PERSUASION, IDEOLOGY AND POWER IN SELECTED CAMPAIGN SPEECHES OF 21ST CENTURY U.S PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Abstract

Political speech is a powerful tool of proclaiming power, persuading the populace, propagating ideology and imposing moral codes. This paper explores the relationship between power, persuasion and ideology in electoral speeches of 21st century American presidents critically. The paper aims to present, rhetoric angles and utilitarian concepts in examining the role of persuasive discourse within the democracy, power building, and strengthening ideological regimes within the United States. The current research uses Critical Discourse Analysis approach (CDA) with a theoretical framework based on Fairclough three-dimensional model (1995) in exploring discursive practices, persuasive methods to establish authority, projecting political forces and influencing masses in political campaigns. It also tries to unravel the qualities of deeper ideological substructures and their adopted national values in presidential speeches. This research takes a qualitative interpretive/ explanatory design to concentrate on textual analysis, discursive practice and socio-cultural practice. A purposive sample of 3 electoral speeches of 3 American presidential electors in 21^st century (1 each) of an official site, “The American Presidency Project has been taken and is used to analyse the main rhetorical tools, including pronouns, transitivity, metaphors, hyperbole, modality, repetition and evaluative language to uncover lexical patterns that may play a role in shaping the discourse of politics. This research will reveal the use of linguistic and rhetoric to build authority in line with national principles, shape discourse and ideologies that can convince people to form opinions based on what the speaker believes. By incorporating both rhetorical analysis and linguistic powerplay, the research adds to the body of knowledge and makes donations to the field of political discourse analysis, Critical Discourse Analysis, persuasive appeals and rhetorical studies.