Article Evoking values or doing politics V3 final.pdf (519.97 kB)
Evoking values or doing politics? British politicians’ speeches at the national Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration
journal contribution
posted on 2018-09-24, 08:55 authored by John RichardsonThis 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.
Funding
This research was funded by a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship.
History
School
- Social Sciences
Department
- Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies
Published in
Journal of Language and PoliticsVolume
17Issue
3Pages
343 - 365Citation
RICHARDSON, J.E., 2018. Evoking values or doing politics? British politicians’ speeches at the national Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration. Journal of Language and Politics, 17 (3), pp.343-365.Publisher
© John BenjaminsVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Acceptance date
2018-02-21Publication date
2018Notes
This paper was published in the journal Journal of Language and Politics and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.17066.ric. © John Benjamins Publishing Company. The publisher should be contacted for permission to re-use or reprint the material in any form.ISSN
1569-2159eISSN
1569-9862Publisher version
Language
- en