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Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 17:3 (2018) ► pp.343–365

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Evoking values or doing politics?

British politicians’ speeches at the national Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration

ORCiD logo with link | Loughborough University
Published online: 20 July 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.17066.ric
Abstract
This article analyses the rhetoric of speeches delivered by British politicians at televised national HMD commemorations. Following the recommendation of the Stockholm International Forum, since 2001, Britain has commemorated victims of the Holocaust and subsequent genocides every 27 January. The television broadcasts of the national commemoration both reflect and illuminate the complex processes of (national) histories, individual memory and collective remembrance, and the ways that they mediate and interact with each other in social and historic contexts. In addition to other genres (e.g. music, poetry readings, archival film), a speech is delivered by a prominent politician at each of these ceremonies. I argue that these speeches are examples of epideictic oratory, which provide politicians with the opportunity to communicate an understanding of the Holocaust as a catastrophe and a great affront to Our values. My rhetorical analysis focuses on the ways that politicians utilize two artistic means of persuasion: ethetic strategies, which place emphasis on their personal character; and logetic strategies, which aim to persuade through invoking arguments. I orientate to the ways that poorly selected ethetic and logetic strategies can disrupt the primary purpose of the epideictic speech: to communicate, and revivify, shared values.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The politics of commemoration
    • Epideictic rhetoric
  • Method and data
  • Ethos: Embodying values
  • Logos: Expressing values
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Century, Rachel, Isabel Wollaston & Alex Blake
2023. Testimony in Public Commemoration and Education for the United Kingdom’s Holocaust Memorial Day. In The Palgrave Handbook of Testimony and Culture, ► pp. 383 ff. DOI logo
Milani, Tommaso M. & John E. Richardson
2023. Discourses of collective remembering: contestation, politics, affect. Critical Discourse Studies 20:5 ► pp. 459 ff. DOI logo
Richardson, John E.
2021. Holocaust commemoration and affective practice: a rhetorical ethnography of audience applause. Social Semiotics 31:5 ► pp. 757 ff. DOI logo

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