Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice

241 Pages·2003·1.95 MB·English

by  Paul Chilton

Analysing Political Discourse
Analysing Political Discourse is a must for anyone interested in the way language is
used in the world of politics.
Invoking Aristotle’s idea that we are all political animals, able to use language
to pursue our own ends, the book uses the theoretical framework of linguistics
to explore the ways in which we think and behave politically.
Domestic and global politics come under the linguistic microscope. What do
politicians really do in a radio interview? What verbal games do they play in a
parliamentary knock-about? Contemporary and high-profile case studies are used,
including an examination of the dangerous influence of a politician’s words on
the defendants in the Stephen Lawrence murder trial.
International in its perspective, Analysing Political Discourse also considers the
changing landscape of global political language post-September 11, focusing on
self-legitimising language and the increasing use of religious imagery in political
discourse. Bill Clinton’s address persuading his country to go to war in Kosovo
is analysed, and speeches by George Bush and Osama bin Laden are examined in
relation to each other.
Written in a lively and engaging style, Analysing Political Discourse offers a new
theoretical perspective on the study of language and politics, and provides an
essential introduction to political discourse analysis.
Paul Chilton is Professor of Linguistics at the University of East Anglia, where
Critical Linguistics was pioneered. His previous publications include Orwellian
Language and the Media (1988), Security Metaphors (1996) and (co-edited with
Christina Schäffner) Politics as Text and Talk (2002).
Allie
Analysing Political Discourse
Theory and practice
Paul Chilton
First published 2004
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
© 2004 Paul Chilton
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Chilton, Paul A. (Paul Anthony)
Analysing political discourse : theory and practice / Paul Chilton.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Language and languages – Political aspects. 2. Great Britain –
Languages – Political aspects. I. Title.
P119.3.C48 2004
306.44–dc21 2003011976
ISBN 0-203-56121-X Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-34425-1 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0–415–31471–2 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–31472–0 (pbk)
To my father and to the memory of my mother
Allie
Contents
List of figures and tables viii
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xiii
PART I
Political animals as articulate mammals 1
1 Politics and language 3
2 Language and politics 16
3 Interaction 30
4 Representation 48
PART II
The domestic arena 67
5 Political interviews 69
6 Parliamentary language 92
7 Foreigners 110
PART III
The global arena 135
8 Distant places 137
9 Worlds apart 154
10 The role of religion 173
PART IV
Concluding thoughts 195
11 Towards a theory of language and politics 197
Appendix 206
Notes 207
Bibliography 213
Name index 221
Subject index 224
Figures and tables
Figures
4.1 Dimensions of deixis 58
4.2 The rightness-wrongness scale 60
7.1 Presupposed propositions 124
8.1 Deictically specified reality spaces 141
8.2 Events located on spatial, temporal and modal axes 144
8.3 Metaphor supporting inferences concerning events remote
from centre 147
8.4 Metonymic relations and analogy inference 151
9.1 Relative distances from ‘we’ 159
9.2 Relative distances in geopolitical space 162
9.3 Distance and deictic polarisation in Bush text 163
9.4 Polarisation, conditionals and metaphor (sentences 25–6) 164
9.5 Distance and deictic polarisation in bin Laden text
(spatial dimensions) 167
9.6 Distance and deictic polarisation in bin Laden text (spatial,
temporal, modal) 168
9.7 Moral value vocabulary in bin Laden text 171
Tables
4.1 Propositional representations 55
5.1 Presumed knowledge in a political interview 81
5.2 Embedding of propositions in interview talk 83
7.1 Interpreted strategies in Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech 111
7.2 Propositional structure in a portion of Powell’s ‘Rivers of
Blood’ speech 120
7.3 Propositional structure in a portion of xenophobic talk
(Lawrence Inquiry transcript) 131
10.1 Presumed knowledge in Bush text 177
10.2 Presumed knowledge in bin Laden text 179
Preface
Remember that politics, colonialism, imperialism and war also originate in the
human brain
Vilayanur S. Rmachandran
The analysis of political discourse is scarcely new. The western classical tradition
of rhetoric was in its various guises a means of codifying the way public orators
used language for persuasive and other purposes. The Greco-Roman tradition
regarded humans as both creatures who are defined by the ability to speak and
creatures defined by their habit of living together in groups. For writers like
Cicero the cultivation of the power of speech was the essence of the citizen’s
duty. For others it was the essence of deception and distortion. In eighteenth-
century Europe, the new scientific minds began to distrust deeply the things
language could do. Rhetoric as the study of the forms of verbal persuasion and
expression declined. But of course orators, politicians, preachers and hucksters
of all sorts continued to use their natural rhetorical talents as before. Rhetorical
practice, in the form of public relations and ‘spin’, fuelled by the mediaexplosion,
is now more centre stage than ever.
In the last half of the twentieth century, linguistics took enormous strides,
largely through the realisation that language must be seen as an innate part of all
human minds. Chomsky’s influence is undoubted, as is the impact of the generat-
ive model of language with which he is associated. The research questions were
essentially scientific. This is not to say that linguists in this tradition have not
raised their voices in matters of domestic and foreign politics, both in the United
States and Europe, but their research agenda was not directed towards theorising
any relationship there might be between the human language faculty and the
social nature of humans. The language faculty was largely identified with syntax
and viewed as sealed off from other mental capacities.
Scholarly interest in the public uses of language was another matter, pursued
by other scholars, mainly in Europe. The Frankfurt School and proponents of