Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2020 im Fachbereich Anglistik - Linguistik, Note: 2,0, Universität Bielefeld (LiLi Fakultät), Veranstaltung: Language&Power, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: Johnson and Trump held their first official speeches in office under different circumstances. But both of them had the same goal: Convincing the people to follow them. How did they do that? Which rhetoric devices did they use and how did they differ? Politicians need to convince people to elect them, if they want to be successful. Nowadays there are various channels through which to reach potential followers, all of which have one thing in common: they use language to communicate. The possibilities vary from written texts published through different online media channels to podcasts and official speeches made in public and with press attendance. One presentation of a speech that is always highly attended is usually the first one given after a head of state is elected. Prior to this, during an election campaign, politicians need to convince a certain number of people in order to win the election. After the politician is elected, everybody, even those who voted for someone else, listen to the new leader of a country to figure out what this election could bring about.

Exploring speeches by public figures such as Emma Watson, Tony Blair, Donald Trump, Julia Gillard and Lady Gaga, this engaging textbook explains the ways in which political speeches can be analysed. It examines the role of language in speeches and how it can be used to challenge or reinforce prevailing social, cultural and political attitudes. Each chapter introduces a particular discourse approach and then applies this in a model analysis of a passage of text. The chosen texts concern issues of social, cultural and political importance that address topics of significant importance to the audience to which they were delivered. Students are encouraged to engage with the text and consider how approaches to text analysis, such as cohesion, context analysis and metaphor analysis, may be adapted to provide a more critical perspective. This text will be essential reading for students of English language, linguistics, communication studies and politics on critical discourse and discourse analysis modules.

Working in the tradition of analytic philosophy, Alexander Brown argues that many different forms of political communication (or anti-communication) that often infuriate the public can also be ethically or morally objectionable. These forms include question dodging, offering scripted answers, stonewalling, not listening, disseminating propaganda, pandering, being insincere, giving false denials, issuing revisionist interpretations, refusing to take responsibility, never apologising, boasting, and gaslighting. Brown invokes a host of normative reasons including those having to do with epistemic arrogance, interference in autonomy, and violating the right to be heard. This is not to say that, all things considered, politicians should never engage in dubious political communication. Sometimes these are necessary evils. Brown argues, however, that further moral inquiry is needed to show why they are evils, and to determine when the use of these rhetorical tactics can be excessive, unreasonable, or out of place. Key Features: • Identifies and conceptualises forms of dubious political communication • Develops an ethical evaluation of political communication • Considers possible justifications for the use of dubious political communication • Makes practical recommendations on how to regulate unethical political communication

Freedom of speech and extremism in university campuses are major sources of debate and moral panic in the United Kingdom today. In 2018, the Joint Committee on Human Rights in Parliament undertook an inquiry into freedom of speech on campus. It found that much of the public concern is exaggerated, but identified a number of factors that require attention, including the impact of government counter-terrorism measures (the Prevent Duty) and regulatory bodies (including the Charity Commission for England and Wales) on freedom of speech. This book combines empirical research and philosophical analysis to explore these issues, with a particular focus on the impact upon Muslim students and staff. It offers a new conceptual paradigm for thinking about freedom of speech, based on deliberative democracy, and practical suggestions for universities in handling it. Topics covered include: The enduring legacy of key thinkers who have shaped the debate about freedom of speech The role of right-wing populism in driving moral panic about universities The impact of the Prevent Duty and the Charity Commission upon Muslim students, students’ unions and university managers Students’ and staff views about freedom of speech Alternative approaches to handling freedom of speech on campus, including the Community of Inquiry This highly engaging and topical text will be of interest to those working within public policy, religion and education or religion and politics and Islamic Studies.

Crowds, Community and Contagion in Contemporary Britain presents the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to re-assess the neoliberal politics, xenophobia and racism that have undermined community cohesion in the United Kingdom since 1979, and which have continued largely unchecked through the last four decades. Guided by three interconnected ideas used throughout to scrutinise the meaning of culture as a way of life – Welsh cultural theorist Raymond Williams’ structure of feeling, Jamaican-British sociologist Stuart Hall’s conception of the conjuncture and Belgian political philosopher Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic pluralism – Sarah Lowndes finds that a renewed sense of mutual regard and collective responsibility are necessary to meet the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. She begins by reflecting on public gatherings in Britain from 1945 to 2019, moving on to analyse five key examples of public gatherings affected by the pandemic in 2020 onwards: Chinese New Year, the UEFA Champions League Final, VE Day street parties, Black Lives Matter demonstrations, and the cancellation of Eid ul-Adha celebrations. A thorough examination of how ideas proliferate and spread through our society, public sphere and collective consciousness, this book will appeal to scholars and upper-level students of cultural studies, cultural history, sociology and politics.

This book examines the recent trend in global cinema to feature infectious disease. As the global crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic materialised the anxieties and discourses of world risk that had long been portrayed in popular media, the book provides a novel definition of the epidemic film genre and offers a systematic look into the narrative and stylistic conventions that characterise it. Epidemic Cinema traces the evolution of the genre from its early cinematic origins to establish the founding principles of a genre standing at the crossroads between science-fiction and horror. It draws on close textual analysis to show how the pandemic reified one of the central predicaments of epidemic narratives: the constant tension existing between free-floating phenomena and the impulse to control and resist such phenomena, ultimately epitomised by the trope of the border. Showing how infectious diseases offer a rich allegorical frame which cinema uses to articulate timely anxieties of growingly invisible and deterritorialised risks, the author presents the prevalence of contagion in popular culture as a symptom of this growingly viral and virus-ridden context, both in its most literal and metaphorical sense. This insightful study will interest students and scholars of film studies, global cinema, science-fiction, horror, popular culture and genre theory.

This edited collection provides an in-depth, interdisciplinary critique of the acts of public communication disseminated during a major global crisis. Encompassing contributions from academics working in the fields of politics, environmentalism, citizens’ rights, state theory, cultural studies, journalism, and discourse/rhetoric, the book offers an original insight into the relationship between the various social forces that contributed to the ‘Covid narrative’. The subjects analysed here include: the performance of the ‘mainstream’ media, the quality of political ‘messaging’ and argumentation, the securitised state and racism in Brazil, the growth of ‘catastrophic management’ in UK universities, emergent journalistic practices in South Africa, homelessness and punitive dispossession, the pandemic and the history of eugenics, and the Chinese media’s attempt to disguise discriminatory practices. This is one of the first comparative studies of the various rationales offered for state/corporate intervention in public life. Delving beneath established political tropes and state rhetoric, it identifies the power relations exposed by an event that was described as unprecedented and unique, but was in fact comparable to other major global disruptions. As governments insisted on distinguishing their own propaganda from unregulated disinformation, their increasingly sceptical ‘publics’ pursued their own idiosyncratic solutions to the crisis, while the apparent sacrifice of a host of citizens – from the most dedicated to the most vulnerable – suggested that inequality and exploitation remained at the heart of the social order. Power, Media, and the Covid-19 Pandemic is essential reading for students, researchers and academics in media, communication and journalism studies, politics, environmental sciences, critical discourse analysis, cultural studies, and the sociology of health.

This collection advocates languages-based, translational research to be part of the partnerships and collaborations required to make sense of, and respond to, COVID-19 as one of the major global challenges of our time. Bringing together scholars and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines, this volume is bound by a common thread stressing the importance of linguistic sensitivity, (inter)cultural knowledge and translational mediation in the frontline response to COVID-19. Featuring contributors from around the world and reflecting on the language used to frame COVID-19 in diverse cultural contexts of the Global North and Global South, the book proposes that paying attention to the transmission of ideas, ideologies, narratives and history through processes of translation results in a broadening of social, cultural and medical understandings of COVID-19. Spanning nearly 20 signed and spoken languages, the volume argues that only in going beyond an Anglophone perspective can we better understand the cultural, social and political facets of the pandemic and, in turn, produce a comprehensive, efficient global response to disease management. This book will be of interest to scholars in translation and interpreting studies, modern languages, applied linguistics, cultural studies, Deaf Studies, intercultural communication and medical humanities.