engleski

Male and female rhetoric in political interviews

Early linguistic research has shown that some of the greatest differences between male and female speech style can be found at the discourse level. Different linguistic strategies depend on different social roles or different social positions of men and women. Furthermore, strategies used at a discourse level are often associated with power and solidarity. This paper focuses on political discourse or, more precisely, on rhetorical conversation (dialogue) form of a political TV interview. Considering the importance of social context and power relations in political speeches, two different aims have been set: 1) to research the manner in which speakers (journalists) communicate with men and women in the position of power(Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and President of the Republic of Croatia Kolinda Grabar Kitarović) ; 2) to investigate whether there are any differences in the argumentation depending on the speaker’s gender. The research results have shown that the speaker’s attitude towards the person in the position of power differs depending on the gender of that person as regards to interruptions and overlaps. Furthermore, it has been determined that the Prime Minister and the President use different argumentation methods and different logical fallacies when talking about same subjects referring to their mutual communication. The President uses fallacies such as phantom distinction, appeal to postponement or ad socordiam, exemplum in contrarium and argumentum ab utile.On the other hand, the Prime Minister uses appeal to postponement and sophisms, together with the priority argument (competition per importance), antiperistasis, and humour including irony. The Prime Minister’s choice of fallacies supports narrative expressing dominance.

political discourse, interview, maleand female rhetoric, fallacies, speech interruptions

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