Exploring rhetorical-discursive practices of Rouhani’s presidential campaign and victory of his prudence-and-hope key: a discourse of persuasion

Rhetorical devices in Rouhani's political discourse

Tripartite constructions

A three-part list is a linked array of juxtaposed items which its final item is often proceeded by conjunction “and' (Wells & Bull, 2007). As Woods (2006) notes, such a list is employed to suggest wholeness, entirety and unity; it also creates a persuasive and effective political rhythm. Rouhani's political discourse was replete with three-part lists. The following extract taken from his speech on IRIB 2 embraces two three-part lists at the level of clause: khoshhalam dar in si-o-chand sal khattam, masiram, fekram, taghier nakardeh ast. Hichgah efratgar naboodeham na be samt-e rast na be samt-e chap, va emrooz ham omidvaram nemayandegi konam az anhaei ke a'dalat ro doost daran, e'tedal ro doost daran va a'ghlaniyat ro doost daran. “Goftogooye Vijeh Khabari”

I am glad that my line, my path, and my thought have never changed during this 30 years or so. I have never been an extremist toward neither right nor left, and today, I hope to represent those who like justice, like moderation, and like rationality.

Rouhani represented a list of three related entities including “my line”, “my path”, and “my thought” that have not changed over the years (after the Revolution), to signal his stable character and viewpoints. Using three similar qualities -- “khat” (line), “masir” (path), and “fekr” (thought) -- and listing them one after another the speaker intends to increase the persuasive force of the utterance.

The same style is also echoed through a list of three important qualities of the electorate he wants to represent: “I hope to represent those who like justice, like moderation, and like rationality”. The air of wholeness, completeness, and unity (Woods, 2006) of these tripartite structures promote a more lasting and powerful effect on audience. Below is another tripartite structure from his Documentary:

Amadeh-am baraye nejat-e eghtesad-e Iran va ta'amol-e sazandeh ba jahan, ehyay-e akhlagh-e jame'e dolat-e tadbir o omid ra tashkil deham. (Documentary)

I have come to establish the government of prudence and hope to rescue Iran's economy, dialogue constructively with the world, and revive society's ethics.

Rouhani cleverly criticizes the current situation and Ahmadinezhad's policies by using tripatriate structures conveying the need to rescue the economy, constructive dialogue with the world, and reviving the society's ethics. Therefore, by addressing people's concerns, awakening their hopes, and making populist promises, he stood on the right emotional level with audience constructed his popularity among them. Moreover, he contrived to persuade the audience to believe that, by standing firmly behind him, they will achieve a bright future.

Rouhani's speech occurs in a period of financial crisis for Iran. It is a period in which Iran has accumulated an enormous financial debt with the persistent weakening of the currency, in addition to the economic crisis, partly due to Ahmadinezhad's fundamentalist stance and open opposition to the U.S. and ensuing sanctions on Iran. These issues are hinted at in Rouhani's speech. Rouhani presents himself as the person who has come to rescue the economy and open the door to other countries with constructive dialogue and wisdom. He establishes an authorial self, builds his own authority and agency and takes ownership of them, using the first person pronoun `I' and the non-modal present tense.

Rouhani's success lies in rationally guessing what kind of issues and attitudes the represented person would like to have addressed. A successful political leader will

be successful in representing an electorate only if s/he is successful in addressing the issues that matter to the electorate. As stated by Capone (2011), the notion of `representing the electorate' is taken very seriously in Anglo-American countries, where the represented often write letters to their representatives in order to speak of a certain problem and where politicians often reply in writing to the letters they receive.

Another example of the tripartite structure at the sentential level, taken from the Documentary, is the following:

Agar mikhahid `ezat o shokooh o majd o`azamat be hameh Iranian bargardad, rial-e Irani be jaye aval-e khod bargardad, gozar name Irani be ehteram-e khod bargardad, paye sandoog-e `ara beshtabid. (Documentary)

If you want honor, glory, magnificence, and greatness to go back to all the Iranians, the Iranian Rial to go back to its former strength, the Iranian passport to go back to its former glory, hurry to ballot boxes.

Again, the power of three, this time nesting inside the sentence structure, has been used to unify items. If you want x, y, and z to happen, then make it happen, i.e., hurry to ballot boxes.

It is also worth mentioning that the imperative mode used in the hurry to ballot boxes, positions subjects differently. Rouhani is represented as a speaker who feels very re-assured in suggesting the ballot box for change. In Fairclough's (1989) view, the systematic asymmetry in the distribution of imperative mode between Rouhani and the addressee is important here for understanding the nature of their relationship. Rouhani is making a direct request, indicating a position of power, but at the same time signifying solidarity and inclusiveness.

Perhaps, one of the most recurrent issues in Rouhani's presidential campaign was the promise to change the status quo. The value of Iranian passport was another issue Rouhani had against the current government, referring specifically to the fact that a growing number of countries required the Iranian nationals to be fingerprinted upon arrival, which was largely perceived as humiliating. The measure was also widely seen as a direction sequence of Ahmadinezhad's harsh rhetoric in foreign policy. As a critique of Ahmadinezhad's government, Rouhani voiced his displeasure with the situation and pledged to lead Iran out of the crisis, by using ideologically loaded lexical choices (e.g., prudence, dialogue, hope, moderation).

In Fairclough's (1989) view, ideology is pervasively present in language and what is ideologically significant about a text is its lexical choice and semantic load. Rouhani chose strong and emotionally loaded lexical terms, for persuading his audience to go to ballot boxes.

Ideologically loaded vocabulary is evident in words including honor, glory, magnificence, greatness, and respect. According to Fairclough (1989), ideologies are closely attached to language since using language is the commonest form of social behavior. What appears to be the case here is an ideological clash between the moderate and extreme lines-Rouhani's government vs. Ahmadinezhad's-as evidenced in Rouhani's discourse (I have come to substitute the moderate line for the extreme line).

Alliteration

Alliteration, a particular play on sounds, was used in Rouhani's speech. The function of alliteration is to enhance the impact and persuasiveness of the message. Below is an example taken from one of his speeches:

Barnameh-ye dolat-e tadbir-o omid ta'amol-e sazandeh ba jahan ast, va na taghabol, va jay-e in taghabol ra ta'amol khahad gereft. “Entekhabe Irani”.

The government of prudence and hope's plan is to dialogue constructively with the world, and not to confront, and this confrontation will be replaced by dialogue.

In the above alliterative utterance loaded on a contrast, the plosive “t” is repeated several times. Alliteration is a rhetorical device used for getting attention and making the message memorable. The distinct and noticeable nature of alliterative plosive “t” captivates the audience's auditory senses resulting in evoking their emotion, due to the existence of a connection between the sense of hearing sounds and feelings (cf. Obeng & Hartford, 2008).

In addition, the alliteration mechanism not only accentuates the beauty of the language via the repetition of the plosive “t” run-in through Rouhani's discourse but also acts as the music with which his thoughts are expressed and shown to be unified (Woods, 2008). It also suggests harmony and clarity in his thinking process and calls the attention to the core of his message (i.e., the government of prudence and hope's plan, which is “ta'amol-e sazandeh ba jahan ast, va na taghabol,” meaning, to dialogue constructively with the world, and not to confront) that might not have the same emphasis otherwise.

Here is another example of using consonants to embed the message in the audience memory:

Barname sheshom bayad be zendegi-e mardom behbood bebakhshad, sabat bedehad, aramesh bedehad be jame'e. “Be Entekhab-e Shoma”.

The sixth program should improve people's life, stabilize the society and make it relax.

Or:

Kasi hagh nadarad dar magham-e e'lan-e aslah salahiat-e salehan ra zir-e so'al bebarad. (Documentary)

No one in charge of publicizing the most honorable has the right to question the authority of honorables.

The repetition of the sibilant “s” across the sequence of successive words has made an alliterative phrase. The sound play here can make the message more effective. Furthermore, the experiential value of this negative sentence is the main way of differentiating what is not the case in reality form. Considering the experiential value related to the negation, it should be noted that negation has to do more with intertextuality and the intertextual context of the text (Fairclough, 1987).

Political sloganizing: Rouhani's political brand Rouhani's political campaign reached a high point with the usage of a unique and memorable slogan. The effective use of a short, memorable and quotable sound bite (Charteris-Black, 2011) with a concise and snappy message (Woods, 2006) helped him

to create a clear and memorable slogans (e.g., Dolat-e tadbir-o omid: The “government of prudence and hope”).

Nianxi (2009) argues that “effective slogans should be free from logical fallacy, easy to remember, and rationally demonstrable” (p. 109). Accordingly, Rouhani's slogan was easy to comprehend, pronounce, and remember. Pronouncing “dolate tadbir o omid” is easy, since the tongue can move from one position to the next one easily, e.g /to/, /te/, /ro/, /o/. It is also appealing to the sense of hearing (Nianxi, 2009), and short enough to be said in one breath.

Moreover, the audiences are not persuaded by chance but through the speaker's underlying purposes and ability to communicate the deliberate intention of persuasion effectively through rhetoric (Charteris-Black, 2011). In this vein, Rouhani's slogan homes in on two key words (prudence and hope), “without any intervening grammar” (Woods, 2006, p. 26) e.g. `my government is...'.

Furthermore, Rouhani's election campaign slogan acted as the backbone of his campaign and a highly influential factor to make the Iranian society aware of his basic ideology and views. As the most convenient and practical means of mobilizing people, slogans and catchphrases play an important role in political discourse because they publicize and market the attitudes and beliefs of a candidate contesting an election (Nianxi, 2009). Politicians frequently resort to attracting the audience's attention by using impressive and memorable slogans that succinctly sum up what their campaign is all about. Rou- hani's unique way of motivating the electorate masses reflected through his inspiring slogan, influenced voters' electoral choices. Another noteworthy aspect of this carefully crafted message is its relevance to the socio-economic conditions of Iran, which assured Rouhani a victory at the polls. This catchy phrase had an appeal to the electorate and enlivened Rouhani's campaign.

A man of people

Giving a touch of informality to his discourse, Rouhani tried to show himself as sharing interests with the ordinary people as shown in the following example:

Man doos daram sedaye shajarian ra, ham doos daram, ham goosh mikonam. (Documentary)

I like Shajarian's voice, I both like it and listen to it.

Mohammad-Reza Shajarian is one of the most celebrated Iranian classical singers, who has enormous popularity among Iranians especially owing to his well-known masterpiece “Our Lord” (Rabanna). For many years, Iranians have broken their daily fast during the Ramadan month when Shajarian's Rabanna was aired on the state TV. It is important to note that Shajarian has banned the Iranian public TV and radio networks from broadcasting his songs after the 2009 uprising against Ahmadinezhad's government and was in return barred from holding any concert in Iran. By strategically referring to Shajarian's name, amongst all the other classical singers in Iran, Rouhani contrived to make the musician's numerous fans confident that he is “just one of us”; and to establish himself as “a man of people”. Moreover, Rouhani resonated with his audience and showed to have shared common interests. The informal discourse style in his speech and using Shajarian's name, as Woods (2006, p. 56) asserts, allows Rouhani “to slide into a slightly more man of people accent, this way he enacted and negotiated his identity in his talk (Ivanic, 1997, cited in Fairclough, 2010) through creating a `dis- coursal self. To put it differently, Rouhani drew upon socially available discourses and subject positions to create a discoursal self in his talk when he identified himself with the interests and values of ordinary populace.

The government's ban on airing Shajarian's famous Rabanna song provoked a public outcry demanding broadcasting the song (especially during the holy month of Ramadan). The public's dissent was addressed by Rouhani to voice support for Shajarian's works in order to channel his own discontent with such constraints and introduce himself as a man of shared interests with the audience he was addressing. Rouhani's discourse skillfully shifted from a formal political discourse to an informal discourse of the lay public as necessary.

The use of typical lexical entries in Rouhani's political discourse

In politics, careful and selective use of words is of paramount importance, and the selection of words is both a matter of policy and strategy (Woods, 2006). Using polysemous words such as puns have strategic effects in political discourse. The following section illustrates some of the lexical strategies Rouhani used.

Pun and metaphor

Hameh kar ba tadbir emkanpazir ast va in tadbir ma ra be sahele omid khahad resand

“Ba Doorbin” (Documentary)

Everything is possible with prudence, and this prudence will get us to the hope shore.

Prudence, used repeatedly by Rouhani, could mean “prudence as wisdom”, and “the government of prudence (and hope)”. There is an interrelationship between these dual meanings which can play a significant role on the impact level of the message. Additionally, `metaphor' is the phenomenon by which somebody talks and thinks about something in terms of something else (Semino, 2008). New phenomena are understood by applying existing known concept schemes to the unknown. Therefore, metaphor is a conceptual mapping from one semantic source domain to another (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Rouhani compared prudence with ship to metaphorically implying that his prudence can save Iranians from the emerging socio-political catastrophe just like a rescue ship saving those drowning in a stormy sea. This metaphorical slogan could serve a powerful role in evoking emotional support from the voters and convince them to accept his course of action (voting for him).

According to Charteris-Black (2011), to understand the persuasive force of political language it is essential to understand the systematic nature of metaphor choices. He considered a metaphor as an incongruous linguistic representation that influences opinions and judgments through persuasion. Metaphor is indirect and relies on a conflict between what is said and what is meant. In order to reconcile this conflict the hearer search for a relevant interpretation (Charteris-Black, 2004).

As a successful political leader, he is skillful in controlling a variety of linguistic resources (Duranti, 2006), as illustrated below:

Dar zemestan-e farhang, siasat, va eghtesad hastim keh hava bas najavanmardaneh sard ast. (Documentary)

We are in the cultural, political and economic winter that the weather is so ruthlessly cold.

Both metaphor and allusion are used in this excerpt. Allusion is a literary device which activates two texts simultaneously. It is a tacit reference to another literary work and activates the independent elements from the evoked text (cf. Hylen, 2005). In the example above, the function of allusion falls in the meta-textual domain. Rouhani metaphorically made a comparison between winter and the current cultural, political and economic situation in terms of severe coldness. Here, the analogy acts as a powerful rhetorical device in that it compares the unfamiliar and abstract concepts of culture, politics and economy to the familiar coldness of winter. Besides, through a dynamic allusion, and without direct quotation, he evokes the prominent Iranian poet Mehdi Akhavan Sales, and his well-known poem, “ Winter" and links the audience to the past events. The familiar phrase “the weather is so ruthlessly cold” borrowed from Akhavan Sales's poem, Winter, is an allusion used to skillfully highlight the existing problems in the field of culture, politics and economy.

By using allusion and metaphor, he signified the cold weather of winter in terms of current plight and misery that has come about as a consequence of the previous fundamentalist's policies and, at the same time, he pointed to the frozen atmosphere of Akhavan-e-Sales's era. Here, not only did he depict the current problems in terms of a great poet's words (intertextuality), but he also extended the situation to the historical times when the government of prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was toppled on 19 August 1953 by the UK- and US-backed coup d'йtat. Being affected by 1953 frigid atmosphere, Akhavan Sales versed his well-known poem “Winter”. His poem symbolically represents the chilly and frozen atmosphere of those days. The choice of this metaphor (Winter) and connecting it to the heroic past, Mosadegh era and Akhavan Sales's poem, has a possible ideological significance and reveals his moderate political ideology covertly. Humming “the weather is so ruthlessly cold”, Rouhani aimed to bring to light the current cold situation especially economic situation resulting from wrong policies and deeds of Ahmadinezhad's government and also unfair sanctions imposed by the U.S. against Iran. The same device echoes in the example below:

In baharist ke dar post-e zemestan mandast. (Documentary)

This is the spring that waits behind the winter.

Here, instead of using a blunt tone against Ahmadinezhad's government, Rouhani criticized the current situation subtly. Whilst winter is associated with coldness and frigidity, spring has to do with renewal and growth; spring is also used metaphorically as the beginning of better times ahead. It is common knowledge that spring follows winter, and it implies that Rouhani's victory will ensue; therefore, the persuasive force of the message is maximized.

In Charteris-Black's (2004) and Goatly's (1997) view, the metaphorical language as a rhetorical device is a matter of pragmatics; the hearer is invited by the speaker to take part in an interpretation to create a meaning through coping with the conflict between what is said and what is meant.

Moreover, Ferrari (2007) argues that metaphor can be used as an important tool for persuasion in a text; it has the potential to act as a privileged cognitive tool for abstracting and constructing discourse strategies. In line with this, Rouhani used an image- based rhetorical strategy to criticize Ahmadinezhad in his presidential campaign, to evoke powerful emotional reactions and to persuade the electorate to vote for him. The figurative representation of Ahmadinezhad's government and the new one through the skillful choice of natural events enhance the persuasive power of the message. Rouhani describes the reality in a persuasive definition and value-laden term. Using these persuasive definitions to represent the new government and the status quo has a significance importance in argumentation (Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012). Such value-laden terms with their positive and negative emotional connotations help arguer achieve certain and desired conclusions. Defining the new government which awaits winter paved the way to claim that the government of prudence and hope will be established: spring will come and it is a fact of nature. According to Fairclough and Fairclough (2012), a rhetorically motivated representation including metaphors should not only be considered as an isolated feature of a text but also an argumentative function which steers the argument toward a certain conclusion.

However, the idyllic depiction of the perfect spring day is incomplete without taking into consideration the wider picture. What did the winter leave behind? There are some straws and dirty patches, some waste beneath the thawed ice that should be removed. It takes time for the splendor of the new season to shine forth, the trees to reach their peak blooming, the blossoms to burst into colorful flowers. Extending the metaphor further, Rouhani could also implicitly refer to what will be left by the sitting government.

The next extract exemplifies the employing of a metaphorical definition in an argument, showcasing another important rhetorical strategy employed by Rouhani: he deliberates and weighs the reasons, and finally makes a practical judgement about what ought to be done using metaphorical language. For example:

Masale farhang o asibhaye ejtemaei yeki az mohemtarin masael-e ejtemaei va meli mast. Enqelab-e ma asasan yek enqelab-e farhangi boud az ebteda va emrouz moteasefane ba'd az 35 sal dar zamine farhang anche mardom-e ma bayest shahed bashand, nistand. Enqelab-e ma enqelab-e nour boud, enqelab-e akhlaq boud... hame asibhaye ejtemaei ba baresi ke ma dar markaz-e tahqiqat-e esteratejic kardim, taqriban rou be afzayesh bude dar salhaye akhir, baraye che? Baraye inke un mabnaye farhangi asib dide. Rahkar chist? Che kar bayad bekonim baraye in hame moshkelat? Man dar mian-e anva'e rahkarhaye mokhtalef mohemtarin rahkar ra tamarkoz-zodaei midanam. Ta zamani ke farhang-e ma doulatist, masael-e ma hal o fasl nakhahad shod. Ta zamani ke ma be jaye ta'miq be tarvij bepardazim masael-e ma hal o fal nemishavad. Ta zamani ke be donbal-e kamiyat bashim va har rouz amar bedahim, amar touklid konim, ya na aslant amar vaqei bashad, ama donbal-e asar bakhshi nabashim, masael-e ma hal o fasl nakhahad shod. Chera hame karha be dast-e doulat ast, dorost ast ke doulat dar hoze farhang bayad siasatgozar bashad, bayad nezarat bekonad, bayad hemayat bekonad va avalin hemayatash ham shafafiyat dar moqararate, avalin hemayatesh ham ijade fazaye amn dar jame'e ast. Ama dare in-e hal bayad ma kar ra be saheban-e asli ashab-e honar vagozar konim va doulat hami-e unha bashad.... Nabayad be nahadhaye rasmi ektefa konim. Eshkal-e ma in ast ke farhang ra hamanand-e abshari midanim ke bayad bar sar-e mardom baz konim. Farhang haman cheshmehaye joushani ast ke dar nahad-e mardom hast va bayad sharayet ra amade konim ta hame az farhang-e dorost dar jame'e estefade konnand.... Ma agar br farhanf qavam dehim movafaq shodeim...

Culture issue and social problems are of our most important social and national issues. Our revolution was primarily a cultural revolution from the beginning, and today unfortunately after 35 years people do not see what they should observe in the field of culture. Our revolution was light revolution, was ethics revolution... Given our investigation in strategic studies center, all social problems have been nearly increased in recent years. Why? Because that culture basis has damaged. What is the strategy? What should we do for all these problems? Amongst different types of strategies I consider decentralization as the most important one. As long as our culture is public, our problems will not be resolved. As long as we engaged in deepening instead of promoting, our problems will not be resolved. As long as we are after quantity and represent statistics every day, produce statistics, or no statistics is real at all, but we are not after effectiveness, our problems will not be resolved. Why are all works held by the government? It is true that the government should be the policy maker in the field of culture, should monitor, should support, and its first support is clarity in regulations, its first support is creating a secure environment in the society, but we should delegate work to the original owners of the art, and the government should support them...

...We should not confine ourselves to official institutions. Our fault is that we see culture as a waterfall to be opened over the people's head. Culture is those gushing springs embedded in the people's nature, and we should prepare conditions so that all people can use the right culture in the society... if we give consolidation to the culture we will succeed...

The extract above illustrates a form of deliberation. After describing the context, Rouhani proposed the explicit question of `what should we do?'. Then in a monologic deliberative process the same as a deliberation in a multi-agent context, he reasoned practically, pretended that he has weighed different options and now has arrived at the right and the most important course of action i.e., decentralization (`Amongst different types of strategies I consider decentralization as the most important one').

Deliberation as a rhetorical strategy involves different options' critical examination (Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012). This text analysis revealed that Rouhani represented the alternative choices in such a way that avoided an actual deliberation formation. In this monologic text, Rouhani represented the alternatives in a negative way, implying that was no real choice at all. This does not happen in a real face to face dialogue. In Fairclough and Fairclough's (2012) view, deliberation which restricts consideration of alternative options and steers the argument toward one possible conclusion is an ideological deliberation.

Rouhani's argument appears to be rhetorically effective, even though he does not provide much evidence for his claims. In developing his argument, he does not offer any alternative options, nor is it always clear how he arrived at the conclusions he is putting forward. In Searle's (2010) view giving people reasons for action that they do not otherwise have is a common way of exercising power. Similarly, Fairclough and Fairclough (2012) assert that power manifests itself as ideology when the existence of alternative possibilities for action is obscured. It seems that Rouhani is utilizing precisely this rhetorical strategy here, warning that `our problems would not be resolved' if the implementation of the current policies continues.

Furthermore, some statements with an in-built negative meaning (e.g. `social problems', `unfortunately people do not see what they should observe in the field of culture', `no statistics is real', `our problems will not be resolved', `we are not after effectiveness', `that culture basis has damaged', etc.) Rouhani uses to describe what he sees as cultural problems in the society and recommends specific actions. Therefore, is-statements have been presented in a way that ground ought-statement in what is the most important strategy to be considered (`What is the strategy? What should we do for all these problems? Amongst different types of strategies I consider decentralization as the most important one').

Another interesting issue is employing a metaphorical definition to propose a claim. Charteris-Black (2004) believes that metaphorical concepts can contribute to making arguments more persuasive. After representing the circumstances and weighing the options, Rouhani re-describes the reality in a persuasive definition and value-laden term. Using persuasive definitions (`Culture is those gushing springs embedded in the people's nature') to represent the world has a significant importance in argumentation (Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012). Such a value-laden term with its positive emotional connotation help the arguer achieve certain and desired conclusions. Defining culture as gushing springs which have been embedded in the people's nature paved the way to the claim that `delegating the work to the original owners of the art (people themselves)' is the right action. According to Fairclough and Fairclough (2012), a rhetorically motivated representation including metaphors should not only be considered to be an isolated feature of a text. Such a representation has also as argumentative function which steers the argument toward a certain conclusion.

Personalization

As an argumentative discourse, political discourse includes practical argumentation deployed in response to political problems (Fairclough & Fairclough, 2012). This extract is a good example of practical argumentation.

Ma dar Iran-e ba azamat o bozorgi zendegi mikonim ke daraye manabe besyar qani-e phiziki va madi va nirouye ensani-e arzeshmand o faal ast. Keshvari ke dar hasastarin noghte jahan gharar gerefte ast, keshvari ke daraye geopolitic va geostrategic vije khod dar mantaqe ast. Shahrahe shomal be jonoub ast. Dovomin manbae gaz-e jahan o naft-e jahan ast. Ama chera mardom-e ma dar moshkelat-e maishati bashand? Moshkel kojast? Moshkel az modiriyat aqaz mishavad, moshkel az tasmimat-e fardi aqaz mishavad, moshkel as adam-e mashverat aqaz mishavad... Che mikhaham begouyam? Mikhaham begouyam mardom-e aziz o bozorgvar bayad edare keshvar edare elmi bashad, bayad hokmrani, hokmrani-e shayeste bashad. Bayad estefade az nokhbegan anjam shaved, bayad ba shafafiyat ba mardom harf zad, bayad moshkelat ra ba mardom dar mian gozasht, bayad amarha daqiq bashad ta ma betavanim az pich-e tarikhi ke maqam-e moazam-e rahbari farmoudand be khoubi obour konim va betavanim hamase eqtesadi va siasi ra biafarinim... Ma bayad hameh marakez-e tolidi ra be fa'aliat-e kamel-e sad dar sad beresanim va in kar emkanpazir ast dar barnameh modavan-e man. “Ba Doorbin”

...We live in the big and great Iran which has very rich physical and material resources and valuable and active human resources The country which is located on the most sensitive point of the world, the country which has its special geopolitics and geostrategic in the area the highway of north to south, the second gas and oil recourses of the world, but why our people have living obstacles, where is the problem? The problem begins from the management; The problem begins from individual decisions; The problem begins from lack of consultation... what I want to say, I want to say: dear and honorable people, the country management should be scientific management, the governance should be a worthy governance, we should employ elites, we should talk to people in a transparent way, we should talk about problems with people, the statistics should be accurate so that we can pass well the historical turn the Supreme Leader said and create the epic saga of political and economic... We should bring all the production centers into full 100% operation, and it is possible in my systematic plan.

“Where is the problem?” is a rhetorical question posed to make certain points. By posing such a question Hassan Rouhani does not actually expect to receive any answer. He only wants to emphasize the existence of problems. Here there is a list of “where is the problem”, presented as three key sources in which problems are rooted, including: the former president's “management”, “individually made decisions”, and “lack of consultation” nested in the sentence structure. Positioning himself as a critic of the administrative status quo, Rouhani tried to put the blame for these “problems” on Ahmadine- zhad's mismanagement. In fact, “individually made decisions” and “lack of consultation” are relatively synonymous. It seems that “individually made decisions” has been rephrased into “lack of consultation” to assure that the audience have realized where the problem lies.

Rouhani's focus is primarily on concrete obstacles and on the representation of management, individual decisions, and lack of consultation as the origin of the problem that exist as a fact. The argument for action here starts from a description of the context of action and the goal which is informed by values. This arguments starts from a question which is implicit here (“what should we do?”), then based on the analysis of the current circumstances and the expected goals, the courses of action are proposed, and the consequences of such actions discussed.

The inclusive use of the first-person plural pronoun ` We' enables Rouhani to achieve inter-subjectivity and speak on behalf of the whole nation while simultaneously making an implicit authority claim for himself. His conversational public tone was followed by a personal one. He effectively uses the inclusive `we' at the beginning and then switches to the singular possessive pronoun (`my systematic plan') to take ownership of his responsibility and to evoke a competent and confident identity of himself as the future president.