Involvement strategies in consort: literary nonfiction and political oratory

2011 ◽  
pp. 161-186
Author(s):  
Deborah Tannen
Keyword(s):  
Literary Nonfiction ◽  
Political Oratory

Great American Speeches: 80 Years of Political Oratory.

1999 ◽  
Vol 86 (3) ◽  
pp. 1411
Author(s):  
Stephen E. Lucas ◽  
Parker Payson
Keyword(s):  
Political Oratory

Greece, Rome, and the Revolutionaries of 1916

2020 ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Brian McGing
Keyword(s):  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Classical Rhetoric ◽  
Gettysburg Address ◽  
Classical Culture ◽  
Political Oratory

This chapter argues for a tension in the writings of Patrick Pearse, with some discussion also of Thomas MacDonagh, between commitment to the Gaelic and Catholic movement, which had eclipsed the classicism of earlier political rhetoric, and a marked interest in classical culture. Following an overview of the reception of classical rhetoric in political oratory before Irish independence, Pearse’s essays and speeches are analysed and shown to be permeated with classical tropes. Pearse’s oration for O’Donovan Rossa is discussed in particular detail, and it is suggested that the affinities with Thucydides in this funeral oration may have been mediated by Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, with which Pearse was familiar.

Barack Obama, being sharp

Gesture ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 241-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lempert
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Precision Grip ◽  
Barack Obama ◽  
Second Order ◽  
First Order ◽  
Political Oratory ◽  
The Way

Gesture in political oratory and debate is renowned for its nonreferential indexical functions, for the way it purportedly can indicate qualities of speaker and materialize acts of persuasion — functions famously addressed in Quintilian’s classic writings but understudied today. I revisit this problematic through a case study of precision-grip (especially thumb to tip of forefinger) in Barack Obama’s debate performances (2004–2008). Cospeech gesture can index valorized attributes of speaker — not directly but through orders of semiotic motivation. In terms of first-order indexicality, precision-grip highlights discourse in respect of information structure, indicating focus. In debate, precision grip has undergone a degree of conventionalization and has reemerged as a second-order pragmatic resource for performatively “making a ‘sharp’, effective point.” Repetitions and parallelisms of precision grip in debate can, in turn, exhibit speaker-attributes, such as being argumentatively ‘sharp’, and from there may even partake in candidate branding.

Parties and Issues in Early Victorian England

1966 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
William O. Aydelotte
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political History ◽  
The Other ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Victorian England ◽  
Parliamentary Reform ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government ◽  
Political Oratory

It has never been established how far, in the early Victorian House of Commons, voting on issues followed party lines. It might in general seem plausible to assume — what political oratory generally contrives to suggest — that there are ideological disagreements between parties and that it makes a difference which of two major opposing parties is in control of the Government. This is, indeed, the line taken by some students of politics. A number of historians and political observers have, however, inclined to the contrary opinion and have, for various reasons, tended to play down the role of issues in party disputes. Much of what has been written on political history and, in particular, on the history of Parliament has had a distinct anti-ideological flavor.One line of argument is that issues on which disagreement exists are not always party questions. Robert Trelford McKenzie begins his study of British parties by pointing out that Parliament just before 1830 was “divided on a great issue of principle, namely Catholic emancipation,” and just after 1830, on another, parliamentary reform. He continues: “But on neither issue was there a clear division along strict party lines.” The distinguished administration of Sir Robert Peel in the 1840s was based, according to Norman Gash, on a party “deeply divided both on policy and personalities.” The other side of the House at that time is usually thought to have been even more disunited. It has even been suggested that, in the confused politics of the mid-nineteenth century, the wordsconservativeandradicaleach meant so many different things that they cannot be defined in terms of programs and objectives and that these polarities may more usefully be considered in terms of tempers and approaches.

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