engleski

Leading the Winning Symphony: A Rhetorical Analysis of Figurativeness within Croatian Presidential Speeches

Executive function of Croatian presidents is restricted due to a parliamentary political system established in 2000 and mostly has just protocolary role. Nevertheless, presidents have power with public opinion and power to persuade according to their ability to perform and speak publicly. According to Windt (1986) presidential rhetoric is a study of how presidents gain, maintain, or lose public support. Rhetorical figures are common devices in structuring a political discourse and are wildly used by politicians in order to persuade their audience, both voters and followers. They are intentional deviation from ordinary language, chosen to produce a rhetorical effect. Wording, on the other hand are defined as particular choices and meanings of the words used when talking or writing. By these means, politicians evoke positive emotions in their audience, making them more respondent to the actions they want to be undertook. As Osborn (1997) suggests, metaphor motivates the audience and that's where the persuasive power lays. The aim of this research is to examine the use of rhetorical figures and wording within the speeches of four Croatian presidents: Franjo Tuđman, Stjepan Mesić, Ivo Josipović and Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović in order to determine and describe the rhetorical figures and wording specific for each president as well as the rate of expressiveness of their rhetoric. The hypothesis of this paper is that the rhetoric of individual presidents is specific and recognizable according to the semantic field of metaphors they use in speeches. The corpus for the analysis includes transcripts of selected speeches of four Croatian presidents, delivered in various rhetorical situations in a historical array from 1991 to 2019. The topics of the selected speeches follow the main topics Bebić and Volarević (2016) suggest as crucial in the Croatian presidential agenda: economy, domestic policy, democracy, regional relations, national history, national elements, international relations, the European Union and the NATO as well as ceremonial speeches and holiday greetings. The methodology applied in this research is based on the Critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the authentic presidential speeches. Preliminary results show that metaphors use by Croatian presidents as dream, journy, path, house, battle, etc. can be seen a part of a common political jargon, while some metaphors as symphony, are from specific for individual presidential biographies.

presidential rhetoric ; Croatian presidents ; figurativeness ; wording ; metaphors

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