Language and Power: The Use of Persuasive Techniques in Iran and U.S. President Speeches

Abstract

The present article is about language and power, focuses on the speechmaking skills, and using persuasive techniques such as Simile and metaphor, Mixed metaphor or simile, Extended metaphor, Allusion, Lists of three, Repetition, Parallelism, Puzzled or redundant questions, Alliteration and Wordplay. For the sake of better analysis certain elements of this ability, a comparison between Iran President Mr. Rouhani and U. S. President Mr. Obama is made. Two speeches of two presidents are selected. The first two are in the same topic and the second two are in different topics. Each president is a strong personality in his own right, both leaders have manifested this ability and managed to persuade the masses about the correctness of their political steps; however their using of persuasive techniques differ dramatically, as it is attempted to support by analysis in this article. The results show that, usually they use the same techniques but Dr. Rouhani use more persuasive techniques than President Obama does. Dr. Rouhani uses Alliteration and President Obama uses Metaphor more than other techniques in their speeches. It can be said that using persuasive techniques is culture based.