Analysing Political Speeches ― Rhetoric, Discourse and Metaphor

Exploring speeches by public figures such as Emma Watson, Tony Blair, Donald Trump, Julia Gillard and Lady Gaga, this engaging textbook explains the ways in which political speeches can be analysed. It examines the role of language in speeches and how it can be used to challenge or reinforce prevailing social, cultural and political attitudes. Each chapter introduces a particular discourse approach and then applies this in a model analysis of a passage of text. The chosen texts concern issues of social, cultural and political importance that address topics of significant importance to the audience to which they were delivered. Students are encouraged to engage with the text and consider how approaches to text analysis, such as cohesion, context analysis and metaphor analysis, may be adapted to provide a more critical perspective.

This text will be essential reading for students of English Language, Linguistics, Communication Studies and Politics on critical discourse and discourse analysis modules.

Jonathan Charteris-Black is Professor of Linguistics at the University of the West of England, UK. He is the author of Corpus Approaches to Critical Metaphor Analysis (2004); Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphor 2nd edition (2011); The Communication of Leadership (2010) and (with Seale, C) Gender and the Language of Illness (2010) as well as numerous articles and book chapters.