This is an essential read for anyone interested in the way language is used in the world of politics. Based on Aristotle's premise that we are all political animals, able to use language to pursue our own ends, the book uses the theoretical framework of linguistics to explore the ways in which we think and behave politically. Contemporary and high profile case studies of politicians and other speakers are used, including an examination of the dangerous influence of a politician's words on the defendants in the Stephen Lawrence murder trial. International in its perspective, Analysing Political Discourse also considers the changing landscape of political language post-September 11, including the increasing use of religious imagery in the political discourse of, amongst others, George Bush. Written in a lively and engaging style, this book provides an essential introduction to political discourse analysis.

In this accessible new textbook, Isabela and Norman Fairclough present their innovative approach to analysing political discourse. Political Discourse Analysis integrates analysis of arguments into critical discourse analysis and political discourse analysis. The book is grounded in a view of politics in which deliberation, decision and action are crucial concepts: politics is about arriving cooperatively at decisions about what to do in the context of disagreement, conflict of interests and values, power inequalities, uncertainty and risk. The first half of the book introduces the authors’ new approach to the analysis and evaluation of practical arguments, while the second half explores how it can be applied by looking at examples such as government reports, parliamentary debates, political speeches and online discussion forums on political issues. Through the analysis of current events, including a particular focus on the economic crisis and political responses to it, the authors provide a systematic and rigorous analytical framework that can be adopted and used for students’ own research. This exciting new text, co-written by bestselling author Norman Fairclough, is essential reading for researchers, upper undergraduate and postgraduate students of discourse analysis, within English language, linguistics, communication studies, politics and other social sciences.

Exploring speeches by public figures such as Emma Watson, Tony Blair, Donald Trump, Julia Gillard and Lady Gaga, this engaging textbook explains the ways in which political speeches can be analysed. It examines the role of language in speeches and how it can be used to challenge or reinforce prevailing social, cultural and political attitudes. Each chapter introduces a particular discourse approach and then applies this in a model analysis of a passage of text. The chosen texts concern issues of social, cultural and political importance that address topics of significant importance to the audience to which they were delivered. Students are encouraged to engage with the text and consider how approaches to text analysis, such as cohesion, context analysis and metaphor analysis, may be adapted to provide a more critical perspective. This text will be essential reading for students of English language, linguistics, communication studies and politics on critical discourse and discourse analysis modules.

The activity of parliaments is largely linguistic activity: they produce talk and they produce texts. Broadly speaking, the objectives that this discourse aims to satisfy are similar all over the world: to legitimate or contest legislation, to represent diverse interests, to scrutinise the activity of government, to influence opinion and to recruit and promote political actors. But the discourse of different national parliaments is subject to variation, at all linguistic levels, on the basis of history, cultural specificity, and political culture in particular. Through the use of various analytical tools of functional linguistics, this volume seeks to provide explanatory analyses of parliamentary discourse in different countries – Britain, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Sweden and the United States – and to explore its peculiarities. Each chapter outlines a particular methodological framework and its application to instances of parliamentary discourse on important issues such as war, European integration, impeachment and immigration.

This book constitutes a significant contribution to political discourse analysis and to the study of silence, both from the point of view of discourse analysis as well as pragmatics, and it is also relevant for those interested in politics and media studies. It promotes the empirical study of silence by analysing metadiscourse about politicians’ silence and by systematically conceptualising the communicativeness of silence in the interplay between intention (to be silent), expectation (of speech) and relevance (of the unsaid). Three cases of sustained metadiscourse about silent politicians from Germany are analysed to exemplify this approach, based on media texts and protocols of parliamentary inquiries. Ideals of political transparency and communicative openness are identified as a basis for (disappointed) expectations of speech which trigger and determine metadiscourse about politicians’ silences. Finally, the book deals critically with the role of those who act as advocates of ‘the public’s’ demand to speak out.

Discourse analysis considers how language, both spoken and written, enacts social and cultural perspectives and identities. Assuming no prior knowledge of linguistics, An Introduction to Discourse Analysis examines the field and presents James Paul Gee’s unique integrated approach which incorporates both a theory of language-in-use and a method of research. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis can be used as a stand-alone textbook or ideally used in conjunction with the practical companion title How to do Discourse Analysis: A Toolkit. Together they provide the complete resource for students studying discourse analysis. Updated throughout, the fourth edition of this seminal textbook also includes two new chapters: ‘What is Discourse?’ to further understanding of the topic, as well as a new concluding section. A new companion website www.routledge.com/cw/gee features a frequently asked questions section, additional tasks to support understanding, a glossary and free access to journal articles by James Paul Gee. Clearly structured and written in a highly accessible style, An Introduction to Discourse Analysis includes perspectives from a variety of approaches and disciplines, including applied linguistics, education, psychology, anthropology and communication to help students and scholars from a range of backgrounds to formulate their own views on discourse and engage in their own discourse analysis. This is an essential textbook for all advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of discourse analysis.

This volume deals with political speeches, particularly commemorative addresses, from the perspective of critical discourse analysis. Such addresses are characterized as representative and epideictic, as exemplified by an address by the Dutch Queen Beatrix to the Knesset during her 1995 state visit to Israel. Critical consideration is given to the role of rhetoric within political discourse analysis.