The Power of Rhetoric. Unpacking Political Speeches and their role in conflict escalation
Master thesis
Permanent lenke
https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3163963Utgivelsesdato
2024Metadata
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Sammendrag
This master thesis describes how rhetoric is used by politicians to persuade audiences during ethnic conflict. I propose that specific linguistic features employed by Albin Kurti and Aleksandar Vučić in speeches from different interviews for international media have affected the dialogue and conflict between Kosovo and Serbia. Based on qualitative analysis of the speeches and interviews with experts, the finding suggests that their rhetoric has polarized the division between the two societies. Following rhetorical theory, rhetorical situation Charteris-Black’s framework about metaphor I manually coded twelve Kurti’s and Vučić’s speeches (six each) and found different metaphors and linguistic features employed in their speeches. Apart from metaphor, Kurti and Vučić applied other linguistic features such as repetition, irony, pronouns and loaded language. Furthermore, I argue that all these linguistic elements employed by both politicians have helped them build their rhetorical strategies and heighten the rhetorical effect of their speeches. This thesis aims to provide valid insights into how politicians employ rhetoric during ethnic conflicts and I hope this work inspires other researchers to start working with rhetoric in conflict processes.