Levels of explicitness in political speeches

Abstract

Political speeches are a special kind of discourse that ‘produce and reproduce beliefs, opinions, and ideologies’ (Wodak 2004: 381). One way of studying such discourse would be to look into the use of the grammatical category of performatives. As analysts seek to interpret a text, they must not forget the reality that political discourses are more about beliefs, opinions and ideologies constructed from a partisan perspective than an individual choice. The variety of hegemonic power practised by the political leaders determines to a large extent their exploitation of performatives: in an explicit or implicit manner. In this study, the researchers examine the use of performatives produced by two different political leaders in two political settings. The analysis of the use of performatives by the current Prime Minister of Malaysia is the mainstay of the study. The performatives found in the speeches of the current Prime Minister of Bangladesh are also analyzed for comparative purposes. The differences in style as well as the level of exploitation of performatives by the two leaders are examined exhaustively using the discourse-historical approach (Wodak 2001; Wodak et al. 1999) as the theoretical framework.