Political Oratory and Cartooning: Ethnography of Democratic Processes in Madagascar by Jennifer Jackson. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. pp. viii + 257 pp.

2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 370-372
Author(s):  
Aurora Donzelli
Keyword(s):  
1999 ◽  
Vol 86 (3) ◽  
pp. 1411
Author(s):  
Stephen E. Lucas ◽  
Parker Payson
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Brian McGing

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.


Gesture ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 241-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lempert

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.


1966 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
William O. Aydelotte

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.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 520-541
Author(s):  
Sarah Ledoux ◽  
Peter Bull

Abstract Recent research has established that Japanese political oratory and audience behaviour (Bull & Feldman 2011; Feldman & Bull 2012) are fundamentally different to those found in British political speeches (Heritage & Greatbatch 1986). To further develop these cross-cultural analyses of political rhetoric, speaker-audience interaction was analysed in ten speeches by the two second-round candidates in the 2012 French presidential elections (François Hollande; Nicolas Sarkozy). Analogous to British speeches, French speeches were characterised by “implicit” affiliative response invitations and asynchronous speaker-audience interaction, in contrast to Japanese “explicit” invitations and synchrony. These results were interpreted in terms of Hofstede’s (2001) individualism-collectivism cultural dimensions. Dissimilarities in audience responses between the two candidates were also identified and discussed. The analysis of cross-cultural differences continues to reveal the intricate differences between societies, and ensures academic understanding on rhetoric is not boxed into crude universal rules.


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