Cover not available
Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 13:3 (2014) ► pp.538–562

Bush, Obama

(in)formality as persuasion in political discourse

| Washington and Lee University |

This paper, framed under the scope of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), explains social processes by analyzing discourse practices. It proposes (para)linguistic variables employed in the creation of (in)formality in discourse in relation to two Aristotelian persuasive modes: Ethos and Pathos (Kennedy 1991). These modes of persuasion reveal different ways to convey a political message in the current U.S. political scene.

This paper compares the stylistic differences in speeches given by George W. Bush and Barack Obama to justify escalating troops in the conflicts of Iraq (2007) and Afghanistan (2009), respectively. I propose (para)linguistic indicators of formality associated with Aristotelian modes at the level of linguistic choices (“lexical variables” [Schilling-Estes 2004] and “marked register usages” [Myers-Scotton 2001]), textual organization (structure and predictability), non-verbal communication (i.e. laughter; Jefferson, Sacks & Schegloff 1987), and intertextuality (Blackledge 2005; Fairclough 1992, 2003) by means of new voices (Bakhtin 1981) into the here-and-now moment of discourse.

Keywords: Political discourse, Bush, Obama, formality, style, intertextuality, persuasion
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Formality, Style and Aristotelian modes of persuasion
  • 3.Linguistic and paralinguistic indicators of (in)formality andmodes of persuasion
    • a.Lexical choices: Referential indexicals and marked register usages
    • b.Textual organization: Structure and predictability
    • c.Supporting voices
    • d.Key elements (e.g. Joking vs. Serious)
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 22 December 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.13.3.08rey
References
Attenborough, Frederick
2010 “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the Rhetorical Construction of ‘Bad’ Scientific Work.” Public Understanding of Science 19 (6), 1–15. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail M
1981 The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin (ed. by M Holquist). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bauman, Richard
2001 “Genre.” In Key Terms in Language and Culture, ed. by A. Duranti, 79–82. Oxford: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bell, Allan
1984 “Language Style As Audience Design.” Language in Society 131: 145–204. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2001 “Back in style: Reworking audience design.” In Style and Sociolinguistic Variation, ed. by P. Eckert and J. Rickford, 139–169. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Benveniste, Émile
1971 Problems in General Linguistics. Coral Gables, PL: University of Miami Press.Google Scholar
Blackledge, Adrian
2005 Discourse and Power in a Multilingual World. Amsterdam: John ­Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blommaert, Jan
2008 “Bernstein and poetics revisited: Voice, Globalization and Education.” Discourse & Society 19 (4), 425–451. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bonnin, Juan E
2011 From Discursive Event to Discourse Événement: A Case Study of Political–religious Discourse in Argentina. Discourse & Society 22 (6): 677–692. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Capone, Alessandro
2010 “Barack Obama’s South Carolina speech.” Journal of Pragmatics 421: 2964–2977. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chilton, Paul
2004 Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cooper, Lane
1932 The rhetoric of Aristotle. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas
2007 Style: Language Variation and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge ­University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duranti, Alessandro
1994 From Grammar to Politics: Linguistic Anthropology in a Western Samoan Village. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duranti. Alessandro
2006 “Narrating the political self in a campaign for U.S. Congress.” Language in Society 351: 467–497. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eggins, Suzanne, and J.R. Martin
1997 “Genres and Registers of Discourse.” In Discourse as Structure and Process, ed. by Teun A. van Dijk, 230–256. London: Sage. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ervin-Tripp, Susan
1972 “On Sociolinguistic Rules: Alternation and Co-occurrence.” In Directions in Sociolinguistics, ed. by John Gumperz and Dell Hymes, 213–250. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fairclough, Norman
1992 Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2003 Analyzing Discourse. London: Routledge.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fishman, Joshua A
1972 Sociolinguistics: A Brief Introduction. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fraser, Bruce
1999 “What are Discourse Markers?” Journal of Pragmatics 311: 931–952. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gal, Susan, and Kathyrn A. Woolard
1995 “Constructing Languages and Publics: Authority and Representation.” Pragmatics 5 (2): 129–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving
1981 “Footing.” Forms of Talk. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Irvine, Judith T
1979 “Formality and Informality in Communicative Events.” American Anthropologist 81 (4): 773–790. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giles, Howard, Donald M. Taylor, and Richard Bourhis
1973 “Towards a Theory of Interpersonal Accommodation through Language: Some Canadian Data.” Language in Society 21: 177–192. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giles, Howard, and Peter Powesland
1997 “Accommodation Theory.” In Sociolinguistics a Reader and Coursebook, ed. by Nikolas Coupland and Adam Jaworski, 232–239. New York: St. Martin’s Press, INC.Google Scholar
Haiman, Franklyn
1948 An Experimental Study of the Effects of Ethos in Public Speaking. Diss. Northwestern University. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hart, Roderick P. and Bartholomew H. Sparrow
2001 Politics, Discourse, and American Society: New Agendas. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield publishers, INC.Google Scholar
Hovland, Carl I., Irving L. Janis, and Harold H. Kelley
 1953 Communication and Persuasion. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jefferson, Gail, Harvey Sacks, and Emanuel Schegloff
1987 “Laughter in the Pursuit of Intimacy.” In Talk and Social Organisation, ed. by Graham Button and John R.E. Lee, 152–205. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara
1996 The linguistic individual: Self-expression in language and linguistics. NewYork: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
 1999 “Lingual Biography and Linguistic Variation.” Language sciences 211: 313–321. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2000 “The Individual Voice in Language.” Annual Review of Anthropology 291: 405–424. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 “Stance, Style, and the Linguistic Individual.” In Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Stance, ed. by Alexandra Jaffe, 29–52. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Joos, Martin
1959 “The Isolation of Styles.” Monograph Series on Language and Linguistics 121: 107–113. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University.Google Scholar
Kennedy, George A
1991 Aristotle, on Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Koven, Michèle
2002 “An Analysis of Speaker Role Inhabitance in Narratives of Personal Experience." Journal of Pragmatics 341: 167–217. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, William
1972 “The Transformation of Experience in Narrative Syntax.” Language in the Inner City, 354–396. Philadelphia: University of Pensylvania Press.Google Scholar
McCroskey, James C
1966 Scales for the Measurement of Ethos. In Speech Monographs. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McCroskey, James C., and Thomas J. Young
1981 “Ethos and Credibility: The Construct and Its Measurement after Three Decades.” Central States Speech 321: 24–34. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Myers-Scotton, Carol
2001 “Calculating Speakers: Codeswitching in a Rational Choice Model.” Language in Society 301: 1–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ochs, Elinor
1979 “Planned and Unplanned Discourse.” In Syntax and Semantics 12: Discourse and Syntax, ed. by Talmy Givón. New York: Academic Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pels, Dick
2003 “Aesthetic Representation and Political Style: Re-balancing Identity and Difference in Media Democracy.” In Media and the Restyling of Politics, J. Corner and D. Pels, 41–66. London: Sage. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Philips, Susan
2004 “Language and Social Inequality.” In A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology, ed. by Alessandro Duranti, 474–495. Malden, MA: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rampton, Ben
2006 Language in Late Modernity: Interaction in an Urban School. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reyes, Antonio
2008 “Discursive Strategies in Chávez’s Political Discourse: Voicing, Distancing, and, Shifting.” Critical Discourse Studies 5 (2), 133–152. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010 “Power, Emotions and Agency in Political Discourse.” In Readings in Language Studies, Volume 2: Language and Power, ed. by M. Mantero, P. Chamness Miller, and J.L. Watzke, 201–218. Wilmington, DE: International Society for Language Studies.Google Scholar
2011a Voice in Political Discourse: Castro, Chavez, Bush and their Strategic Use of Language. London: Continuum. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011b “Strategies of Legitimization in Political Discourse: From Words to Actions.” Discourse & Society 22 (6): 781–807. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011c “Palin v. Biden: The Fight for Credibility in Political Discourse." Issues in Political Discourse Analysis 3 (1): 75–94.Google Scholar
Rickford, John R., and Penelope Eckert
(eds) 2001 Style and Sociolinguistic Variation. New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schilling-Estes, Natalie. Natalie Schilling-Estes
2004 “Investigating Stylistic Variation.” In The Handbook of Variation and Change, ed. by Jack K. Chambers, Peter Trudgill, and , 375–401. Oxford: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Michael
1995/1976 “Shifters, Linguistic Categories, and Cultural Description. In Language, Culture, and Society: A Book of Readings, ed. by B. Blount, 187–221. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.Google Scholar
1998 “The Uses and Utility of Ideology: A Commentary.” In Language Ideology: Practice and Theory, ed. by B. Schieffelin, K. Woolard and P. Kroskrity, 123–145. NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
2003 Talking Politics: The Substance of Style from Abe to “W”. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.Google Scholar
2004 “ ‘Cultural’ concepts and the language–culture nexus.” Current Anthropology 45 (5): 621–652. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Geoff
2004 Introducting Functional Grammar. (2nd ed.). London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter
2002 Sociolinguistic Variation and Change. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown ­University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth
2008 “Introduction: Discourse Studies – Important Concepts and Terms.” In: Ruth DOI logo
Wodak, Ruth and Michal Krzyzanowski
(eds) Qualitative Discourse Analysis in the Social Sciences London Palgrave Macmillan 1 29 DOI logo
2009 The Discourse of Politics in Action: Politics as Usual. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wolfson, Nessa
1976 “Speech Events and Natural Speech. Some Implications for Sociolinguistic Methodology.” Language in Society (51): 189–210. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 8 other publications

Crespo-Fernández, Eliecer
2018. Euphemism as a discursive strategy in US local and state politics. Journal of Language and Politics 17:6 ► pp. 789 ff. DOI logo
Jaworska, Sylvia
2021. Competence and collectivity: The discourse of Angela Merkel’s media communications during the first wave of the pandemic. Discourse, Context & Media 42 ► pp. 100506 ff. DOI logo
Mayaffre, Damon & Ronny Scholz
2017. Constructing ‘the French people’ – On Sarkozy’s populism. Journal of Language and Politics 16:5 ► pp. 683 ff. DOI logo
Ponton, D.M.
2022. Corporate Feminism? Emma Watson and the UN’s #HeForShe Movement. Language and Text 9:2 ► pp. 76 ff. DOI logo
Reyes, Antonio
2015. Building intimacy through linguistic choices, text structure and voices in political discourse. Language & Communication 43 ► pp. 58 ff. DOI logo
Reyes, Antonio & Andrew Ross
2021. From the White House with anger: Conversational features in President Trump's official communication. Language & Communication 77 ► pp. 46 ff. DOI logo
Song, Yonsuk
2020. Ethics of journalistic translation and its implications for machine translation. Babel. Revue internationale de la traduction / International Journal of Translation 66:4-5 ► pp. 829 ff. DOI logo
Theodoropoulou, Irene
2020. Speech style as political capital: Barack Obama’s Athens speech. Journal of Multicultural Discourses 15:3 ► pp. 325 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.