In the given research we have tried to investigate linguistic features of political discourse and peculiarities of American and English politicians’ speeches. It is obvious from the analysis of the political speeches given in this paper, that the language of the political elite in Great Britain and United States more often shows specific language features. Besides, it is generally felt, as it has already been established in this paper, that language and politics are intertwined and inseparable, this quality is usually explored to an advantage by the politicians to grasp power and to consolidate it. Towards acquisition and consolidation of power, they use language in various forms to achieve their political intentions and goals.
In view of the above stated, we have come to the following conclusions, Political discourse, as a sub-category of discourse in general, can be based on two criteria, functional and thematic. Political discourse is a result of politics and it is historically and culturally determined. It fulfills different functions due to different political activities. Schaffner, 1996. It is thematic because its topics are primarily related to politics such as political activities, political ideas and political relations.
Politics is considered to be concerned with power, the power to make decisions, to control resources, to control other people’s behaviour and often to control their values. All the politicians throughout ages have achieved success thanks to their “skilful use of rhetoric”, by which they aim to persuade their audience of the validity of their views, delicate and careful use of elegant and persuasive language Jones and Peccei, 2004. As politics is a struggle for power in order to put certain political, economic and social ideas into practice. In this process, language plays a crucial role, for every political action is prepared, accompanied, influenced and played by language Schaffner, 1996.
It is widely conceived that language and politics are interconnected; language is for instance, considered the vehicular expression of politics. It is the means by which politics or political discourse and ideas are widely disseminated. Given the power of the written and spoken discourse, Critical Discourse Analysis can be used for describing, interpreting, analyzing, and critiquing social life reflected in text. CDA aims to systematically explore relationships between discursive practices, texts, and events and wider social and cultural structures, relations, and processes. Precise analysis and descriptions of the materiality of language are factors which are always characteristic of CDA. It strives to explore how these non-transparent relationships are a factor in securing power and hegemony, and it draws attention to power imbalances, social inequities, nondemocratic practices, and other injustices in hopes of spurring people to corrective actions.
It tries to illuminate ways in which the dominant forces in a society construct versions of reality that favour their interests. Van Dijk, 2001 The methodological approach we have employed to examine the language of politics is known broadly as critical discourse analysis. This approach is at once both a technique for analyzing specific texts or speech acts, and a way of understanding the relationship between discourse and social and political phenomena. By engaging in concrete, linguistic textual analysis – that is, by doing systematic analyses of spoken and written language – critical discourse analysis aims to shed light on the links between texts and societal practices and structures, or, the linguistic-discursive dimension of social action.
The main peculiarity of political discourse is that it contains mostly those text types which have a manipulative intention as a prevailing one. Among the political text types of a manipulative kind we can see political interviews, slogans, announcements, articles in special party papers and certain messages in electronic mass media. Nevertheless, the most remarkable type of manipulative messages is the text type of pre-election propaganda speeches. As a rule, the texts of such speeches have some structural and intentional characteristic features which make it possible to consider these speeches as a definite text type. All speeches contain special etiquette phrases (greetings and words of appreciation), they have prognostic character, the main communicative intention of such speeches is that of promise.
In addition to that, pre-election propaganda speeches have one more interesting peculiarity, the collective recipient of the speech is fully or partly aware of the manipulative character of the message. In other words, recipients guess or understand which effect is planned to be achieved by the producers of pre-election propaganda speeches before the election. One of the most frequently used rhetorical devices is the use of first-person plural widely used in pre-election speeches. The research we have tried to carry out shows that the speeches of American and British politicians are characterized by a great number of devices which make the speech sound more persuasive and expressive. The research shows that mostly the following stylistic devices are used in political speeches, parallel constructions, repetition, enumeration, antithesis, gradation, polysyndeton, asyndeton, inversion, and rhetorical question. It is ordinary in American political discourse to employ biblical language, which is an inherent part of American public speaking.
When we speak about the history of American politics, it is easy to go deeper into the field of religion. Christianity has a given place as the norm in many politicians’ speeches, although some politicians never forget to mention that U.S.A. is a nation of many different religions (not to mention some minorities, including others). Nearly all the speeches of American presidents show that their language can easily be associated with the Christian faith.
Other than that, the references to God, God’s will and God’s promises, cannot exclusively be tied to Christianity, rather these references are applicable to various faiths that recognize the existence of one God. Almost all American presidents end their speeches with the words “God bless America”.
