Schedule StuTS 65

The ongoing Brexit discourse has been emblematic of the intertwined nature of language and politics. This M.A. thesis hopes to shed light on the use of rhetorical devices and persuasive language both in the debate leading up to 23rd June 2016 and in 2018, when Theresa May and Boris Johnson were prominent members of the cabinet tasked with implementing the referendum result. This project examines two political speeches each by Theresa May and Boris Johnson, from before and after the EU referendum respectively. It takes a brief look at criticism of political language in the UK beginning with George Orwell and at UK referendums in the years before 2016. The analysis compares the four speeches with regard to metaphors and other tropes, framing, assertions and presuppositions as well as the persuasive structure of the speech in question, using parameters going back as far as Aristotle's modes of persuasion: Logos, Ethos and Pathos. According to Grice's maxims of communication (1975), an audience expects speech acts to be truthful, informative without going into too much detail, relevant, and orderly without obscurity or ambiguity. The Brexit debate – not unlike other recent election campaigns – has shown that these maxims are not always being adhered to, are deliberately broken to suit the speaker's persona, and might be going out of fashion altogether in the post-truth age of politics.

Info

Day: 2019-05-23
Start time: 14:00
Duration: 00:30
Room: 103 / S63
Track: Communication Sciences
Language: en

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