Commemorative Speeches Research Articles

Genre of Discours de réception: Marguerite Yourcenar’s Speech upon her Election to French Academy and Gender Turn

This article analyzes the inaugural speech (discours de réception) delivered in 1981 by Marguerite Yourcenar, the first female writer elected as a member of the French Academy. Since the 17th century, such speeches have been mandatory for newly elected academicians, serving as a communicative product of academic speech practice. The study notes that commemorative speeches in honor of deceased members of the academy typically involve the use of praise as an evaluative strategy. Following the genre’s requirements, Marguerite Yourcenar addresses the conceptual space of “the value of literary heritage” of Roger Caillois, whose “academic chair” she was about to occupy as a new academician. In his work, she identifies authorial conceptual metaphors (such as “life is a game”: vie — jeu) that align with her own value system, confirming this alignment with examples from her own books or life experience. The article highlights authorial conceptual oppositions, including men — women (homes / femmes), friendship — hatred (amitié / haine), and life — death (vie / mort). As a newly elected academician, Marguerite Yourcenar perceives the French Academy as a scientific institution with both merits (Académie — science, littérature, connaissance) and shortcomings (Académie — préjugés, archaїsme), reflecting her personal position as well as her gender and social identity.

대통령의 국경일 연설문에 나타난 어휘 사용 양상

This study analyzes 76 commemorative speeches by South Korean presidents, focusing on Constitution Day, National Foundation Day, and Hangul Day. Among 28 Constitution Day speeches, key terms include “National Assembly, Republic of Korea,” “democracy, constitution,” and later, “unification, peace, autonomy.” Notable shifts occur, with “country's constitution” and “constitution establishment, constitution, North Korea” gaining prominence, followed by “democratic constitution,” “presidential election,” and “Republic of Korea.”
 National Foundation Day speeches (23 in total) highlight “Hongik Ingan, people, culture, history, authenticity,” transitioning to “unification, peace, North Korea, nation-building.” Early mentions of “North Korean Communist Group, national people, ethnic history, 60 million people” shift to focus on terms like “people, nation” later on.
 Hangul Day speeches (25 in total) feature evolving themes, from “scholar, culture, newspaper, national language, China” to emphasis on “King Sejong, cultural fi gure,” and eventually “culture, people, Hangul.” The 16th president's speeches uniquely emphasize “our language,” “King Sejong,” and “compatriots, Japanese colonial era Hangul, our language, Korean language.”
 The study extracts characteristic keywords using an algorithm, providing insights into presidential discourse on national holidays. However, interpreting their meaning solely based on data poses challenges. This research serves as a foundation, urging further studies for a clearer understanding of trends.

Aporia in Barack Obama’s 2016 Dallas Police Memorial Speech

ABSTRACT On 13 July 2016, President Barack Obama delivered a speech memorializing five police officers slain during a peaceful protest in downtown Dallas, Texas. Obama’s speech came on the heels of many other mass shootings, some associated with acts of racialized violence, during his administration. We argue that by deploying aporia, Obama addressed the conflicting constraints and exigencies exposed by the Dallas shooting and opened inventional possibilities that included virtuous behavior, commemorative speech, and dialogic-reciprocal encounters that also reappraised the concept of double consciousness. We conclude by exploring how aporia enables and undercuts discussions of complex social problems during epideictic encounters.

Metaphor use in describing English public speaking anxiety by Chinese university EFL learners

This study aims to explore English public speaking (EPS) anxiety among Chinese university students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) through mixed methods of analyzing elicited metaphors. Eight participants were invited to produce metaphors that presented their EPS anxiety in different speech types through journals and semi-structured interviews during one semester. Categorical data analysis and discourse analytic methods were employed to examine the relationships between the three-component construct of EPS anxiety, emotional valence, and speech types in participants’ metaphorical representations of EPS anxiety. There was no three-way interaction, but all three probable bivariate relationships between the three-component construct of EPS anxiety, emotional valence, and speech types were found to have possible significant correlations with corresponding effect sizes. The results indicated dynamic changes in the physiology, cognition, and behavior of students with EPS anxiety, reflecting varying attitudes towards EPS anxiety. It was found that students were more likely to describe their physiological experience by using metaphors in their first informative speech; they were more prone to employ metaphors to depict their cognitions in the following persuasive and commemorative speeches; descriptions of positive cognitions occurred more frequently than expected, and those with negative physiological depictions were overused. The study concludes with implications for improving the teaching of EPS courses in similar contexts.

Exhibiting Jasenovac: Controversies, manipulations and politics of memory

The Jasenovac Concentration Camp prevails as one of the most potent symbols that continues to fuel ideological and ethno-national divisions in Croatia and neighboring Yugoslav successor states. We argue that mnemonic actors who distort the history, memory, and representations of Jasenovac through commemorative speeches, exhibitions, and political discourse are by no means new. The misuses of the Jasenovac tragedy, vividly present during socialist Yugoslavia, continue to the present day. Drawing upon the history of mediating Jasenovac as well as recent examples of commemorative speeches and problematic exhibitions, this article highlights some of the present-day struggles surrounding this former campscape.

When invoked voices blame real politicians

Abstract This case study analyses the socio-pragmatic effects of invoked multiple voices in a commemorative speech delivered by Austrian writer Michael Köhlmeier on the occasion of the 2018 Austrian commemoration day against violence and fascism. Köhlmeier uses different forms of discourse representation to blame politicians of the then Austrian government for their political statements and actions. The focus of this article is on the speaker’s combination of (imagined and real) sources and forms of discourse representation, resulting in strategically deployed perspective shifts to express opposition and blame. Furthermore, the sociopragmatic functions of these rhetorical and textual strategies in the context of situation, as well as in the wider context of the Austrian culture of collective remembrance are explored, in particular by showing that by blaming actual Austrian politicians for their political statements and actions, the traditional consensual commemorative discourse is breached. This latter effect is probably responsible for the huge public attention the speech attracted in 2018.

Heroisation and victimisation: populism, commemorative narratives and National Days in Hungary and Poland

ABSTRACT Despite the significance of historical narratives on populism, the congruence between collective memory and scholarship regarding populism is scarce in Central and Eastern European countries. We address this gap by analysing the commemorative narratives of the competing populist right-wing political parties in Hungary and Poland promoted during celebrations for the Day of National Unity and National Independence Day celebration. The paper analyses the structure, content and functions of commemorative speeches to highlight the similarities and differences between the political actors under consideration. The findings reveal that victimisation and heroisation are constant and stable components of both countries’ political narratives. Moreover, the elements of populist communication are articulated alongside nationalist themes emphasising the greatness of the nation, historical revisionism or national Catholicism. The references to the people using ethno-cultural and exclusionary terms are of particular significance. Although praised and credited with positive qualities, the Polish and Hungarian peoples are more frequently presented as victims of international enemies, European elites or internal, cultural and political elites. This victimhood status allows political actors to both represent themselves as advocates of the people and legitimises their claims.

El culto a Juárez: La construcción retórica del héroe (1872–1976)

El culto a Juárez: La construcción retórica del héroe (1872–1976)

80 Years After – Ways to a common German-Polish Culture of Remembrance?

<p>The article analyses two speeches commemorating the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War, delivered by the German President Frank Walter Steinmeier and the Polish President Andrzej Duda. The authors examine the two texts and ask what aspects of World War II the politicians evoke in their speeches, what images of the Self and the Other are created and what goals are pursued. In the beginning, the article outlines the different meanings of World War II in Polish and German collective memory, and then it proceeds to briefly characterise the commemorative speech as a type of speech. A special emphasis is placed on the analysis of the perspectives underlying the speeches, including the theses presented, as well as on the comparison of the most important differences. </p>

Formation of life-purpose identity in adolescent and junior age

Research background: the concept of “identity” is defined as a property of the human psyche to express in a concentrated form how one perceives his/her affiliation to various social, economic, national, professional, linguistic, political, religious, racial and other groups or other communities, or a person’s acceptance of the properties inherent in these groups or communities. The life-purpose identity is a fundamental parameter for defining one’s place in life, one’s value orientations and, above all, for affiliating oneself with the major social values of the modern society. Purpose of the research: theoretical justification, experimental representation and technological support of the process of life-purpose identity formation in adolescent and junior age. Methods: theoretical analysis and study of psychological literature on the problem under discussion, which included generalisation, comparison and systematisation of the obtained data. Empirical data collecting methods (testing). Methods of mathematical statistics (λ-Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Student t-test, Pearson linear correlation r-coefficient), Leontyev’s life-purpose orientation test, Karpov’s methods for determining the individual measure of reflexivity, Stolin’s and Pantileev’s self-attitude method, Sharov’s ontology of personal myth of life. Results and novelty: the article makes an attempt to delineate the problem-plagued field of one’s life-purpose identity; gives a representation of diagnostic results, substantiates and develops the technological support for the formation of life-purpose identity in adolescent and junior age. The technology of commemorative practices is used as a framework (reading of authentic texts; practice of commemorative speeches; family saga; legendisation of hero’s image; “School is my home”; “Time machine”; “Memory dialogue”; “Planets of childhood”; background commemorative practices; calendar-specific commemorative practices and others).

외교관계에서의 국가 간 사과 전략 : 독일 전 현직·연방대통령들의 과거사 추모연설을 중심으로

외교관계에서의 국가 간 사과 전략 : 독일 전 현직·연방대통령들의 과거사 추모연설을 중심으로

American Studies, Sound Studies, and Cultural Memory

Each year on April 18, the city of San Francisco commemorates the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire with a series of elaborate and tightly scripted ceremonies. As one of the key events, the ceremony at Lotta's Fountain features, among others, commemorative speeches, the hanging of a memorial wreath, and the ceremonial wailing of fire sirens, followed by a minute of silence for the victims. The acoustic tension building up between the sirens' piercing warning sounds and the ensuing collective gesture of mournful quietude is subsequently resolved by the communal sing-along of the upbeat theme song "San Francisco" from the eponymous Academy Award-winning 1936 musical film. This performance seems to stand in stark contrast to the other events at the ceremony, which are painstakingly staged to appear historically accurate. Nonetheless, the anachronistic inclusion of the triumphant "San Francisco," written three decades after the earthquake and released in the context of a purely fictional narrative, fits the purpose of memorializing the 1906 earthquake, since it sonically embodies the "new" city's founding myth. San Francisco, especially its theme song, this article argues, memorializes the 1906 disaster as a social equalizer and a patriotic affirmation of American resilience by portraying the pre-earthquake city as a loud, decadent, and disorderly soundscape that only the earthquake could unite, refine, and ultimately Americanize.

Identity entrepreneurship in political commemorations: A longitudinal quantitative content analysis of commemorative speeches by leaders of parties in power and opposition before and during the Greek economic crisis

This study analyses quantitatively the content of thirty-nine political speeches made by political leaders of three political parties – New Democracy, Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) – of different status represented in the Greek parliament. The leaders of these parties release annual commemorative speeches of the restoration of Greek democracy on 24th July 1974. The focus of this study is on longitudinally analysing the content of commemorative speeches, looking at how political leaders communicate the historical event, by quantifying through a content analysis various forms of ingroups and outgroups in their annual commemorations. Such constructions were ventured during a period of 13 years, from 2004 to 2016, before and during the break out of financial crisis in 2010. Longitudinal quantitative content analysis identified differences in the use of we-referencing and they-referencing language, varying per status of parties and context of release of commemorative speeches. I view commemorative speeches as a non-neutral history-related business that requires mobilisation of audiences in different ways and different contexts. Implications of commemorating the historical past across time as institutional identity practice are discussed.

‘MAN KANN DER VERANTWORTUNG NICHT ENTRINNEN’: REMEMBERING ROSENSTRASSE SEVENTY‐FIVE YEARS ON

ABSTRACT27 February 2018 marked the seventy‐fifth anniversary of the Rosenstraße protest in Berlin against the feared deportation of intermarried German‐Jews. This article examines that anniversary, asking what it tells us about remembrance of the protest itself but also about memory trends more generally in a year filled with anniversary activity. It takes the commemorative speech delivered by Bundestag Vice President Petra Pau as the lens through which to analyse the shifting trends in remembrance and their implications. It argues that we are on the cusp of change, with a new memory contest emerging in which the populist right has begun re‐appropriating aspects of the past for their own ends but are contested in this, most notably by the left. Analysing the commemorative speech reveals how the anniversary of the Rosenstraße protest simultaneously ties into wider trends in remembering, through the evocation of Weimar Germany as well as notions of future foreboding, identified by Levi and Rothberg. The article illustrates how remembrance on the seventy‐fifth anniversary proved not only problematic and reductive, but that it also raises the question of whether in fact memory culture is already being shaped by the populist right and that this has gone unrecognised.

Commemorating Britishness during the centennial of the First World War: a comparative analysis of political commemorative speeches in Northern Ireland and in Scotland

ABSTRACT Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP MP for Lagan Valley, told Westminster on June 26th, 2014: “The future of Ireland was shaped not on the streets of Dublin in 1916, but on the muddy, blood-soaked battlefields of the Western front.” Two years later, Brexit negotiations started. These two seemingly unrelated events have strong implications for the definition of Britishness in the 21st century since the “Brexit question” provided the backdrop for the centenary of World War One. In Northern Ireland, the memory of the conflict has been deeply sensitive, and the question of the nationalist “amnesia” regarding the Irish soldiers involved alongside the British forces has been only recently addressed. May 1st, 2013 marked the start of the Decade of Commemorations in Ireland. This opportune time was supposed to be marked by inclusiveness and openness. This article aims to explore how discourse on Britishness as an overarching identity can accommodate co-existing nationalist narratives while preserving a common historical heritage. Comparing political commemorative speeches in Northern Ireland and in the rest of the United Kingdom, with a special emphasis on Scotland (where the Great War commemorations coincided with the referendum on independence), should provide an insight into the modern definition of Britishness.

Death as an Occasion to Celebrate Life. Commemorative Speeches at Funerals of Sibiu Personalities in the Interwar Period

Death as an Occasion to Celebrate Life. Commemorative Speeches at Funerals of Sibiu Personalities in the Interwar Period

Local and National Memories of WWII in a Transnational Age: the Case of Norway

This article discusses how the “unbound” and “multidirectional” memory of the Holocaust has contested, challenged, and reformed existing frames of memorialization of WWII in Norway. Through an analysis of the discussion on restitution, on Norwegian collaboration, on the establishment of Holocaust memorials and memorial sites, as well as an analysis of commemorative speeches, I show how the transnational memory of the Holocaust has transformed existing remembrance practices, however, without erasing or lifting national memory frames. For more than 50 years, Norway suffered from a “national consensus syndrome” in which the memory of the heroic Norwegian resistance during the 5 years of German occupation played a hegemonic role in Norwegian memory politics. The “global memory” of the Holocaust and the establishment of transnational memory networks such as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), however, have contested national memory practices, pushed to uncover Norwegian participation in the crimes of the past and for the incorporation of Holocaust remembrance into a wider concept of fighting for democracy and human rights. The site of the Akershus harbor and nearby fortress in Oslo is a striking example of that, as this article demonstrates. Moreover, adopting the transnational memory of the Holocaust and the universalistic perspectives of human rights and democratic values was not only a matter of memory politics. Adopting Holocaust memory and transforming existing remembrance practices became an essential part of Norwegian foreign policy and a legitimation of Norway’s moral integrity as an international actor.

Front and Back Covers, Volume 35, Number 1. February 2019

Front and back cover caption, volume 35 issue 1Front coverFASCISM ON THE RISE?This picture features activists of the Polish National Radical Camp (ONR) who are about to start a celebratory march commemorating the anniversary of the movement's establishment back in 1934. The march's point of departure was the premises of the Gdansk shipyard – a place that became well known in 1980s due to a series of anti‐regime protests by ‘Solidarity’ movement activists. The slogan above the gate reads: ‘Thank you for good work!’ (employees would see this slogan when leaving the premises, after their shift). The choice of place was far from coincidental.Polish mass media were quick to describe the anniversary as an attack on the memory of the Solidarity movement which, they emphasized, was the antithesis of fascism and which fought for liberalism. They also claimed that the march was a ‘reminiscence’ of September 1939 when Nazi Germany took over the Free City of Danzig (Gdansk).It is clear that the event was meant as a provocation and the organizers did not shy away from admitting it. Yet in his commemorative speech, the ONR leader referred explicitly to the events of 1980, reminding the gathered crowd that Solidarity fought for better work conditions, dignity and basic rights, and linked those arguments to a depiction of work conditions in the (present‐day) neo‐liberal system. He also emphasized that Solidarity brought about a revolution and that such a revolution is needed again today.His speech exemplifies well, a growing tendency for far‐right movements to draw explicitly on socialist ideas and return to the idea of ‘the third way’, observable in Poland and beyond. The event was attended by activists from abroad, among them Forza Nuova activists and Polish economic migrants living in the UK and Ireland.In this issue, Agnieszka Pasieka considers what it is like to study the ‘unlikeable’ other. Several other contributions also discuss how anthropology might position itself in relation to the trend towards extreme right‐wing politics worldwide.Back coverFIRE AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM, BRAZILOil painting, undated and without the artist's signature, which used to belong to the National Museum, Brazil, until the recent fire destroyed it. Depicted is a Bororo boy, baptized as Guido, who was adopted at approximately seven years of age by D. Maria do Carmo de Mello Rego, a lady of fine education, wife of the governor of Mato Grosso.Without children and of relatively advanced age, the couple treated Guido as if he were their own son. D. Maria do Carmo made great efforts to win his affection, teaching him to read and introducing him to the arts. For four years, from 1888 to 1892, Guido lived with her and her husband, first in Mato Grosso, then in the city of Rio de Janeiro until he died on a nearby farm due to natural causes, possibly pneumonia.Donated by D. Maria do Carmo before his death, this painting became part of one of the oldest National Museum collections composed of about 400 Indian artefacts she had gathered from Mato Grosso (the majority of these of Bororo origin), including an album with drawings and watercolours made by Guido and carefully arranged by her.Not only this painting, but the entire collection of ethnographic pieces and the album of drawings and watercolours were unfortunately destroyed by the fire.In this issue, Gemma Aellah and Jessica Turner interview João Pacheco de Oliveira, professor of anthropology and curator of ethnographic collections at the National Museum, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Political rhetoric and discursive framing of national identity in Croatia’s commemorative culture

Abstract The topic of this paper is framing of collective, national identities in commemorative speeches. It identifies abstract conceptions of Croatian national identity articulated by political elites during commemorative practices and examines what patterns are used for their linguistic expression. The questions that are posed are how Croatian nation and national identity are framed in discourse and whether constructs of national identity are formed depending on the context and on the party political affiliation of the speaker. However, the aim is also to track potential changes in elite narratives over time. The analysis is based on a corpus of commemorative speeches delivered by Croatia’s political elites on the occasion of celebration of the Croatian army victory in a military operation. The main focus is on the conceptual and linguistic analysis of the collective identities and sociocultural concepts in the staged communication during commemoration rituals.

The Controversial Commemoration: Transnational Approaches to Remembering Bleiburg

This article provides an overview on some of the key issues related to the Bleiburg commemoration and more broadly the cultural memory of Partisan crimes at the end of the Second World War. Drawing upon four years of fieldwork, media analysis, and recent historiographical debates, the authors take a transnational approach in examining why Bleiburg remains one of the most controversial commemorations not just in Croatia but in the region. The article focuses on historical narratives in the commemorative speeches, the role of space in shaping memory politics, symbols and monuments present at Bleiburg Field, and the broader context of how Austrian politics affects the commemoration and its public perception.