Abstract
The article applies political discourse analysis to presidential speeches in four countries. A qualitative and quantitative content analysis of 71 annual addresses delivered by the political leaders of the United States, Canada, Russia and Kazakhstan over the 20-year period since the fall of the Soviet Union is used to test the hypothesis of convergence between their institutional systems. The study shows that there are some tendencies toward negative convergence. Political leaders tend to place similar relative emphasis on such issues as power, trust, liberalism and the market, among others. Two elements of the context, namely the events of September 11, 2001 and the October 2008 financial crisis, served to strengthen the negative convergence.
Acknowledgements
The draft of this text was presented at the annual conference of the Canadian Sociological Association in May 2014 (Brock University, St. Catharines, ON). Participants in the political sociology panel, namely Dr. Lisa-Jo van den Scott (Northwestern University), made a number of cogent remarks. Sheryl Curtis did an excellent job of style editing. The author thanks two anonymous reviewers of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language for their comments and suggestions. All remaining inaccuracies and errors are the author’s own.
References
Andreff, Wladimir. 1992. Convergence or congruence between Eastern and Western economic systems. In Bruno Dallago, Horst Dieter Brezinski & Wladimir Andreff (eds.), Convergence and system change: The convergence hypothesis in the light of transition in Eastern Europe, 48–78. Aldershot: Dartmouth.Search in Google Scholar
Angermüller, Johannes. 2012. Fixing meaning: The many voices of the post-liberal hegemony in Russia. Journal of Language and Politics 11(1). 115–134.10.1075/jlp.11.1.06angSearch in Google Scholar
Barrett, Andrew W. 2004. Gone public: The impact of going public on presidential legislative success. American Politics Research 32(3). 338–370.10.1177/1532673X03260580Search in Google Scholar
Bartlett, Tom. 2014. Analyzing power in language: A practical guide. Abington: Routledge.10.4324/9781315851938Search in Google Scholar
Bartolucci, Valentina. 2012. Terrorism rhetoric under the Bush Administration: Discourses and effects. Journal of Language and Politics 11(4). 562–582.10.1075/jlp.11.4.05barSearch in Google Scholar
Bates, Banjamin R. 2009. Circulation of the World War II/Holocaust analogy in the 1999 Kosovo intervention. Journal of Language and Politics 8(1). 28–51.10.1075/jlp.8.1.03batSearch in Google Scholar
Bloch, Maurice. 1974. Symbols, song, dance and features of articulation: Is religion an extreme form of traditional authority? European Journal of Sociology 15(1). 54–81.10.1017/S0003975600002824Search in Google Scholar
Boycko, Maxim, Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny. 1995. Privatizing Russia. Cambridge and London: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar
Budd, John M. 2001. Misreading science in the twentieth century. Science Communication 22(3). 300–315.10.1177/1075547001022003007Search in Google Scholar
Coe, Kevin & Anthony Schmidt. 2012. America in black and white: Locating race in the modern presidency, 1933–2011. Journal of Communication 62(4). 609–627.10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01652.xSearch in Google Scholar
Denzau, Arthur T. & Douglass C. North. 1994. Shared mental models: Ideologies and institutions. Kyklos 47(1). 3–31.10.1017/CBO9780511805813.002Search in Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman & Isabela Fairclough. 2012. Political discourse analysis: A method for advanced students. Abington: Routledge.10.4324/9780203137888Search in Google Scholar
Flint, Colin, Michael Adduci, Michael Chen & Sang-Hyun Chi. 2009. Mapping the dynamism of the United States’ geopolitical code: The geography of the state of the union speeches, 1988–2008. Geopolitics 14(4). 604–629.10.1080/14650040802693929Search in Google Scholar
Gambetta, Diego. 2004. Reason and terror: Has 9/11 made it hard to think straight? Boston Review April/May. http://bostonreview.net/archives/BR29.2/gambetta.html (accessed 25 March 2015).Search in Google Scholar
Hartley, James, Eric Sotto & Claire Fox. 2004. Clarity across the Disciplines: An analysis of texts in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities. Science Communication 26(2). 188–210.10.1177/1075547004270164Search in Google Scholar
Hedlund, Stefan. 2005. Russian path dependence. London & New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203000427Search in Google Scholar
Hoffman, Donna R. & Alison D. Howard. 2012. Obama in words and deeds. Social Science Quarterly 93(5). 1316–1337.10.1111/j.1540-6237.2012.00914.xSearch in Google Scholar
Kratochvíl, Petr. 2008. The discursive resistance to EU-enticement: The Russian elite and (the Lack of) Europeanisation. Europe-Asia Studies 60(3). 397–422.10.1080/09668130801947994Search in Google Scholar
Krippendorff, Klaus. 2004. Content Analysis: An introduction to its methodology. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.Search in Google Scholar
Kyrala, Cadmus. 2010. Systemic linguist analysis of samples from economic speeches by Barack Obama and John McCain. Journal of Language and Politics 9(1). 74–95.10.1075/jlp.9.1.04kyrSearch in Google Scholar
Lewis, David. 1997. The two rhetorical presidencies: An analysis of televised presidential speeches, 1947–1991. American Politics Research 25(3). 380–395.10.1177/1532673X9702500307Search in Google Scholar
Merton, Robert. 1938. Social structure and anomie. American Sociological Review 3(5). 672–682.10.4324/9781351157803-1Search in Google Scholar
Namenwirth, J. Zvi. 1973. Wheels of time and the interdependence of value change in America. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 3(4). 649–683.10.2307/202687Search in Google Scholar
Neuendorf, Kimberly A. 2002. The content analysis guidebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.Search in Google Scholar
North, Douglass C. 1990. Institutions, institutional change and economic performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511808678Search in Google Scholar
Oleinik, Anton. 2008. On negative convergence: The metaphor of Vodka-Cola reconsidered. Telos 145. 31–46.Search in Google Scholar
Oleinik, Anton. 2010a. Market as a weapon: The socio-economic machinery of dominance in Russia. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.10.4324/9780203786307Search in Google Scholar
Oleinik, Anton. 2010b. Azbuka vlasti: Posylka ot prezidenta [The ABCs of power: A message from the president]. Vedomosti 3 December.Search in Google Scholar
Oleinik, Anton. 2010c. Azbuka vlasti: Obshchii yazyk Medvedeva i Putina [The ABCs of power: Common language of Medvedev and Putin]. Vedomosti 22 July.Search in Google Scholar
Oleinik, Anton. 2011. Mixing quantitative and qualitative content analysis: Triangulation at work. Quality and Quantity 45(4). 859–873.10.1007/s11135-010-9399-4Search in Google Scholar
Oleinik, Anton. 2012. Azbuka vlasti: Russko-anglo-amerikanskii slovar’ prezidentskikh poslanii [The ABCs of power: Russian-American dictionary of the States of the union addresses]. Nezavisimaia gazeta 2 February.Search in Google Scholar
Oleinik, Anton & Kayrat Djamangulov. 2012. Azbuka vlasti: Yazyk ezhegodnikh poslanii prezidenta Respubliki Kazakhstan [The ABCs of power: The language of the addresses of the President of Kazakhstan]. Zakon.Kz. http://www.zakon.kz/kazakhstan/4531454-azbuka-vlasti-jazyk-ezhegodnykh.html (accessed 25 March 2015).Search in Google Scholar
Pipes, Richard. 2000 [1999]. Property and freedom. New York: Vintage Books.Search in Google Scholar
Polanyi, Karl. 1944. The great transformation: The political and economic origins of our time. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.Search in Google Scholar
Salton, Gerard & Michael J. McGill. 1983. Introduction to modern information retrieval. New York: McGraw-Hill.Search in Google Scholar
Sapir, Edward. 1961. Culture, language and personality. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar
Skinner, Quentin. 2002. Visions of politics. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University PressSearch in Google Scholar
Seyranian, Viviane & Michelle C. Bligh. 2008. Presidential charismatic leadership: Exploring the rhetoric of social change. The Leadership Quarterly 19(1). 54–76.10.1016/j.leaqua.2007.12.005Search in Google Scholar
Shleifer, Andrei & Daniel Treisman. 2004. A normal country. Foreign Affairs 83(2). 20–38.10.3386/w10057Search in Google Scholar
Sigelman, Lee. 2002. Two Reagans? Genre imperatives, ghostwriters, and presidential personality profiling. Political Psychology 23(4). 839–851.10.1111/0162-895X.00310Search in Google Scholar
Stanovich, Keith E. 2003. Understanding the styles of science in the study of reading. Scientific Studies of Reading 7(2). 105–126.10.1207/S1532799XSSR0702_1Search in Google Scholar
Taylor, Stephanie. 2013. What is discourse analysis? London: Bloomsbury Academic.10.5040/9781472545213Search in Google Scholar
Transparency International. 2015. Corruption Perception Index. http://www.transparency.org/cpi2014 (accessed 25 March 2015).Search in Google Scholar
Turk, Austin T. 2004. Sociology of terrorism. Annual Review of Sociology 30. 271–286.10.1146/annurev.soc.30.012703.110510Search in Google Scholar
Van Noije, Lonneke & Ellen Hijmans. 2005. National identity and nationalism in New Year’s speeches of French presidents. Communication 30(1). 23–54.10.1515/comm.2005.30.1.23Search in Google Scholar
Weber, Robert P. 1982. The long-term dynamics of societal problem-solving: A content-analysis of British speeches from the throne, 1689–1972. European Journal of Political Research 10(4). 387–405.10.1111/j.1475-6765.1982.tb00032.xSearch in Google Scholar
Wolf, Charles. 1988. Markets or governments: Choosing between imperfect alternatives. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar
Word Bank. 2015. World Development Indicators. http://databank.worldbank.org/data/home.aspx (accessed on 25 March 2015).Search in Google Scholar
Whorf, Benjamin L. 1956. Language, thought and reality: Selected writings. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar
Wright Mills, Charles. 1957. The power elite. New York: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
©2015 by De Gruyter Mouton
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Language research and language community change: Italian Sign Language 1981–2013
- UK university students’ folk perceptions of spoken variation in English: the role of explicit and implicit attitudes
- Speaking or being Chinese: the case of South African-born Chinese
- Predictors of immigrants’ second-language proficiency: a Dutch study of immigrants with a low level of societal participation and second-language proficiency
- Second language development in a migrant context: Turkish community in the Netherlands
- The linguistic and political orientation of young Belarusian adults between East and West or Russian and Belarusian
- Studying sustainable bilingualism: comparing the choices of languages in Hungary’s six bilingual national minorities
- The language of power: a content analysis of presidential addresses in North America and the Former Soviet Union, 1993–2012
- Variation in Macau Cantonese: the case of initial and final segments
- Perceptions about being Japanese and Christian in Canada
- Language attrition, language contact and the concept of relic variety: the case of Barossa German
- Language competition: an economic theory of language learning and production
- Book Review
- Nancy C. Dorian: Small-language fates and prospects. Lessons of persistence and change from endangered languages
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Language research and language community change: Italian Sign Language 1981–2013
- UK university students’ folk perceptions of spoken variation in English: the role of explicit and implicit attitudes
- Speaking or being Chinese: the case of South African-born Chinese
- Predictors of immigrants’ second-language proficiency: a Dutch study of immigrants with a low level of societal participation and second-language proficiency
- Second language development in a migrant context: Turkish community in the Netherlands
- The linguistic and political orientation of young Belarusian adults between East and West or Russian and Belarusian
- Studying sustainable bilingualism: comparing the choices of languages in Hungary’s six bilingual national minorities
- The language of power: a content analysis of presidential addresses in North America and the Former Soviet Union, 1993–2012
- Variation in Macau Cantonese: the case of initial and final segments
- Perceptions about being Japanese and Christian in Canada
- Language attrition, language contact and the concept of relic variety: the case of Barossa German
- Language competition: an economic theory of language learning and production
- Book Review
- Nancy C. Dorian: Small-language fates and prospects. Lessons of persistence and change from endangered languages