A Systemic Functional Analysis of Dictators’ Speech: Toward a Move-based Model

Abstract

Political genre analysis has for a long time been the focus of attention for many scholars as they supply a rich source of discovery about the nature of language manipulation due to their organized and well-established structure. While politicians may be interested in how to gain support from the public, linguists and critical discourse, analysts might be interested in the way such support is enacted by language. Political language rhetoric has been studied from different perspectives and disciplines such as linguistics, anthropology, psychology, communication science, and discourse science .Much of the impetus behind such studies has been on divulging the language misuse and the way such misuse has been legalized. An invisible linguistic misconduct can be attributed to the so-called dictators’ speech. Dictators owe their states to words they use to legalize their misdeeds. In order to reveal their disguised intention and disclose their style and structure, this study is an attempt to decipher generic pattern of speeches delivered by some notorious dictators throughout history, Stalin, Gadhafi, and Hitler for instance. Using a Systemic Functional Grammar approach, 20 speeches were rhetorically analyzed which were resulted in a move-based model of the genre. The results reported in this study are accompanied by concrete examples along with a mixed method analysis. The findings can be of use both for applied linguists interested in discourse Analysis and language practionairs interested in the use of critical discourse approaches to the analysis of reading and writing skills.