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Persuasion in Public Discourse: Cognitive and functional perspectives
Edited by Jana Pelclová and Wei-lun Lu
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 79] 2018
► pp. 127–148

Chapter 6
Reframing as a persuasive device in public speech

Beyond globalized biodiversity

This chapter shows how reframing operates as a persuasive device in public discourse to reorient the audience’s existing beliefs according to the speaker’s viewpoint. The study considers the empirical case of a public speech reframed by a socio-ecological expert to persuade her audience of alternative perspectives on biodiversity. The main aim is to analyze the different types of frame changes intentionally used by the speaker for effective persuasive appeals, and to investigate how these were indexed by linguistic devices and strategies to influence the audience. Qualitative findings reveal a network of linguistic elements at play in evoking frame changes combined with linguistic markers of emotional appeals to influence the audience’s preference for the speaker’s viewpoint.

Keywords: reframing, persuasion, frame changes, frame competition, public speech, rhetorical appeals, biodiversity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Framing and reframing as persuasive devices
  • 3.The study: Aim and method
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Frame changes
    • 4.2Frame competition: Quantity and strength
    • 4.3Linguistic framing devices
  • 5.Linguistic strategies as persuasive techniques
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 8 August 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.79.07pla
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