Positioning in political speeches

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Department of English Philology and Intercultural Communication Educational and Scientific Institute of Philology of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv

Positioning in political speeches

Larysa Pavlichenko,

Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor

The article studies the phenomenon of positioning analysing the speeches of the American president and the British prime minister to identify discursive strategies and linguistic devices verbalising their positioning in the war in Ukraine started by Russia on February, 24, 2022. In the political discourse state leaders apply various discursive strategies and linguistic means to express their views on the current political situation. In their public speeches, political leaders at all levels have intensified the conflict rhetoric, which is often saturated with negative pragmatic and semantic components of the negative assessment of Russian politics. The CDA based research is focused on the functional aspect of the language (the discursive strategies and the linguistic means). The topic of the article is relevant in view of recent research on the effectiveness of communicative strategies and tactics and their linguistic presentation. The tactics of authority establishing, positive presentation of the speaker, discrediting and blaming Russia, cooperation with and support of Ukraine, predicting the positive future outcomes are the main tactics of the positioning strategy implemented by two substrategies: interactive and reflexive positioning. The verbal actualization of the tactics of authority establishing, positive presentation of the speaker is implemented by syntactic parallelism, compound verbal aspect predicates. It is indicated that the nomination is sometimes indirectly marked, the tactics of discrediting and blaming Russia as a terrorist power is represented by lexical units with negative evaluation, unextended simple sentences and such stylistic figures as synecdoche, metonymy, idioms. The tactics of support of Ukraine is verbalised by Imperative Mood construction, quotations offamous people, syntactic parallelism. The tactics ofpredicting a positive future outcomes for Ukraine, to inspire optimism and faith, is realised by Imperative Mood, grammar tenses (Future Simple, Future Perfect).

Key words: positioning, tactics of authority establishing, discrediting, support, predicting, parallelism, synecdoche, metonymy.

Лариса Павліченко, кандидат філологічних наук, доцент кафедри англійської філології та міжкультурної комунікації Навчально-наукового інституту філології Київського національного університету імені Тараса Шевченка

Позиціонування в політичних промовах

У статті досліджується феномен позиціонування на матеріалі аналізу виступів американського президента та британського прем'єр-міністра з метою виявлення дискурсивних стратегій та мовних засобів, що вербалізують їх позиціонування у війні в Україні розпочатій Росією 24 лютого 2022 року. У політичному дискурсі лідери держав використовують різні дискурсивні стратегії та мовні засоби для вираження своїх поглядів на поточну політичну ситуацію. У своїх публічних виступах політичні лідери всіх рівнів посилюють конфліктну риторику, яка часто насичена негативними прагматичними та смисловими складовими негативної оцінки політики Росії. Дослідження на основі КДА зосереджено на функціональному аспекті мови (дискурсивні стратегії та мовні засоби). Тема статті є актуальною з огляду на останні дослідження ефективності комунікативних стратегій і тактик та їх мовної презентації. Тактика встановлення авторитету, позитивної презентації спікера, дискредитації та звинувачення Росії, співпраці та підтримки України, прогнозування позитивних результатів у майбутньому є основними тактиками стратегії позиціонування, що реалізуються у двох субстратегіях: інтерактивному та рефлексивному позиціонуванні. Мовленнєва актуалізація тактики встановлення авторитету, позитивного представлення мовця реалізується синтаксичним паралелізмом, складними дієслівними присудками. Вказується, що номінація інколи опосередковано маркована, тактика дискредитації та звинувачення Росії як терористичної держави представлена лексичними одиницями з негативною оцінкою, простими нерозширеними реченнями та такими стилістичними фігурами, як синекдоха, метонімія, ідіоми. Тактика підтримки України вербалізується конструкцією наказового способу, синтаксичним паралелізмомб цитатами відомих людей. Тактику прогнозування позитивного майбутнього для України, вселяння оптимізму та віри реалізують наказовий спосіб, граматичні часи (Future Simple, Future Perfect).

Ключові слова: позиціонування, тактика встановлення авторитету, дискредитації, підтримки, прогнозування, паралелізм, синекдоха, метонімія.

positioning political speeches

Introduction

The problem statement. Towards the war of aggression in Ukraine which was unleashed by Russia on the 24-th of February 2022, world political leaders state their position to what is happening, choose the side to stay on and whom to support. Keeping silence is not acceptable and can be a position itself.

Political speeches is the type of communication without back response from the listeners of the message, the message is not changed after the receiving the audience's feedback. So, strategies and tactics play a crucial role for their planning and constructing.

Research analysis. In an effort to react to changes in public opinion adequately and win over their voters, politicians turn to different discursive strategies, which can be defined as “a more or less intentional plan of practices (including discursive practices) adopted to achieve a particular social, political, psychological or linguistic aim”(Wodak 2001: 73). This means that politicians are acutely aware of their enormous power, which should be taken seriously. And CDA (Teo, P., 2000; Eijavec, K., 2003; KhosraviNik, Majid, 2010; Lippi K., McKay F. H. & McKenzie, H. J., 2017) empowers acknowledgement of the connection between language manipulation and power control.

Van Dijk related to the topic stating that politicians use political discourse to manipulate public opinion and gain support and control over other political views (Van Dijk, 1993). Chilton and Schaffner have also contributed to the studying of the views of the actors of the discourse, stating that politics can hardly exist without language; it is language that forms a broad understanding of politics among social groups (Chilton, Schaffner, 2002).

In the recent time, the linguists are often raising the problem of the applied strategy of positioning in public political speeches (Fina Anna, 2018; Misic Ilic Biljana, Milica Radulovic, 2014:25-41, Filardo- Llamas Laura and Boyd Michael S., 2018; Berlin Lawrence N., 2020 and others. The language where positioning can be seen as interactive, when one person says positions another, or reflexive positioning in which one positions oneself, was expounded by Bronwyn Davies and Rom Harre. However it would be a mistake to assume that, in either case, positioning is necessarily intentional (Bronwyn Davies, Rom Harre, 2007).

Researchers have investigated planning and mechanisms of constructing the speeches: Van Dyke (2008, 2012), Belova A. (2003), Yarho A. (2004), Yashenkova O. (2010) and others. The strategy is directed, systemic, interactive and realised through a set of speech tactics, the strategy is not implemented, but created in the process of achieving the goal. The strategy is the direction of speech, which determines the use of structures that contribute to the implementation of the general communicative intention, communicative goals of the speaker.

The discourse strategy is considered to be (according to R. Wodak) the intended plan of practices used for the achievement of the certain social, political and linguistic goals, the systematic ways of language usage (Wodak R., Chilton P., 2005: 43-45).

The tactics is understood according to Kirk Hallahan (Hallahan Kirk, 2018) as actions taken to implement a strategy. Tactics can be specified in advance as part of a prescriptive or deliberate strategy outlined in a written plan but often are identified and improvised during the implementation of a communication effort and thus can reflect emergent operational strategies. Tactics are typically grounded in the function in which they are employed and chosen based on the communicator's personal expertise and experience, observance of communication activities by others, historical precedence, convenience, requests or inquiries by others, directions or recommendations by clients, and/or imperatives imposed by external circumstances.

The concept of a communicative strategy and tactics are interconnected as a type and a subtype, where speech strategies are flexibile and can be realised by a number of tactics and the complex use of linguistic resources and methods. Tactics correlates with certain milestone in the implementation of the strategy and is aimed at the implementation of a separate communicative task. A set of strategies and their tactics and techniques can be identified as a strategic speech planning.

The aim of the article. The purpose of this article is to identify the pragmatic and semantic aspects of language means of implementing substrategies of interactive and reflexive positioning in political discourse based on the analysis of speeches of the world political leaders with the intention to bring light and to determine the language techniques used for positioning. In order to make the study visible on a lager scale, we investigated the speeches made by American and British political leaders, Joe Biden and Boris Johnson comparing and contrasting them.

Presentation of the main research material

The study presents the analysis of public speeches by the American president Joe Biden and British prime minister Boris Johnson delivered in the period of war in Ukraine started by Russia in February of 2022. The war which is absolutely devastative and merciless for Ukraine and has crucial effect not only for the two countries, but for the whole world. The constantly increasing number of immigrants from Ukraine to European countries and the whole world impacts the world and all NATO countries face the danger of escalating the conflict.

Joe Biden addressed his public speech to Poles and Ukrainian refugees who gathered in March, 2022 by the Royal Castle of Warsaw, while Russia was bombarding the neighbouring Ukrainian cities. He started with encouraging and supporting people surviving the hardships of the war, emphasizing the necessity of being brave and not being afraid of the enemy who is trying to intimidate peaceful civilians:

1. Be not afraid.” They were the first words at the first public address of the first Polish Pope after his election on October of 1978. They were words that would come to define Pope John Paul II. Words that would change the world.

John Paul brought the message here to Warsaw in his first trip back home as Pope in June of 1979. It was a message about the power - the power of faith, the power of resilience, and the power of the people. (14)

The strategy of the support is implemented in the example (1) by the imperative mood construction, the quotation of the words said by the Pope John Paul II, the first Polish Pope, who is known and highly respected by all Poles and Ukrainians. Also, the except demonstrates the use of the syntactic parallelism (the power, the power,...) to vividly render and emphasise the main ideas, reinforce the persuasive influence on the listeners.

When the goal of the speaker is to damage the reputation, a number of techniques are used to discredit, including accusing them of crimes, moral and ethical violations, mocking of miscalculations and mistakes, etc. Blaming can be personal or impersonal. In the first case, it is directed to a specific person or group of persons. In the second case, the actor is not indicated.

The tactics of blaming becomes one of the leading communication tactics implemented in the present war conflict situation. It is is being widely considered by scholars in the context of war conflict research and manipulative communication strategies. The tactics of accusation (blaming) is a linguistic way of the negative assessment of the actions. The choice of linguistic means is determined by the tasks and attitudes of the political actors. So, if the speaker sets himself the task of hurting the opponent, then the nominations with a negative lexical meaning are used. In other cases, when the communicant tries to represent the opponent negatively, while avoiding vivid demonstration of the views, deictic constructions used. If the main task is to convince the general public of the guilt, then the statements with the function of the pragmatic impact on the consciousness of the listeners changing or strengthening their initial ideological attitudes are applied.

A number ofproblematic issues of an extralinguistic nature raised in the political discourse can be considered in the implementation of blaming tactics. This is humiliation of his way of life, observance of human rights and freedoms, certain attitudes and values. As an example, consider the statement of the example (2):

(2) Putin has the gall to say he's “de-Nazifying” Ukraine. It's a lie. It's just cynical. He knows that. And it's also obscene. (14)

The lexical and syntactic means of the tactics implementation include unextended sentences and corresponding lexical units with the negative evaluation of actions (lie, cynical, obscene, has the gall to say) presenting Ukraine as a victim of dishonest political game.

When the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson claims the illegal invasion blaming Putin of the occupation the sovereign state, the tactics of blaming being implemented by synecdoche (Putin seized):

(3) Putin seized sovereign Ukrainian territory. (2)

The following paragraph (4) is a vivid example of discrediting Russia, where the above mentioned tactics is implemented by the famous idiom: “Nothing is further from the truth” and metonymy (Kremlin) which is symbolic and allows to avoid naming the notorious Russian political leaders, stressing their collective responsibility for the committed crimes:

(4) The Kremlin wants to portray NATO enlargement as an imperial project aimed at destabilizing Russia. Nothing is further from the truth. NATO is a defensive alliance. It has never sought the demise of Russia. (14)

The next example (5) puts emphasis on the illegal actions of Russia implementing the tactics of blaming by the syntactic parallelism (without, without), lexical units with the meaning of negative evaluation (brutal assault):

(5) The Russian military has begun a brutal assault on the people of Ukraine without provocation, without justification, without necessity. (13)

The example (6) from Boris Johnson's interview, where he spoke to The Economist about his government's response to the war, demonstrates the tactics of blaming being verbalised by the lexical units with negative connotation combined with intensifiers (fatally badly has miscalculated):

(6) I think the fact that two traditionally proud, neutral countries, are moving as they so clearly are in the direction of a much clearer alignment is a sign of how fatally badly Vladimir Putin has miscalculated about Ukraine. (2)

The speaker implementing the tactics of authority establishment and positive self-representation combined with the tactics of the support of Ukraine, highlights the US being the super power defending peace in the world and preventing wars, where the tactics is realised by the syntactic parallelism (they are going, they are going), compound verbal aspect predicate with the verb to keep and gerund saying which implies continuous and repeated action:

(7) I know not all of you believed me and us when we kept saying, “They are going to cross the border.

They are going to attack.” (14)

The next examples (8, 9) demonstrate the realization of the tactics of predicting positive future outcomes for Ukraine by the using corresponding grammar tenses (Future Simple, Future Perfect):

(8) And Putin's aggression against Ukraine will end up costing Russia dearly, economically and strategically. We will make sure of that. Putin will be a pariah on the international stage. Any nation that countenances Russia's naked aggression against Ukraine will be stained by association.

(9) When the history of this era is written, Putin's choice to make a totally unjustifiable war on Ukraine will have left Russia weaker and the rest of the world stronger. And in the contest between democracy and autocracy, between sovereignty and subjugation, make no mistake: Freedom will prevail. (13)

Boris Johnson in the speech in front of the Verchovna Rada dwells on the future victory of Ukraine supporting the people in their struggle, promising to hold Russia to responsibility, nominating their actions crimes, thus implementing the tactics of blaming and discrediting Russia, giving a supportive hand to Ukraine reassuring the Ukrainians of the positive outcomes. The tactics are implemented by the grammar tense (Future Simple), modal verbs (can) and lexical units (war crimes):

(10) We in the UK will do whatever we can to hold them to account for these war crimes and in this moment of uncertainty, of continuing fear and doubt I have one message for you today: Ukraine will win. Ukraine will be free. (12)

Conclusion

The communicative strategy of positioning studied in the speeches of the American president Joe Biden and British prime minister Boris Johnson is presented by the the interactive positioning substrategy which is positioning parties to the war in Ukraine and reflexive positioning substrategy which focuses on oneself. Both substrategies imply that the authors are not the participants of the war, but observers. The substrategies of interactive and reflexive positioning are implemented by: the tactics of authority establishing and positive presentation of the speaker, discrediting and blaming Russia, cooperation with and support of Ukraine, predicting the positive future outcomes for Ukraine.

1) The tactics of authority establishing and positive self presentation is implemented by syntactic parallelism, compound verbal aspect predicates. The tactics of discrediting and blaming Russia is realised by such linguistic means of implementation, as lexical units with negative evaluation, unextended simple sentences and such stylistic figures as synecdoche, metonymy, idioms. The tactics of support of Ukraine is verbalised by Imperative Mood construction, quotations of famous people, syntactic parallelism. The tactics of predicting a positive future outcomes for Ukraine, to inspire optimism and faith, is implemented by Imperative Mood, grammar tenses (Future Simple, Future Perfect). Classification of the analysed linguistic means for the implementation of the positioning strategy can be the subject of further scientific research to specify and update the study by the newly coming material.

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4. Erjavec K. (2003). Media construction of identity through moral panics: Discourses of immigration in Slovenia. 2003. URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183032000076731

5. Filardo-Llamas Laura and Boyd Michael S. Critical discourse analysis and politics, 2018. URL: https://www. academia.edu/35962953/Critical_Discourse_Analysis_and_Politics,

6. Fina Anna. Discourse and Identity, 2018. URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323153822

7. Hallahan Kirk. Communication Tactics. 2018. URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327879424_ Communication_Tactics

8. KhosraviNik Majid. Actor descriptions, action attributes, and argumentation: towards a systematisation of CDA analytical categories in the representation of social groups. Critical Discourse Studies, 2010, 7(1), P 24);

9. Lippi K., McKay F. H. & McKenzie H. J. Representations of refugees and asylum seekers during the 2013 federal election. Sage Publications, 2017.

10. Misic Ilic Biljana, Radulovic Milica. FACTA UNIVERSITATIS Series: Linguistics and Literature Vol. 12, No 1, 2014, pp. 25-41, University of Nis, Faculty of Philosophy, English Department, Serbia.

11. Positioning and Stance in Political Discourse The Individual, the Party, and the Party Line Edited

by Lawrence N. Berlin Universidad EAFIT, Medellin, Colombia, 2020. URL: https://vernonpress.com/

file/11281/6b61d29001f2b6818798a8fdbac79204/1581670384.pdf

12. Prime Minister Boris Johnson's address to the Ukrainian Parliament: 3 May 2022 URL: https://www.gov.uk/ government/speeches/prime-minister-boris-johnsons-address-to-the-ukrainian-parliament-3-may-2022

13. Remarks by President Biden on Russia's Unprovoked and Unjustified Attack on Ukraine. URL: https://www. whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/02/24/remarks-by-president-biden-on-russias-unprovoked-and- unjustified-attack-on-ukraine/

14. Remarks by President Biden on the United Efforts of the Free World to Support the People of Ukraine. URL: https:// www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/03/26/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-united-efforts-of- the-free-world-to-support-the-people-of-ukraine/

15. Teo P. Racism in the News: A Critical Discourse Analysis of News Reporting in Two Australian Newspapers. In Discourse and Society. 2000, 11 (1), 7-49.

16. Van Dijk T. A. Discourse and Knowledge. In James Paul Gee & Michael Handford (Eds.), Handbook of Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge, 2012. (pp. 587-603)

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18. Wodak R. The discourse-historical approach. [ed. by Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer]. London, GBR: Sage Publications Incorporated, 2001. 200 p.

19. Wodak R., Chilton P. A new agenda in (Critical) Discourse Analysis. Theory, methodology and interdisciplinarity. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2005. 320 p.

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