Argumentative movements of emotions in political speeches

Abstract

Emotion, as a form of argumentation, has always been a constitutive element of speeches, appearing already in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. Whether the emotions are real (emotional commu- nication) or have discursive purposes (emotive communication) (Plantin, 2000), the Speaker summons them into his speech, using different modes of semiotization. The use of emotions is a way of acting on the addressee, persuading him in favor of a certain idea or capturing his pietas. It is, therefore, a discursive technique with the potential to change the disposition of the audience, converging to increase the effectiveness of an argument. At the verbal level, emotions can be expressed, explicitly or implicitly, or constructed (“visée”, in the terminology of Kerbrat-Orechhioni, 2000), resorting to emotion terms or other descriptive terms, which are conventionally associated with an emotion. In addition to these, rhetorical figures are often used, such as metaphor or hyperbole, which enhance a scene that induces a state of mind that favors persuasion (Micheli, 2010). Although they are sometimes seen as an ornamental form, they constitute argumentative tools, as they allow to present reasoning in a forceful way (Reboul, 2004). Based on a corpus of political interventions made by senior State representatives, the verbal material will be analysed, in particular the “words of emotion” and the rhetorical figu- res that contribute to the pathos of suffering and (in)justice. We will try to demonstrate that these elements integrate argumentative movements in favor of reasoning and aligned with the purpose of the text producer to make the other agree, absolutely, with his point of view (Charaudeau, 2016).