the meaning of individual words that have been chosen and the word choice itself. For example, ask yourself why the accommodation asylum seekers stay in is described as a ‘hotel’. Which other words could have been used and why do you think this choice has been made? (See also Chapter 7.)
There are several CDA approaches but Norman Fairclough’s approach is considered by many to be the most prominent. In this subject guide, we have drawn on Richardson's (2007) work. He puts Fairclough’s model into practice in relation to newspaper language. We have also included Fairclough (2001) in the further reading. In addition, you can read Chapter 9 on CDA in Cameron (2001) or the section in Chapter 14 of Holmes (2008). Although these last two sources primarily focus on spoken discourse, they both provide clear and relevant summaries.
Activity
Read further on CDA in the texts we have mentioned. Compile a list of the linguistic strategies and devices that CDA focuses on. This list will contain several of the features that we have discussed above. Make sure you understand the definitions and applications of these features. Then consider the question whether you think CDA can be a successful tool in exposing the ‘hidden agendas’ or opaque ideological meanings of texts.
In this chapter we have focused largely on written texts from politics and the media. Several of our examples, however, demonstrate that some of the tools we have introduced here can also be applied to the analysis of spoken language. Political speeches are, of course, delivered in speech but they are usually carefully planned in writing. These speeches are not the only example of texts that sit in between the written and the spoken. New media language, such as emails and, even more so, instant messaging, also draw on both written and spoken genres. When you approach the analysis of these texts you may well want to draw on the methodological and analytical tools that we have introduced in our chapters on written as well as on spoken language. For example, it may be interesting to consider turn-taking (Chapter 6) in instant messaging. Political interviews can also be analysed from a turn-taking as well as a Critical Discourse Analytic perspective. That is, frequently it is useful to use an eclectic approach to the analysis of texts which allows you to combine different foci and tools.
After working through this chapter, and having done a substantial amount of reading on the topic as well as the activities, you should be able to: