Rhetorical analysis of two motivational speeches in Croatia

Abstract

The paper examines two motivational speeches delivered by presidential candidates Zoran Milanović and Kolinda Grabar Kitarović during the 2019 presidential election campaign in Croatia. The emphasis is on the use of rhetorical operations and ideology-related vocabulary as a means of persuasion, as motivational speech aims to persuade an audience. The research begins by asking two research questions: RQ1) What principles of strategic communication do presidential candidates use to persuade audience to take a desired course of action? and RQ2) What incentive elements and rhetorical devices are used by each speaker to address the public? To answer the questions, two models of political discourse analysis are used: the persuasion and the lexical-argumentative model. The analysis is based on three hypotheses: H1) Motivational speech, as part of epideictic rhetoric, implements elements of persuasion, direction, intensity and persistence and involves not only linguistic, but also personal and psychological factors, H2) The characteristic structure of elements of incitement includes the use of positively and negatively charged words and phrases to reinforce the feeling of (non-)belonging to a group, and H3) Possible differences between motivational speeches are not gender specific, as both motivational speakers are career politicians with different political affiliations. Within the framework of two models of analysis, 20 excerpts representing 134 speech utterances are selected from each speech. The results show that (i) both motivational speakers use a variety of persuasive tools to attack the opponent(s), introduce electoral policies, legitimize their political positions, or define the ideological groups of belonging and (ii) there are both similarities and differences in the rhetorical design of the speeches analyzed, uncovering various patterns of judgment about political reality.