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A Linguistic Stylistic Analysis Of The Campaign Speeches Of Two Presidential Candidates In The 2011 Elections
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Talking
point is a succinct statement designed to persuasively support one side
taken on an issue. Such statements can either be free standing or
created as retorts to the opposition’s talking points and are frequently
used in public relations, particularly in areas heavy in debate such as
politics and marketing (Wikipedia).
However, in many elections, the
opposition party will try to get candidate “off message†by bringing up
policy or personal questions that are not related to the talking points.
Most campaigns prefer to keep the message broad in order to attract the
most potential voters. Unfortunately, a message that is too
narrow can alienate voters or show the candidate down with explaining
details. For example in the 2008 American presidential election John
McCain originally used a message that focused on his patriotism and
political experience. “Country Firstâ€; later the message was charged to
shift attention to his role as “The Original Maverick†within the
political establishment. Barack Obama ran on a consistent, simple
message of ‘change’ throughout his campaign. In other words, if the
message is created carefully, it will assure the candidate victory at
the polls.
In addition, in modern politics, the most high profile
political campaigns are focused on candidates for head of state or head
of government, often a President or Prime-Minister (Wikipedia). This was
the situation in Nigeria in the 2011 presidential campaign.
Kessel,
(1998:79) observes those substandard differences that exist between
nomination politics and electoral politics. He says nomination campaigns
are aimed at getting delegates but electoral campaigns are aimed at
winning votes and are party wide and nationwide. This takes off fully
after the acceptance speech, division is put aside, and the party is
transformed into a victory rally. He further explains that the
presidential candidate is joined by the vice presidential candidate, and
both are joined by their families. Other party leaders, those who have
held key positions and others who have sought the nominations
themselves, make appearances at the presidential campaigns to symbolize
the party wide support to be given the nominee.
Also important is
that campaign in politics has assumed a complex dimension in recent
years due to the major breakthrough in Information and Communication
Technology (ICT). Unlike the campaigns in the past, advances in media
technology have streamlined the process, thereby giving candidates more
options to reach even larger groups of constituents with very little
physical effort.
This claim is further supported by Oota, (2011:1)
that in advanced democracies, particularly in the United States of
America, oration and conduct at debates and rallies are some of the
benchmarks used to gauge the popularity of all those seeking political
offices. Suffice it to say that packaging of campaigns in terms of
slogans and contacts are also the main key in advanced democracies and
this window of popularity and acceptability was well explored by the
current president of the USA, Barack Obama through his grassroots
mobilization of the people. We can say that to some extent the
presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Nigeria,
Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan employed a similar campaign pattern, as in
the neighbour to neighbour campaign advertisement and the frequent
sophisticated electronic campaign.
Advertising campaign is another
form of campaign which is similar to political campaign in terms of its
language use. It is a planned and organized series of actions intended
to achieve a specific goal, especially fighting for or against something
or raising people’s awareness of something. Wright (1983:8) remarks
that advertising is a powerful communication force and a vital marketing
tool helping to sell goods and services, image and ideas. Similarly,
Roderick (1980:4) defines advertising as “a message specified by its
originator, carried by a communication system intended to influence
and/or inform an unknown audience.
However, military campaign tends
to address a series of military or terrorist operations taking place in
one area over a period, intended to achieve a specific objective. It is
related to the political campaign in terms of military coup speeches and
military heads of state’s speeches as the purpose is political and
having some elements of political language (Abaya 2008:2).
Finally,
there is a common thought unit on the definitions of political,
advertising, and military campaigns that is geared towards achieving a
specific goal. The study of the presidential campaign speeches is
concerned with the political campaign speech types, to seek votes.In
particular, the linguistic stylistic analysis of the speeches of the
presidential candidates of the two opposing parties, Goodluck Ebele
Jonathan of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Gen. Muhammadu Buhari
Rtd. of Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), will be carried out.
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