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Article published In: Spanish in Context
Vol. 18:2 (2021) ► pp.192–217

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Political persuasion in a Spanish electoral debate

Intonation and affectivity in openings and closings

 | Universidad Complutense de Madrid
 | Universidad Carlos III Madrid
Published online: 9 April 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.18012.hid
Abstract
In this paper, we study the elements of political discourse where persuasion is present as communicative strategy. In particular, we focus on the analysis of intonation and affectivity in a two-candidate Spanish electoral debate (Hidalgo Downing, Raquel, and María Jesús Nieto y Otero. 2014. “Estrategias de vinculación afectiva y entonación en un debate político.” Oralia 171: 211–237.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Ponsonnet, Maïa. 2014. The Language of Emotions: The case of Dalabon (Australia). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Reber, Elisabeth. 2012. Affectivity in Interaction: Sound Objects in English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar).The methodology consisted in selecting the openings and closings of each turn, taking the act as analysis unit (Briz, Antonio. 2003. “Un sistema de unidades para el estudio del lenguaje coloquial.” Oralia 61: 7–61.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar); for the acoustic analysis we have examined three parameters – fundamental frequency, intensity and vowel durations –, and four strategies for the positive affective bonds: assertiveness, inclusion, specificity and naturalization, in order to pursue the initial hypothesis on whether it is possible to find relations between intonation and affectivity. The analysis shows that both candidates use affective bonds and intonation to enhance persuasion, although there are interesting differences between candidates and between openings and closings. While openings show greater number and variety of strategies, both verbal and intonational, closings show lower intonational contours and less variation, therefore openings showing higher use of positive persuasive strategies, whereas in closings, there are no strategies addressed to the hearer, the most frequent being assertiveness. As for intonational contours, there is a general lowering in all values.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Affectivity in political discourse
    • 2.1Categories and functions of affectivity in discourse
  • 3.The study of intonation and its expressive function
  • 4.Data, methodology, and context
  • 5.Results and discussion
    • 5.1Linguistic affective bonds used in persuasion
      • 5.1.1Openings
      • 5.1.2Closings
    • 5.2Acoustic analysis of openings and closings and correlations with affective bondings
      • 5.2.1Acoustic analysis of openings
      • 5.2.2Closings
    • 5.3Correlation between affective bonds strategies and intonation in both candidates
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
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