Systematic Stylistic Analysis
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Maarten van Leeuwen
Abstract
Attention to style in political discourse with a focus not on what political actors say, but on how they say it, can be found within the research traditions of ‘rhetorical criticism’ (RC) or ‘rhetorical stylistics’ (RS) on the one hand, and ‘critical discourse analysis’ (CDA) on the other hand. The tradition of CDA has been criticized for being ‘ad hoc’: analyses often fail to clarify why on the linguistic level some linguistic means are analysed, and others not. Within both frameworks of RC/RS and CDA, it has been suggested to use a checklist as a methodological tool in stylistic analysis but this has barely been put into practice. In this chapter I discuss what the use of a checklist can yield for stylistic analysis of political discourse and illustrate this with a detailed stylistic analysis of a speech held by the Dutch controversial politician, Geert Wilders.
Abstract
Attention to style in political discourse with a focus not on what political actors say, but on how they say it, can be found within the research traditions of ‘rhetorical criticism’ (RC) or ‘rhetorical stylistics’ (RS) on the one hand, and ‘critical discourse analysis’ (CDA) on the other hand. The tradition of CDA has been criticized for being ‘ad hoc’: analyses often fail to clarify why on the linguistic level some linguistic means are analysed, and others not. Within both frameworks of RC/RS and CDA, it has been suggested to use a checklist as a methodological tool in stylistic analysis but this has barely been put into practice. In this chapter I discuss what the use of a checklist can yield for stylistic analysis of political discourse and illustrate this with a detailed stylistic analysis of a speech held by the Dutch controversial politician, Geert Wilders.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Positions of Parties and Political Cleavages between Parties in Texts 1
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PART I. Computational Methods for Political Text Analysis
- PART I: Introduction 23
- Comparing the Position of Canadian Political Parties using French and English Manifestos as Textual Data 27
- Leveraging Textual Sentiment Analysis with Social Network Modelling 47
- Issue Framing and Language Use in the Swedish Blogosphere 71
- Text to Ideology or Text to Party Status? 93
- Sentiment Analysis in Parliamentary Proceedings 117
- The Qualitative Analysis of Political Documents 135
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PART II. From Text to Political Positions via Discourse Analysis
- PART II: Introduction 163
- The Potential of Narrative Strategies in the Discursive Construction of Hegemonic Positions and Social Change 171
- Christians, Feminists, Liberals, Socialists, Workers and Employers 189
- Between Union and a United Ireland 207
- Systematic Stylistic Analysis 225
- Participation and recontextualisation in New Media 245
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PART III. Converging methods
- PART III: Introduction 271
- From Text to the Construction of Political Party Landscapes 275
- From Text to Political Positions 297
- About the authors 325
- Index 331
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Positions of Parties and Political Cleavages between Parties in Texts 1
-
PART I. Computational Methods for Political Text Analysis
- PART I: Introduction 23
- Comparing the Position of Canadian Political Parties using French and English Manifestos as Textual Data 27
- Leveraging Textual Sentiment Analysis with Social Network Modelling 47
- Issue Framing and Language Use in the Swedish Blogosphere 71
- Text to Ideology or Text to Party Status? 93
- Sentiment Analysis in Parliamentary Proceedings 117
- The Qualitative Analysis of Political Documents 135
-
PART II. From Text to Political Positions via Discourse Analysis
- PART II: Introduction 163
- The Potential of Narrative Strategies in the Discursive Construction of Hegemonic Positions and Social Change 171
- Christians, Feminists, Liberals, Socialists, Workers and Employers 189
- Between Union and a United Ireland 207
- Systematic Stylistic Analysis 225
- Participation and recontextualisation in New Media 245
-
PART III. Converging methods
- PART III: Introduction 271
- From Text to the Construction of Political Party Landscapes 275
- From Text to Political Positions 297
- About the authors 325
- Index 331
