Interaction and Persuasion:An analysis of the use of rhetorical devices in Gordon Brown's speech to the Labour Party Conference, on September 25, 2006

This essay has identified and analysed rhetorical devices in Gordon Brown’s speech delivered at the Labour Party conference on September 25, 2006. The aim of the study was to identify specific rhetorical devices which are described as interactional resources, analyse their uses and discuss possible effects that they may have when included in a political speech. The results are based on my own interpretations but are supported by information provided in current literature by analysts and researchers of rhetoric use. The result findings could probably serve as evidence of the need for better understanding of the devices used by politicians in their relentless endeavours to influence audience decisions.

Ellipsis as a marker of interaction in spoken discourse

In this article, we discuss strategies for interaction in spoken discourse, focusing on ellipsis phenomena in English. The data comes from the VOICE corpus of English as a Lingua Franca, and we analyse education data in the form of seminar and workshop discussions, working group meetings, interviews and conversations. The functions ellipsis carries in the data are Intersubjectivity, where participants develop and maintain an understanding in discourse; Continuers, which are examples of back channel support; Correction, both self- and other-initiated; Repetition; and Comments, which are similar to Continuers but do not have a back channel support function. We see that the first of these, Intersubjectivity, is by far the most popular, followed by Repetitions and Comments. These results are explained as consequences of the nature of the texts themselves, as some are discussions of presentations and so can be expected to contain many Repetitions, for example. The speech event is also an important factor, as events with asymmetrical power relations like interviews do not contain so many Continuers. Our clear conclusion is that the use of ellipsis is a strong marker of interaction in spoken discourse.