Clevedon (UK); Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters, 1997. — v. 88 p. — (Current Issues in Language and Society). — ISBN 13: 97805851 47000.This volume deals with political speeches, particularly commemorative addresses, from the perspective of critical discourse analysis.
One problem in the complex of language and politics, however, is how to define what is political. Particularly in the twentieth century, as a result of the massive expansion of print and electronic media, more and more people are exposed to discourse that may be characterised as political in nature. In addition, more and more people are involved in their daily life in political action, by, for example, being asked to cast their votes in an election, or by watching the news on TV or reading a newspaper, or simply by talking with friends about the consequences which recent decisions of the government might have for each individual. The opportunities for each person to be more or less actively involved in political discourse have increased enormously.Looked at it from the point of view of linguistics and discourse analysis, we have to admit that political language, political discourse, and political text themselves are vague terms. In linguistic literature, political language has been used either to denote the use of language in the context of politics, i.e. a specific language use with the purpose of achieving a specific, politically motivated function, or it has been used to denote the specific political vocabulary, i.e. words and phrases that refer to extralinguistic phenomena in the domain of politics. From the point of view of language use, we can again differentiate between internal and external political communication, based on the setting and the communicative partners involved. Internal political communication would refer to all forms of discourse that concern first of all the functioning of politics within political institutions, i.e. governmental bodies, parties or other organisations.Christina Schäffner: Editorial: Political Speeches and Discourse Analysis
Titus Ensink: The Footing of a Royal Address: An Analysis of Representativeness in Political Speech, Exemplified in Queen Beatrix' Address to the Knesset on March 28, 1995
Christoph Sauer: Echoes from Abroad – Speeches for the Domestic Audience: Queen Beatrix' Address to the Israeli Parliament
The Debate
Norman Fairclough: Rhetoric and Critical Discourse Analysis: A Reply to Titus Ensink and Christoph Sauer
