“Carnaval em casa”

The carnival of 2021 of Rio de Janeiro was unprecedently cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the city administration knew it would have to enforce the decision and convince residents to avoid celebrating despite the restrictions. Importantly, officials had the support of the samba schools and the blocos of street carnival, and the blocos organized a manifesto and campaign declaring that in 2021 carnival would be “at home.” While many scholars have shown how street music can mobilize revelers, this article shows that the blocos of Rio’s street carnival also have the capacity to demobilize them. Their campaign drew on familiar carnivalesque and Brazilian tropes to rationalize a biopolitical message of civic responsibility, respect for life, and resistance to virus denialism. They played on long-standing Brazilian tropes of carnival as an ephemeral moment whose presence is fleeting and soon experienced as saudade, or nostalgia. I explore various manifestations of the campaign, including its manifestos and arguments, as well as some of the alternatives that were offered, such as virtual carnival performances and new carnival songs adapted to the situation. By inverting their traditional demands to occupy the streets and instead limiting festivity to domestic space, the blocos framed their plea not as a departure from carnival tradition, but as fundamentally carnivalesque. I argue that classic carnival theories are best understood as performative rather than an explanatory; that is, it is how carnival practitioners deploy the carnivalesque tropes of inversion as elements of a persuasive discourse that is my focus.

Media Expectations; The Rhetoric of Persuasive Speech

The goal of this study is to look into the concept of persuasive rhetoric from the perspective of current realism and life expectations. In the past, Arab scholars used communication and comprehension philosophy as an effective means of understanding and comprehending through accurate awareness of the eloquence of persuasive discourse; thus, they initiated, developed, and engaged with it through the concept of the terms; “the signification of the word on the meaning” or “the signification of the signifier (Ad-daal) on the eloquence of persuasive discourse.” The argument applies to awareness and understanding of some of the circumstances, relationships, events, and conditions surrounding the persuasive discourse, as well as awareness of similar emergency conditions through explicit and implicit interpretation, making the persuasive discourse a necessary outlet for reporting and persuasion between the sender and the addressee. As a result, this current study contributes to the study of Arabic rhetoric from the perspective of mental attribution or mental importance, employing persuasion and informative techniques

ЛЕКСИКО-ГРАМАТИЧНІ ПРИЙОМИ В МАНІПУЛЯТИВНОМУ ПОЛІТИЧНОМУ ДИСКУРСІ

Political discourse defined by linguists as persuasive discourse effectively employs the ability of language to communicate and give shape to reality. Socrates and Aristotle were well aware of the power of language to distort perception and influence behavior, and thus be a tool, or weapon, for achieving the speaker’s goals. Based on principles worked out by Classical rhetoricians modern rhetoric is revived on a new basis synthesizing theoretical data of pragmatics, psycholinguistics and communication theory. As a result, the emphasis is laid not upon sharing knowledge but rather upon forming the opinion. Language of politics nowadays tends to be ambiguous, indefinite and vague. Political discourse provides contexts in which the speaker doesn’t mean exactly what the words literally mean. That is, the speaker’s denotation differs from the semantic meaning. Political discourse defined by linguists as persuasive discourse effectively employs the gift of language to communicate and give profile to reality. Politicians use a wide range of language means to manipulate the electorate: euphemisms, jargon, gobbledygook, inflated language, simplified or overcomplicated syntax. Politics seems to be the realm of doublespeak which is presented as a heterogeneous phenomenon providing cloudy vagueness of political language. The influence on addressee’s perception is conveyed due to manipulative potential of language. The enormous power is in the meaning of the words, what they mean to the human being who hears them. Far more than simple communication, truth, falsehood and the infinite shades between them, words have the power to manipulate other people’s thinking and behavior. On grammatical level one of the characteristic traits of political discourse (especially political slogans) is the use of verbless sentences. Verbless sentences in the English language may be viewed in the context of nominalization trend. It must be noted that verbless sentences in the analytical English language break all grammatical norms. Hence designed to mislead, Doublespeak is presented as a heterogeneous phenomenon providing cloudy vagueness of political language.Key words: political discourse, doublespeak, euphemisms, simplified or overcomplicated syntax, verbless sentences, nominalization. Політичний дискурс, визначений мовознавцями як дискурс переконання, ефективно використовує здатність мови спілкуватися та формувати уявлення про реальність. Сократ та Аристотель добре усвідомлювали силу мови спотворювати сприйняття та впливати на поведінку, а отже, бути інструментом чи зброєю для досяг-нення цілей мовця. На основі принципів, вироблених класичними риторами, сучасна риторика відроджується на новій основі, синтезуючи теоретичні дані прагматики, психолінгвістики та теорії комунікації. Як результат, акцент робиться не на обміні знаннями, а на формуванні відповідної думки та поглядів. Мова політики в наш час має тенденцію бути неоднозначною, невизначеною та розмитою. Політичний дискурс вводить контексти, в яких оратор не має на увазі саме те, що буквально означають слова. Тобто денотат мовця відрізняється від семантичного значення. Політичний дискурс, визначений лінгвістами як персуазивний, ефективно застосовує дар мови спілкуватися та впливати на свідомість слухачів. Політики використовують широкий спектр мовних засобів для маніпулювання електоратом: евфемізми, жаргонізми, спрощений або ускладнений синтаксис. Політика здається цариною подвійної мови, яка подається як різнорідне явище, що забезпечує невизначеність мови політики. Вплив на сприйняття адресата передається завдяки маніпулятивному потенціалу мови. Велике значення має семантика слів, те, що вони означають для людини, яка їх чує. Слова на позначення правди, брехні мають силу маніпулювати мисленням та поведінкою інших людей. На граматичному рівні однією з характерних рис політичного дискурсу (особливо політичних гасел) є використання бездієслівних речень. Бездієслівні речення в англійській мові можна розглядати в контексті тенденції номіналізації. Слід зазначити, що бездієслівні речення в аналітичній англійській мові порушують усі граматичні норми. Отже, розроблена для введення в оману, подвійна мова представлена як неоднорідне явище, що забезпечує невизначеність мови політики.Ключові слова: політичний дискурс, евфемізми, спрощений і ускладнений синтаксис, бездієслівні речення, номіналізація.

Engaging with customer’s emotions

Informational-persuasive discourse may be encoded in promotional strategies through which a given product is described in a positive way to persuade potential customers. For this, evaluation may appeal to reason or may tickle emotions (Cook, 2001). This study compares the way in which advertising texts for herbal tea engage with customers’ emotions in English and in Spanish. We examined the strategies of ‘enjoying the experience’ and ‘aesthetic appeal’ from an Appraisal Theory approach (Martin and White, 2005). We categorised these according to the attitude sub-systems of ‘affect’, ‘appreciation’, and ‘judgement’, determined how explicit the evaluation was, and identified gradable resources. Results show that English texts display more ‘affect’-like resources that can awaken a desire in the customer. By contrast, in the Spanish sample ‘appreciation’ resources that evaluate the composition of the product play a greater role. ‘Enjoying the experience’ seems to engage with the customers’ emotions more overtly than ‘aesthetic appeal’.

For family, for friends, for (true) love

We examine promotional materials produced by two organisations in Singapore, TrueLove.Is and Pink Dot, to investigate how these two groups employ discourses of love to support their opposing views regarding the reconcilability of Christianity and same-sex desire. TrueLove.Is is a Christian ministry that encourages LGB Christian Singaporeans to “come out, come home”, while Pink Dot is Singapore’s largest and foremost LGBTQ movement. We identify similarities and differences in their persuasive discourse strategies regarding ideas of love as discussed by lesbian Christian pastors. Although they position the idea of love similarly, their agendas are completely polarised. TrueLove.Is takes the position that non-heteronormative activity is ungodly and sinful, while Pink Dot offers a reconciliation between Christianity and same-sex desire. We employ Peterson’s (2016) approach to homophobic discourse analysis based on Systemic Functional Linguistics and a comparative discourse analysis to investigate the ideologies that inform the two organisations’ materials about the treatment of LGBTQ Singaporeans.

Narrative Dialogism in National Memory

This chapter examines how the meanings of national narratives are shaped by their context of use. The introduction and first section lay out the notion of “narrative dialogism.” This is followed by a section on “hidden dialogism” that examines how narratives can subtly, but powerfully respond to one another in ways that shape their meaning. A discussion between Vladimir Putin and a British journalist is used as an illustration. The next section concerns “authoritative and internally persuasive discourse,” which involve more condensed forms of narrative dialogism. The notion of authoritative discourse can be harnessed to address how individuals take over the official discourse and memory of the state. An example from a classroom in Soviet Estonia is used to clarify this form of dialogism. The next section on “bivocalism” examines a kind of double-voicedness that involves tentative, ambivalent ways of speaking about the past in which Georgians are both heroic defenders of national honor and self-condemning for being traitors. The final major section of the chapter is on national narrative projects (NNPs), which are unlike specific narratives, narrative templates, and other narrative forms because they do not conclude with a final event. Instead, they tell a story that is in progress such as “America’s Quest for a More Perfect Democratic Union,” “Russia’s Spiritual Mission” as reflected in the story of Moscow as the Third Rome, and “China’s Quest as the Central Kingdom.”