Although nationalist political parties are legitimate and terrorist groups are not, it is still remarkable that the rhetorical devices used by nationalist politicians are not notably different to...Show moreAlthough nationalist political parties are legitimate and terrorist groups are not, it is still remarkable that the rhetorical devices used by nationalist politicians are not notably different to the rhetorical devices used by terrorist groups. The political rhetoric of terrorist groups as well that of nationalist politicians strikes fear and fosters anger, targets minority groups and other nations, incites violence, and is exceptionally persuasive resulting in a high number of followers. The question then arises as to how similar is the rhetoric of nationalist politicians to the rhetoric of terrorist groups.Show less
The traditional hierarchy within the study of rhetoric changed with the introduction of the digital age. The Internet, and social media services such as Twitter in particular, have become so deeply...Show moreThe traditional hierarchy within the study of rhetoric changed with the introduction of the digital age. The Internet, and social media services such as Twitter in particular, have become so deeply integrated with our daily lives that we unconsciously have started to adapt to the very principle that characterizes the digital world: less is more. This paper investigates the theory that emotions now outweigh the importance of facts, and uses the recent victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 US Presidential Elections to illustrate this. It analyses 52 of Trump’s tweets, collected from both his campaign period and the first year of his presidency to support the claim that pathos has become the leading force in today’s rhetoric. Simultaneously, this paper suggests that that the reason why 140-character messages were able to dethrone years’ worth of studies is embedded in the concept of post-truth, and comments on the extent to which the Internet and social media are already capable of both influencing and giving shape to our thoughts.Show less
The term political correctness or being politically correct has been gaining more and more popularity the past twenty years and a lot of authors have written books about this subject (Conboy). Yet,...Show moreThe term political correctness or being politically correct has been gaining more and more popularity the past twenty years and a lot of authors have written books about this subject (Conboy). Yet, there does not seem to be any research on politically biased language and how this manifests itself in newspapers. Although there are books such as Jane Jackson’s Introducing language and intercultural communication and Carter & Nash’s Seeing through Language that talk about biased language there is no specific data to be found concerning politically biased language. Most research found focuses on politically correctness and on its use in campus newspapers such as Julie Hill Caldwell’s Campus speech codes: what ever happened to the 'sticks and stones' doctrine?, John Leo’s "political correctness" on campus, or fiction novels as in Gerald Cross’s Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know about what Editors Do. My method for this bachelor thesis will be corpus research. I will compare politically biased language use in English and Dutch newspaper articles by making use of corpus study. Specifically, I will attempt to compare, both quantitatively and qualitatively (topics, lexical and grammatical features), the use of politically biased language as well as typography in right-wing versus left-wing national English and Dutch daily newspapers, and for qualities versus populars. I expect to find a big difference in the use of politically biased language and biased methods used in both these countries newspapers. I also predict that UK daily newspapers will make use of far more politically biased language than the Dutch ones, “as English newspapers tend to be more explicit in their expression of political affiliation” (Oakland 236).Show less
