The People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria

Larbi Ben M’hidi University

Module: Discourse Analysis

Department of English

Group: 01 Master1

Supervised by : Presented by:

Mr. Karim Ayadi Rezgui Zeyneb

Hafsi Djihad

Belbezzouh Raouia

Tolba Manel

1. Introduction:

Political Discourse Analysis

Generally speaking, language is a powerful tool to win public support. It is also a weapon in the struggle of community against community, world view against world view. Language, therefore, is seen as the means for achieving the politician’s goals and interests.

2. Definition of Political Discourse Analysis:

Political Discourse can be simply marked as the discourse of politicians, i.e, their text and talk, and their professional activities. The topic discussed usually comes from public events that require decision-making, policies, regulations or legislation. (Van Dijk 2001. 4), this means that “only those discourses of politicians are considered that are produced in institutional settings, such as: governments, parliaments or political parties. (…) The discourse must be the speaker in her professional role of a politician and in an institutional setting. In addition, a discourse is political when it accomplishes a political act in a political institution such as governing, legislation, electoral campaigning and so on. (Van Dijk 2001: 6)

Political Discourse Analysis, therefore, is a field of discourse analysis which focuses on discourse in political forums (such as: debates, speeches, and hearings) as a phenomenon of interest.

3. Political Discourse Analysis and Translation:

According to Christina Schaffner, Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) and Translation Studies (TS) can benefit from closer cooperation.

Political Discourse (PD) relies on translation, in the sense that linguistic behaviour influences political behaviour.

A wrong or inappropriate word choice in the context of politically sensitive issues can lead to great misinterpretations.

DA tries to define why a particular word, phrase or structure during the translation process has been chosen over another one.

International politics involve translation to a large extent. Agreements between countries are made available in several languages; interpreters participate in the most crucial political events facilitating the work of international institutions such as the European Union, the United Nations Organization, the League of Nations, etc; some governments put translations of significant documents on their websites.

The competent translator should be aware that translation of PD is not a mere process of transferring words from one text into another.

4. Characteristics of Political Discourse:

There is a variety of characteristics that distinguishes the Political Discourse from other Discourses:

a. Boosters: are words, phrases or expressions used to reinforce the meaning of an utterance and stress its impact on the hearer.

eg.“In terms of reconstruction, of course we want the international community to participate, and they are.”

“Of course” here emphasizes and reinforces the meaning of the utterance.

b. Deixis: is the process of 'pointing' via language.

Taking this example: “I, will prove the next day, when will be prime minister, that is not just that are better, because better will be, will be certainly better.”

“I” here refers to the speaker himself.

c. Hedges: are words or phrases that soften the speakers’ speech. According to Coates, Hedges are defined as linguistic forms such as: I think, sort of, perhaps, you know that are used to weaken the meaning carried by such utterance.

There are two sorts of hedges: Approximators (characterized as markers of denotational vagueness) & Shields (characterized as markers of uncertainty).

Eg: More than 70% of the rebels are centered in the middle areas of Iraq (uttered by an Iraqi politician)

The quantifier “more” (as a kind of vagueness) here is used to broaden the hearers thinking boundaries, and let them consider the seriousness of the situation. Also, Hedging is expressed in this example through using “70%” (as approximators) this strategy is called by Van Dijk “the number game”. In addition, the politician used the word “rebels” to refer to the groups that are against the government, and he avoided to use “resistance” or “terrorists” to soften the meaning carried in this utterance.

d. Vague language: words, phrases or expressions used in case of uncertainty or unwillingness of the speaker to reveal information.

Eg: “If I could share some stories with you about some of the people I have seen from Iraq, the leaders from Iraq, there are no question in my mind that people that I have seen at least are thrilled with the activities we've taken.”

Here, Politician used the sentence “some of the people I have seen” but he does not want to mention who are they (unwillingness to state them).

e. Irony or satire: is the way of using humour to show weaknesses or bad qualities of something/ someone.

Taking the example of François Hollande when he said to the French Prime Minister after coming back from Algeria:

“I hope you are doing well” (irony) to mean that the Algerian people are dangerous.

f. Metonymy: is a figure speech in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept.

Examples:

The White House (referring to the American Administration)

Crown (for the power of a king)

Metonymy in political speech by US President:

Let’s take the following example for the analysis:

“this must be more than a fresh start between the Kremlin and the White House”. In this example “the Kremlin” and the “White House” are concrete substitutions for “the president and staff” of the Russia and the USA respectively. In metonymy, we use concrete thing instead of an abstract notion as in this case the thing becomes a symbol of the notion.

Also, metonymy is used to justify or even to hide unpopular decisions or situations that are made.

For example: George W. Bush said that Saddam Hussein should be stopped. He also said that Hussein is to be bombed and that this regime is to a threat no longer wording it in such a way disguises the fact that the bombs will not fall on Saddam only but on cities full of innocent people and that collateral damage will be taken because of this. This is just one way of justifying going to war.

5. Speech acts and politeness in Political Discourses:

Speech acts: refer to any utterance that has performative function in language and communication, i.e, our language and actions are separate. To identify the relation between speech acts and Political Discourse, we take the following example (uttered by an Iraqi Politician):

(Others …(X sighs) …should not interfere with our internal affairs …)In this utterance, Mr. X is sending a message to the neighboring countries.(In fact, he is making an indirect threatening) not to interfere with Iraqiinternal affairs.

Politeness: in Political interviews, politeness plays a significant role, i.e, the linguistic formulations are chosen carefully (Chilton and Schaffner, 2002: 14) in order to get public support and achieve goals.

6. The Co-operative Principles: describe how people interact with one another. Grice points out that our talk exchanges are characteristically, to some degree, cooperative efforts. In this context, he gives the four maxims of conversation:

Maxim of Quality: is to make your contribution one that is true and do not say what you believe to be false.

Maxim of Quantity: to be concise and precise

Maxim of Relevance: to be relevant to what you’re saying.

Maxim of manner: is to be brief, orderly, and avoid obscurity and ambiguity.

In here, we take an example taken from an interview with an Iraqi politician:

Q:Until recently, Iraq was enjoying good relations with its neighbors and specifically Syria, but in case, it is proved that Syria is involved in terrorism in Iraq, what would you do to solve this problem?

A- Well … we hear about Syria's support for terrorism and violence inIraq, but we … do not know the details until now … Syria was standing beside Iraq …

but surly there are some organizations which support terrorism…).

We can say that no information was provided in the reply. The politician violated the maxim of quantity and quality at the same time since his reply is being quantitively inadequate in information to the needs or interests of the interviews and qualitively because the speaker is in a position which for sure enables him to know whether Syria is involved or not in terrorism in Iraq.

7. Conclusion:

The study of Political Discourse like that of other areas of Discourse Analysis covers a broad range of subject matter and draws a wide range of analytical methods. Political Discourse has many characteristics and the leaders proved that they know how to apply them when they want to give or send a message to the listeners (the public) and wish them to share their ideas or to join them to solve the national problems.

List of references:

- College of Basic Education Researchers Journal Vol. 10, No. 1 PDF (Analyzing Political Discourse: Towards a Pragmatic Approach).

- Translation of Political Discourse (Faculdade de Letras, Universidade do Porto Paraskevi Kaplani, Styliani Karra) PPT.