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Article published In: Cognitive Perspectives on Political Discourse
Edited by Pascal Fischer and Christoph Schubert
[Journal of Language and Politics 13:2] 2014
► pp. 289–312

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Addressee orientation in political speeches

Tracing the dialogical ‘other’ in argumentative monologue

 | University of Reading |
Published online: 29 August 2014
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.13.2.05sch
This article suggests that the addressees as the dialogical ‘other’ loom large in monological political speeches. However, political speeches are produced under conditions of addressee heterogeneity, i.e. the speakers do not actually know who they will be talking to. It will be argued that the addressees are nevertheless a crucial element in speakers’ context models, that speakers orientate towards imagined addressees and that certain aspects – what possible addressees may do, think or believe and that they are a part of an imagined community – are particularly relevant from the speakers’ point of view. An analysis of addressee orientation in political speeches aims at reconstructing speakers’ conceptualisations of possible addressees. The analysis reveals patterns of addressee orientation which suggest that the addressees are framed in terms of epistemic proximity, i.e. presumed nearness (agreement) or distance (disagreement) to the speakers. Both presumed agreement and disagreement will be discussed in terms of how the speakers aim to impose their default perspectives on the addressees. The analysis is based on examples from a substantial corpus of German chancellors’ political speeches from 1951–2001.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The addressees – who?!
    • 2.1Conceptualising the addressees as part of the context
    • 2.2Framing the addressees in political speeches
    • 2.3Tracing the addressees in political speeches
  • 3.What’s on their minds?
    • 3.1Presuming nearness/agreement
    • 3.2Dealing with distance/disagreement
  • 4.What are they doing?
    • 4.1Presuming nearness/agreement
    • 4.2Dealing with distance/disagreement
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
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