A Methodology for Analyzing Political Speech: Western Approaches to Rhetorical Theory
Rhetorical scholars have long been interested in studying the internal dynamics of political speech − not summarizing what is said, but rather describing how a speech works as a rhetorical appeal.1 In so doing, of course, one naturally examines the content of the discourse (its goals and strategies) in order to understand how the speaker seeks to influence an audience and to evaluate both the effectiveness of the speech as a rhetorical appeal and its ethical and political implications. In contemporary pluralistic societies such as Germany, Great Britain, and the United States—where political voices have access to multiple forms of communication, including television, radio, newspapers, scholarly journals, and Internet driven social media—it is expected that any national level political event will be commented upon and analyzed by both adherents and opponents. Never is this more true than when the leader of a nation, or a candidate to become that leader, speaks in any public forum. Speeches by American political leaders are routinely subjected to intensive rhetorical criticism. Just within the past few years, for instance, The Quarterly Journal of Speech has published rhetorical criticism focusing on speeches by Barack Obama (twice), Franklin Roosevelt, and Mohammad Ali. In this paper, which is aimed at presenting Western methods of rhetorical analysis to students and teachers in Russia, we have chosen to apply those methods to the most recent inaugural address given by the newly elected President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, on the assumption that most readers will be familiar with that speech.