Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphor - Softcover

Charteris-Black, J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 023025165X ISBN 13: 9780230251656

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011

Synopsis

The language of persuasion looks both outwards and inwards: politicians promise a better future based on an evaluation of the current external reality, but they communicate this vision by activating deep-seated ideas, values and feelings that are hidden within the audience. This fully updated second edition analyses the rhetoric of three additional politicians - Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan and Enoch Powell - as well as revised accounts of the original six politicians to produce a comprehensive study of some renowned exponents of persuasion. It also contains a new chapter on the role of metaphor in political communication. Successful politicians are those who have credible stories to tell, who can involve us with the drama of the present by explaining what is right and wrong and who convince us that they are better than their opponents. This book explains how their use of metaphors and myths create credible and consistent stories that help us to understand the rhetorical means through which persuasion occurs.

About this title

Review:

'This book is a fascinating exercise in the art of critical metaphor analysis of political speeches,including recent speeches by G W Bush and Obama. It addresses the vital need to raise awareness of metaphor's role in myth making, simplification by binary thinking, and affective evaluation, which often operate at an unconscious level for the audiences of political speeches. Analysis of metaphor along with other rhetorical schemes such as repetition,chiasmus and rhetorical questions,is well integrated into the author's model of political rhetoric/persuasion. The second edition helpfully includes several new references to recent work on metaphor and ideology.' - Andrew Goatly,Lingnan University,China

'In an age of growing distrust in politicians, their promises, their speeches, and their decisions, Jonathan Charteris-Black succeeds in convincing us of the 'complex art of rhetoric'. Some politicians' speeches have become salient elements of collective experiences, they are repeated over and over again, they are quoted and re-contextualised. The precise, detailed and careful analyses of speakers, speeches, and the images (metaphors) employed over decades and centuries make it abundantly clear that the genre of speeches retains its important role in spite and also perhaps because of the new media and new forms of politics. This innovative and very well written book is essential reading for all who want to understand how 'politics functions'.' - Ruth Wodak, Distinguished Professor of Discourse Studies, Lancaster University, UK

'Overall...this book is highly recommended for readers interested in questions of political discourse or language, particularly given its methodological contribution to a field dominated by issues and texts of abstract theorisation.'- Lee
Jarvis, Political Studies Review
 
'This book will interest those fascinated with linguistics, rhetoric and political communication. It can also serve as a guide for those wary of political 'spin' who want to develop critical skills in discerning ethical integrity from nefarious intention. The book provides lucid insight into the way metaphors and political myths are developed by politicans seeking to achieve an intended effect. The artful use of language, Chateris-Black shows, can be incredibly persuasive.' LSE Blog

Book Description:

This book explains how politicians persuade by providing a theory of persuasion and nine separate case studies of the speeches of American and British politicians

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 023025165X
• ISBN 13: 9780230251656
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 384