February 2021
·
863 Reads
·
1 Citation
The use of rhetorical devices practiced in antiquity in Aristotle's time and reached to the present through Renaissance (Goodnight, 2014). These devices impart color to the meanings. The focus remains here on rhetorical devices as it has been the burgeoning interest of researchers. This paper tends to delve similes used by political leaders in their speeches. The present study probes into similes that are used by political leaders in their speeches. Firstly, similes are explored, and their structures are analyzed. Secondly, linking words (as and like) are taken as node words and each side of them is taken for structural analysis to find out phrases. Thirdly, this study explores the frequencies of linking words, as or like and structures at right and left collocates/context. Later, functions of the structural categories were analyzed. Structural categories including, noun phrase (NP) + node word + noun phrase and verb phrase (VP) + node word + NP. The corpus contains twenty speeches delivered by politicians in 20th century. The corpus of 74,470 words was built. We tagged whole data through TagAnt (Anthony, 2015). Later node words, like and as are analyzed through AntConc (Anthony, 2018). We selected only those occurrences where linking words as and like are served as simile. Findings reveal that NP + node word + NP and VP + node word + VP frequently occurred in selected corpus. In these two phrases, NP received high frequencies. Similarly, as occurred frequently than like. It was also kept under consideration that NP found both in right and left contexts of the node words while VP was found only in left contexts. The utmost use of these smiles revealed their functional features where they are used to convey different meanings. Exploring Simile in Political Speeches through Corpus Techniques PJAEE, 18 (4) (2021) 795 1. Introduction The word rhetoric goes back to trace its origin and history in ancient Greek as defined by Aristotle, rhetorical is usage of language for persuasion of audience and to impress them in favor of something or against something. According to Charteris-Black (2014), rhetoric is revised and practiced since Aristotle's time and is popular an academic discipline in American universities. Rhetoric is one of the most important persuasion keys for arousing human feeling for accepting or rejecting someone or something, that is done when words are used properly and have strong effective role in transmission of meaning with suitable situation and proper order. Moreover, Aristotle said that rhetoric should appeal to audience for convincing them in three different ways; ethos (to activate the speaker's character), pathos (to evoke the audience's emotion) and logos (to make logical connection between the previous two). He (Aristotle) also gave three categories for delivering speech: epidictic (a formal way of speech to blame or praise), forensic (speech in court which expresses someone/something guilt or innocence), and deliberative (that category appeals to audience to make decision about an issue). He further categorized rhetoric proofs in two kinds; enthymeme (to provide proofs by syllogism) and paradeigma (to give proof by example). Simile is frequently used device of figure of speeches, and always appears in English literature (Fengjie, Jia and Yingying 2016). According to Tilak (2007), simile is indirect comparison between two things or ideas that have shared qualities, but these things or events would have different kinds and the comparison between them would be vividly exposed. The present study attempts to analyze the structural features of similes in the speeches delivered on specific moments for political purpose. 2. Literature Review Khdair (2016) reflects that politicians use rhetorical devices as tools for different situations to convey their meaning very effectively but the sharpest one is repetition that they use purposely for an indirect way in the political discourse. Katrandjiev, Velinov and Radova (2016) work is based on advertising slogan, in which they identify different rhetorical figures and focus on their use and effective communication along with meaning and attraction. They explored that metaphor is the most frequently used in advertising slogan other than rest of rhetorical figures. Goodnight (2014) points out by saying that rhetoric is practiced in modern age, but it extended from classical through Renaissance. In modern, it appeals to special way of expression that cultivates practices for communication to achieve sustainable deep emotion of audience. To gain the support of audience is not secured by philosophy or mathematics, but it is rhetoric that must control the continual attention of audience. Similarly, another study based on persuasive rhetoric by Cirugeda and Ruiz (2013) explicates that Obama got deeper feeling of his audience by using rhetoric through which he persuaded them. He used these devices to understand them and made clear his political ideology. Most of the time he took conceptual metaphor along with other persuasive rhetoric as personification, repetition and synesthesia.