The Devices Used In Political Rhetoric: Linguistic Manipulation?

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Introduction
This research paper investigates recent research into the sociolinguistic devices employed by politicians in the course of political rhetorical. It includes a variety of input from different parts of the globe and from persons of diverse background and ethnicity.
Gunta, R. & Karapetjana, I. (2009). The Use of Language in Political Rhetoric: Linguistic Manipulation. Journal of Social Sciences. May 2009. Edition 19, pp. 111-122. University of Latvia.
The authors attempted to show that political regimes make use of various linguistic devices to further their goals. They focused their research on the use of allusion, metonymy and metaphor in political rhetoric. The authors concluded from their research that linguistic manipulation could be considered an influential instrument of political rhetoric. They found that, because political discourse is primarily focused on persuading people to take specified political actions, politicians commonly made use of rhetorical devices such as phrasal allusions, metonymy and metaphor. In doing so, they …show more content…

Kerry –the favorite Democratic Party candidate for the US presidency in the 2004 presidential elections– in four public events (two debates and two speeches) leading up to election day. His study focused particularly on the analysis of a series of rhetorical patterns and linguistic devices employed by the senator in order to empower his argumentations., namely: three-part statements, contrastive pairs, lexical and syntactic repetition, purposive selection and use of pronouns, addressing formulae, introductory formulae for personal opinion and ideology, and the usage of discourse organizers. The author concluded that the study presented conclusive evidence that behind the apparent spontaneity of Kerry’s oral delivery there was a selective use of linguistic devices, which must have been the product of prior consideration and thoughtful discourse

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