Language and Power: The Use of Persuasive Techniques in Iran and U.S. President Speeches

Abstract

The present article is about language and power, focuses on the speechmaking skills, and using persuasive techniques such as Simile and metaphor, Mixed metaphor or simile, Extended metaphor, Allusion, Lists of three, Repetition, Parallelism, Puzzled or redundant questions, Alliteration and Wordplay. For the sake of better analysis certain elements of this ability, a comparison between Iran President Mr. Rouhani and U. S. President Mr. Obama is made. Two speeches of two presidents are selected. The first two are in the same topic and the second two are in different topics. Each president is a strong personality in his own right, both leaders have manifested this ability and managed to persuade the masses about the correctness of their political steps; however their using of persuasive techniques differ dramatically, as it is attempted to support by analysis in this article. The results show that, usually they use the same techniques but Dr. Rouhani use more persuasive techniques than President Obama does. Dr. Rouhani uses Alliteration and President Obama uses Metaphor more than other techniques in their speeches. It can be said that using persuasive techniques is culture based.

Persuasive Strategies in Arabic Religious Discourse: Evidence From the Friday Sermons of Dr. Mohammad Rateb Al-Nabulsi

“…Many research studies have been carried out on persuasion in different genres such as political discourse, advertisements and literary work, etc. (Boden 2004;Mikayelyan 2011;Flergin 2014;Ko 2015;Rabab'ah and Khawaldeh 2016;Rezaei and Nourali 2016, among International Journal of Linguistics ISSN 1948-5425 2019 others). Boden (2004) investigated Shakespeare's persuasive dialogues.…”

“…In the same vein, Rezaei and Nourali (2016) investigated the use of persuasive strategies by Iran President Mr. Rouhani and the U. S. former President Mr. Obama. The researchers stated that although both presidents can persuade, their persuasive techniques differ dramatically.…”

Exploring Rhetorical-Discursive Practices of Rouhani�s Presidential Campaign and Victory of his Prudence-and-Hope Key: a Discourse of Persuasion

“…Several studies have dealt with the use of different rhetorical devices in political discourse (e.g., Capone, 2010;Cheng, 2006;Rezaei & Nourali, 2016;Tekin, 2008;Wei, 2000;Wei et al, 2008, etc.). For instance, adopting Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) proposal of metaphor in a case study, Wei (2000) explored the metaphorical usage of campaign slogans in the 1996 presidential campaign in Taiwan.…”

“…Using Moore's (2003) theoretical framework, Rezaei and Nourali (2016) compared the use of persuasive rhetorical strategies in political speeches by the presidents of Iran and the U.S., Rouhani and Obama. The results of their study showed no significant difference between the two presidents' use of persuasive techniques.…”

Rhetorical and Persuasive Strategies Employed by Imran Khan in his Victory Speech: A Socio-Political Discourse Analysis

“…Power relations should be regarded as discursive, and social relations of power can be exercised and negotiated in and through discourse for every political action that can be prepared, accompanied, influenced and delivered by language. Politicians may achieve their political goals by physical enforcement but there would be another way that is more tactful-the use of persuasive techniques in order to persuade people to act in a special way they intend (Jalilifar & Alavi, 2011 as cited in Norali & Rezaei, 2016).…”