Political discourse and its features in Barack Obama's 2011 speech to the British parliament

Abstract

Politics is a struggle to put certain political, economic and social ideas into practice. In this, language plays an important role because most political actions are accompanied by language. This paper deals with political discourse in general, its aims and purposes, and specifies various strategies, the purposes of which are to persuade the audience of the validity of the politician's views and to manipulate the audience. The practical part of the paper analyzes the speech of US President Barack Obama to the British Parliament, delivered in May 2011. It concentrates on selected rhetorical strategies, namely the use of pronouns, repetition and three part statements, and citations and quotations of other politicians. It also demonstrates how the same strategies were used by Ronald Reagan, who addressed the British Parliament nearly thirty years prior.