Masaryk university brno

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Diploma thesis

Brno 2011

Author: Bc. Peter Adamec Supervisor: Mgr. Olga Dontcheva- Navrátilová, Ph.D.

MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Department of English Language and Literature

Persuasion in Political Discourse

Diploma thesis

Brno 2011

Author: Bc. Peter Adamec

Supervisor: Mgr. Olga Dontcheva-Navrátilová Ph.D.

Bibliography

ADAMEC, Peter. Persuasion in Political Discourse; diploma thesis. Brno: Masaryk University, Faculty of education, Department of English Language and Literature, 2011. 83 pages, The supervisor is Mgr. Olga Dontcheva-Navrátilová Ph.D.

Annotation

The diploma thesis "Persuasion in Political Discourse"

investigates on the examples of Barack Obama's speeches which

methods are used in order to reach the main purpose of this

genre - to persuade the others about the validity of

politician's suggestions and make them willing to act according

to him. During the analysis, five speeches intended for the

domestic audience and five speeches devoted especially to the

foreign one are investigated. The speeches are evaluated either

by qualitative criteria when the main ideas and themes are

commented, as well as by quantitative approach when the content

of the speeches is evaluated in percentage on the ground of

particular paragraphs. The aim is to compare Obama's approach

to domestic and foreign audience and to find out possible

similarities or differences.

Keywords

political speeches, political rhetoric, domestic audience, foreign audience, persuasion, comparison

Declaration

I hereby declare that this diploma thesis was done by my own and I used only the materials that are stated in bibliography.

I agree with the placing of this thesis in the Masaryk University Brno Information system, in the library of the Department of English Language and Literature and with the access for studying purposes.

In Brno 9 December 2011 Bc. Peter Adamec

..............................................

Acknowledgement

I would like to express gratitude to my supervisor Mgr. Olga Dontcheva-Navrátilová, Ph.D. for her valuable advice as well as for having been very kind and supportive throughout my work on this thesis.

Content

CONTENT 6

1 INTRODUCTION 9

2 THEORETICAL PART 11

2.1 Pragmatics 11

2.1.1 Syntax, semantics and pragmatics 12

2.1.2 Reference, inference, presupposition and entailment 13

2.2. Discourse 16

2.2.1 Discourse Analysis 17

2.2.2 Critical Discourse Analysis 17

2.2.3 The Role of Cohesion 18

2.2.3.1 Discourse, Context and Co-text 19

2.3 The Nature of Discourse and Political Speeches 21

2.3.1 Politics and its Theoretical Bases 21

2.3.2 Features of Political Participation 22

2.3.3 The Features of Spoken Political Speeches and their Gradual Changes 23

2.3.3.1 Changes of the Features of Political Speeches through the Time 24

2.3.3.2 The Influence of Media on Changes in Political Speeches 24

2.3.4 Problems of Analysis of Political Discourse 27

2.3.4.1 Some Features of Analysis of Political Discourse 28

2.3.4.2 Necessary Principles of Analysis of Political Discourse 29

2.3.5 The Presence of Power, Ideology and Persuasion in Political Speeches 30

2.3.5.1 Ideological Argumentation and Persuasion 31

2.3.5.2 Tolerance and Opposition to Persuasive Argumentation 32

2.4 The Position of the US in Contemporary World 33

2.5 Summary 35

3 PRACTICAL PART 36

3.1 Corpus under Investigation 36

3.2 Scrutiny of all speeches 38

3.2.1 Obama's domestic speeches 38

3.2.1.1 Victory Speech 39

3.2.1.2 Inaugural Speech 40

3.2.1.3 Address to the Congress on February 24, 2009 42

3.2.1.4 State of the Union Address 2010 44

3.2.1.5 State of the Union 2011 47

3.2.2 Obama's Foreign Speeches 49

3.2.2.1 Remarks by President Obama at Strasbourg Town Hall; 49

3.2.2.2 Remarks by President Obama at a New Start Treaty Signing Ceremony and Press Conference 51

3.2.2.3 Remarks at the Meeting with Future Chinese Leaders 53

3.2.2.4 Remarks by President Obama at G20 Press Conference in Toronto, 55

3.2.2.5 Remarks by the President to Parliament in London 57

3.3 Comparison of the speeches 59

3.3.1 Comparison of Obama’s domestic speeches 60

3.3.2 Comparison of Obama`s Foreign Speeches 67

4 COMPARISON AND CONCLUSION 74

5 BIBLIOGRAPHY 78

5.1 Primary Sources 78

5.2 Secondary Sources 79