An Appeal to the People: Politeness Strategies in the Malaysian Prime Minister’s Maiden Speech

Author(s):  
Nadia Anuar ◽  
Nurizah Md Ngadiran

The use of politeness strategies has received increasing attention in the political discourse as a powerful persuasion tool. These strategies became critical for the newly appointed prime minister of Malaysia, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, to convince Malaysians that he is qualified to lead the country during a political upheaval and global pandemic. Thus, the objectives of this paper are to identify the types and frequency of the politeness strategies used by Muhyiddin Yassin in his maiden speech as the eighth prime minister of Malaysia. Two categories of politeness strategies based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) were examined, which are negative strategies and positive strategies. The speech text was obtained from the official website of Prime Minister’s Office and was translated to English for analysis. The translated speech was subsequently checked for validity. Document analysis was used to analyse the translated speech text to determine the types and frequency of the politeness strategies. The analysis revealed that positive politeness strategies were significantly used (88%) compared to negative politeness strategies (12%). The most dominantly used positive politeness strategy was “notice and attend to the receiver’s need, interest, or want” while “use of exaggeration”, “seek agreement”, and “avoid disagreement” were the least used strategy. In contrast, “question” and “giving deference” were identified to be the most frequently used negative politeness strategy. The present study extends our knowledge on the use of politeness strategies in a political speech in an Asian setting, which is notably lacking in the literature.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adib Rifqi Setiawan

The Critical Discourse Analysis is often applied to analyze political discourse including the political speech. This article analyzes Grace Natalie Louisa’s Speech, mainly in Festival 11 by Partai Solidaritas Indonesia (PSI), that is exclusively based on the perspective of Teun Adrianus van Dijk. It reveals that we can learn how to deliver our ideology to public. Moreover, we can have a better understanding of the political purpose of these speeches.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 294
Author(s):  
Laura Cervi ◽  
Fernando García ◽  
Carles Marín Lladó

During a global pandemic, the great impact of populist discourse on the construction of social reality is undeniable. This study analyzes the fantasmatic dimension of political discourse from Donald Trump’s and Jair Bolsonaro’s Twitter accounts between 1 March and 31 May. To do so, it applies a Clause-Based Semantic Text Analysis (CBSTA) methodology that categorizes speech in Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) triplets. The study findings show that in spite of the Coronavirus pandemic, the main beatific and horrific subjects remain the core populist signifiers: the people and the elite. While Bolsonaro’s narrative was predominantly beatific, centered on the government, Trump’s was mostly horrific, centered on the elite. Trump signified the pandemic as a subject and an enemy to be defeated, whereas Bolsonaro portrayed it as a circumstance. Finally, both leaders defined the people as working people, therefore their concerns about the pandemic were focused on the people’s ability to work.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arun Jacob

The main objective behind the parliamentary practice of Question Period is to ensure that the government is held accountable to the people. Rather than being a political accountability tool and a showcase of public discourse, these deliberations are most often displays of vitriolic political rhetoric. I will be focusing my research on the ways in which incivil political discourse permeates the political mediascape with respect to one instance in Canadian politics - the acquisition of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. I believe that incivility in the political discourse of Question Period must be understood within the mechanics of the contemporary public sphere. By interrogating the complexities of how political discourse is being mediatized, produced and consumed within the prevailing ideological paradigms, I identify some of the contemporary social, cultural and political practices that produce incivility in parliamentary discourse.


2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 207
Author(s):  
Ayyaz Qadeer ◽  
Wasima Shehzad

The present study presents a critical view of the speech delivered on May 09, 2011 by the prime-minister of Pakistan, Yousuf Raza Gillani. Following the language of the political discourse, this speech is delivered in the parliament house in front of the speaker, but is meant for the masses. The position of the speaker remains uniform as the questions are asked in the end alone. However, the speech is meant for both the addressee present at the time of the speech, and the assumed masses. It was found out the pronouns we, our, were constantly used to shift the responsibility on Al-Qaida whereas “I” was used for authority in order to digress the discussion from the topic. The pronouns and the vocabulary together establish the in-group or out-group category. The solidarity is shown towards the masses to get their support and defense is shown towards the allies who are accusing the government of fraud and nefarious ploy. Mystification is performed at a number of places to hide truth and claim the truth alternatively.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larissa Fitzsimons

This Major Research Paper (MRP) investigates how nation branding is accomplished through political brand ambassadors, particularly Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Within this research, I also examine the intersection of political speech genres and branding speech genres, and how they have created the emergence of the nation branding speech genre. My research questions are as follows: 1. Does the intersection between the political and branding speech genres lead to the emergence of an independent nation branding speech genre? 2. Using the nation branding speech genre, do personal brands translate onto country brands? More specifically, is Trudeau’s personal brand influencing Canada’s brand?


Author(s):  
Dolynskiy I.V.

Increasing of language contacts, globalization and internationalization of public relations, expansion of modern information technologies encourage a comprehensive study of modern English communication. Political activity has always played a special role in society. An important role in determining the country’s international image is played by its presentation by the country’s political leaders. With the help of speeches, politicians have the opportunity to address both the international community and the citizens of their country. Direct contact with the audience determines the choice of lexical, syntactic and phonetic means in the design of speech. Political speeches have three main functions: the communication function, the announcement function and the influence function. American oratory theorists point to the need for the speaker to concentrate on composing his speech, taking into account the audience reaction what he is trying to provoke. Much attention in the American oratory theory is paid to the speech compositional construction. One of the political discourse genres is political speech. Presidential political speech is an oral political text, which is proclaimed by the president to a mass audience, sets urgent tasks in a particular sphere of public life, and gives recommendations for the implementation of tasks. It performs the functions of persuasion, agitation, congratulations, has a pre-created script, which depends on the communicative situation. The construction of a political speech is based on the principle of argumentation (introduction, main part, final part), which facilitates the speech audience perception. The study was based on the political speeches texts of two American presidents – John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The analyzed speeches have different topics: inaugural addresses of presidents, comments during hostilities and diplomatic (delivered during visits). The article highlights the concept of political discourse; it’s identified and described the main types of political speeches; revealed the linguistic and stylistic features and expression means of John F. Kennedy’s; Ronald Reagan; Hillary Clinton political speeches.Key words: English discourse, political speeches, linguistic and stylistic aspect, translation aspect, rhetorical devices. Розширення мовних контактів, глобалізація та інтернаціоналізація суспільних відносин, впровадження сучасних інформаційних технологій спонукають до всебічного дослідження сучасної англомовної комунікації. Політична діяльність завжди відігравала особливу роль у житті суспільства. Політичний дискурс – це явище, з яким люди стикаються щодня. Боротьба за владу є основною темою та рушійним мотивом цієї сфери спіл-кування. Політична комунікація, орієнтована на викладення тих чи інших політичних подій, пропаганду ідей, установок, цінностей, володіє емоційним та інтелектуальним впливом на свідомість громадян. Важливу роль у визначенні іміджу країни відіграє спосіб презентації політичними лідерами держави. За допомогою виступів політики мають можливість звернутися як до міжнародної спільноти, так і до громадян своєї країни. Прямий контакт з аудиторією зумовлює вибір лексичних, синтаксичних і фонетичних засобів в оформленні промови. Політичні промови мають три основні функції: функцію спілкування, функцію повідомлення та функцію впливу. Теоретики американського ораторського мистецтва вказують на необхідність оратора сконцентруватися на тому, щоб його промова була складена, враховуючи реакцію аудиторії, яку він намагається викликати. Велика увага в теорії американського ораторського мистецтва приділяється композиційній побудові ораторської промови. Одним із жанрів політичного дискурсу є політична промова. Президентська політична промова – це усний політичний текст, який проголошується президентом перед масовою аудиторією, ставить назрілі завдання в тій чи іншій сфері громадського життя, дає рекомендації щодо здійснення поставлених завдань. Вона виконує функції переконання, агітації, вітання, має завчасно створений сценарій, який залежить від комунікативної ситуації. Побудова політичної промови засновується на принципі аргументації (вступ, основна частина, завершальна частина), що полегшує сприйняття промови аудиторією. На основі аналізу текстів політичних промов можна змоделювати інтереси, вподобання, типові реакції політичного лідера, його уявлення про друзів і ворогів. Матеріалом дослідження слугували тексти політичних промов двох американських президентів – Джона Кеннеді, Рональда Рейгана – й кандидата в президенти Гілларі Клінтон. Проаналізовані промови мають різну тематику: інавгураційні звернення президентів, коментарі під час воєнних дій і дипломатичні (що виголошувалися під час візитів). У статті викладено поняття політичного дискурсу; визначено й описано основні типи полі-тичних промов; виявлено лінгвостилістичні особливості й засоби вираження політичних промов Джона Кеннеді, Рональда Рейгана, Гілларі Клінтон.Ключові слова:англомовний дискурс, політичні промови, лінгвостилістичний аспект, перекладацький аспект, риторичні прийоми.


2021 ◽  
pp. 217-224
Author(s):  
Michael Llewellyn-Smith

Venizelos's arrived in Athens in early September 1910. He addressed the people in a major speech in Constitution Square, making clear that he would work with the King, since 'crowned democracy' best fitted the political culture of the Greek people. He looked to the King to lead the reform program. He announced that he would create a new political party from like-minded people committed to new and liberal ideas. For the rest he condemned the failures of the old political world, over emigration, security, agriculture and industry, indeed across the board, and promised better. The speech quickly acquired mythical status, partly for the forthright way in which he squashed hecklers who cried out for fundamental changes in the constitution (i.e. affecting the prerogatives of the Crown). He defended limited constitutional changes. Foreign affairs hardly featured. This debut was rapidly followed by his appointment as prime minister, following the failure of the old party leaders to pick up the baton, and by his confirmation through new elections which gave him the desired majority in parliament. This was a brilliant start to his political career in Greece.


2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 500-519
Author(s):  
Ulrich Eith ◽  
Thomas Waldvogel

In the state elections on March 14, 2021 in Baden-Württemberg, the Greens, with Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann, were again able to assert themselves as the strongest party after their narrow election victory in 2016 . They widened the gap to the CDU to over 8 percentage points . A central cause of this election victory were Kretschmann’s consistently high levels of competence and sympathy, even during the pandemic . The Green’s success solidifies the political upheaval that has been observed in the south-west for over a decade now . 58 of 70 constituencies went to the Greens in 2021 . The party that was once success­ful only in large cities is now also ahead of the CDU in constituencies with a low popula­tion density . The CDU lost above average among the younger generation, the Greens recorded above average profits among people over 60 years . Despite resistance in his own party, Kretschmann once again formed a green-black government . The coalition partners’ goal is to make Baden-Württemberg the number one climate protection state . Greater criti­cism was sparked by the creation of a new ministry and the appointment of 14 state secre­taries .


Author(s):  
Benson Eluma ◽  
Yinka Olarinmoye

For democracy to become the political culture in Nigeria, the discourse of politics has to be conducted through expressive mechanisms owned by the people. In the absence of popular ownership of political language, the road to disconnect, apathy and disenfranchisement lies wide open. We take the view that the problem of politics is located squarely in the public sphere and that discourse is the activity that characterizes the public sphere. We raise the point that the sociolinguistic environment in the country does not encourage whole masses of Nigerians to talk politics in languages in which they can freely articulate their positions and present their aspirations. We posit that citizens are disenfranchised and rendered inaudible and invisible to the extent to which they cannot undertake political discourse with an appreciable measure of linguistic ease. The benefits of diversity are endangered as many people and entire groups in Nigeria lose the means of expressing their political views and opinions, let alone political projects and programmes. Invoking Bakhtin’s concept of heteroglossia, we make a blanket case for the viability of each and every extant language in Nigeria for political discourse if such usage is actively promoted among their respective communities of users.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larissa Fitzsimons

This Major Research Paper (MRP) investigates how nation branding is accomplished through political brand ambassadors, particularly Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Within this research, I also examine the intersection of political speech genres and branding speech genres, and how they have created the emergence of the nation branding speech genre. My research questions are as follows: 1. Does the intersection between the political and branding speech genres lead to the emergence of an independent nation branding speech genre? 2. Using the nation branding speech genre, do personal brands translate onto country brands? More specifically, is Trudeau’s personal brand influencing Canada’s brand?


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