Concession Speech Research Articles

Sparky and Rhonda Rucker at Govans Music Mondays

Sparky and Rhonda Rucker at Govans Music Mondays

Aggression and Banter as (de)legitimisation Strategies in Political Debate

Political debate is an emerging culture in Nigerian politics, aimed at fostering popular democracy, and presenting candidates to electorates to make their choice. But it is likewise a platform for exchanging cynic comments and banters, especially between the contestants, most of the two dominant political parties in Nigeria, the All-Progressive Congress (APC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). This has not been sufficiently researched in studies on political discourse. Extant studies have focused on campaign speeches, acceptance, and concession speeches, among others, using speech acts, socio-stylistics, and critical discourse analysis. This study investigates the comments and rebuttals of Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu of the APC, and Governor Godwin Obaseki of the PDP, in the 2020 Edo Governorship Debate. It adopts implicature, explicature and pragmatic acts as theories to, qualitatively, analyse the downloaded and transcribed excerpts from Channels Television’s website, where they were televised to reach millions of people, both in local and international spaces. The results show that both conventional and conversational implicature, and explicature were employed by both aspirants to achieve party and self legitimisation, supremacism, cynicism, and criticism. These are used as campaign strategies. The study concludes that the contestants in the Edo 2020 political debate made it about themselves and their parties. Aggression is initiated and managed as a debate-campaign strategy to canvas for the electorates’ votes.

A Comparative Analysis of Hillary Clinton and John Mahama’s Concession Speeches in the 2016 US and Ghanaian Presidential Elections

Comparative research contributes to knowledge by providing a better understanding of how a phenomenon manifests in different socio-cultural contexts. In this present study, we examined the concession speeches of Hillary Clinton (United States, Democratic Party) and John Mahama (Ghana, National Democratic Congress, NDC) in the aftermath of their 2016 electoral defeats. Findings indicated that three similar frames emerged between the two candidates. Hillary Clinton’s frames included: acknowledging pain and acceptance, democracy, values and nationalism, and gratitude. John Mahama’s frames had: acceptance and concern, appreciation, unity, democracy, and nationhood. Both candidates accepted the electoral outcome, showed gratitude, and reaffirmed their belief in democracy and unity. However, there were slight differences. Hillary Clinton’s frame on acknowledging pain and acceptance had a more open, forthright recognition of being hurt in a way that enabled her to process the loss and pain. Findings from this study provide insights into recent concession speeches across two socio-cultural and continental divides, which builds on literature in framing and political communication.

Interactional Linguistic Resources in Concession Speeches: An appraisal of Selected Political Leaders in Ghana and the United States of America

The purpose of the study was to examine the interactional linguistic resources in concession speeches of Selected Political Leaders in Ghana and the United States of America. The past three decades have witnessed an increasing scholarly interest in political discourse. Despite this, concession speeches have received limited scholarly attention. This study, therefore, comparatively analyzed the concession speeches delivered by John Dramani Mahama and Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo-Addo of Ghana and Hillary Clinton and Al Gore of the United States of America. Speech Act and Metadiscourse Interactionist Theories were used to examine the interpersonal linguistic resources found in the speeches. The speeches, were analyzed qualitatively. The study concluded that speakers of CSs in the two different cultural contexts use similar statements, as has already been discussed earlier in this study. For instance, the four losing candidates used almost the same interpersonal linguistic resources (hedges, boosters, self-mention, attitude markers, and engagement markers) to establish a bond between them and their interlocutors and supporters. It is recommended that, concession speeches (CSs) to be studied from other theoretical perspectives, this will allow for a detailed analysis of a wider range of linguistic resources such as noun phrases, verb phrases, and the use of adjuncts, beyond the SAs in CSs in order not to treat them as mere rhetoric in politics.

A Critical Discourse Analysis of Donald Trump’s Concession Speech after the Capitol Riots

A Critical Discourse Analysis of Donald Trump’s Concession Speech after the Capitol Riots

All intersectionality is not the same: Why Kamala Harris is our vice president and not Stacey Abrams

ABSTRACT In his campaign for president, Joseph R. Biden emerged as a frontrunner after pledging to select a vice president who has a different identity than his own. As the most loyal demographic for the Democratic Party, choosing a Black woman as a nominee for vice president challenges previous understandings of presidentiality. Pressure to select a Black woman vice president also exposes how intersectionality can differ in political decision-making, as Kamala Harris's version of intersectionality stands out to Biden compared to others. This article examines two performative events: Kamala Harris’s election-night victory speech and Stacey Abrams’s non-concession concession speech, to understand why Harris’s brand of intersectionality, and not Abrams’s, resonated more with the Biden campaign. Representing two different forms of intersectionality, both speeches centralize race and gender, shifting how we understand the 2020 presidential election alongside a long tradition of racial exclusion. As we reflect on the implications of the previous presidency, remarks from both Stacey Abrams and Kamala Harris remind us of the extent to which Black women have fought against a white supremacist system and how versions of intersectionality are not the same.

Linguistic Representations in Selected Presidential Concession Speeches

Linguistic Representations in Selected Presidential Concession Speeches

Ý nghĩa thái độ trong bài phát biểu nhượng quyền của Hillary Clinton: Phân tích theo Thuyết Đánh giá

The purpose of the study is to describe and analyze Hillary’s Presidential Concession Speech made on November 9th, 2016 with a view to know how Hillary construed attitudial meanings in the speech. The framework used for data analysis is the Appraisal theory of Martin and White (2005). The study only focuses on Attitude which is one of the three subsystems within Appraisal Theory. The results show that Hillary made use of different kinds of attitudial meanings in the speech: Affect, Judgement and Appreciation in order to achieve her aim of connecting effectively with her audience.

Uncovering "Hidden Messages" in Hillary Clinton's Concession Speech Post-Presidential Defeat: A Critical Discourse Analysis

<p>Due to a narrative that speeches may assist with understanding gender identity indexical(s) in politics, this study aims to discover such meanings underneath the text production of Hillary Clinton’s concession speech post-defeat in the latest US presidential election. Through Critical Discourse Analysis – Text as A Critical Object (CDA – TACO), it seems evident in Hillary Clinton’s speech that there are patriotic lexical choices, parallelism, alliteration, anthropomorphization, and repetition for emphasis, personal pronoun “I” and “my”, suggesting a certain degree of assertiveness, which are generally specific to male politicians (Reyes, 2015). There is a marked use of collective pronoun “we”, “our”, connoting a level of intimacy between the speaker and audience, interestingly however, evidenced not only on Clinton’s speech but male politicians as wel, thus rendering it gender-neutral. Evidences of backgrounding, thus distancing self, when the politician utters disappointments are noticeable. Findings partially prove that gender-driven lexical choice by Hillary Clinton noticeably conforms to those of male orators in politics, although most of her expressions suggest commonality of political speeches. Limitations of the study are put forth.<strong></strong></p><strong>Keywords:</strong> gender; politics; identity indexical(s); CDA

An Analysis of Illocutionary Acts of Hillary Clinton’s Concession Speech to Donald Trump in Presidential Election

Illocutionary Acts is what the speaker wants to achieve by uttering something, and illocutionary acts is an utterance which has a particular conventional force. About this, illocutionary acts in Hillary Clinton’s speech is interesting to be analyzed. The purpose of this research is to analyze the types of illocutionary acts found in Hillary Clinton’s concession speech to Donald Trump. The writer used descriptive qualitative research. The main research instrument was the writer herself supported by the data analysis sheet. The data analysis was performed by categorizing the data based on Searle’s categorization of speech acts (2005) which include assertive, directives, commissives, expressive and declarative speech acts. Each category was thoroughly observed to find the answer of the research questions. The final step was presenting the data and making a conclusion in reference to the findings of the research. The research findings show that the types of illocutionary acts found in Hillary Clinton’s concession speech to Donald Trump consist of assertives, directives, commissives, expressives and declaratives. Assertions have the highest frequency of occurrence 13 types (36.1%). It is followed by directives, commissives, expressives and declaratives which occur 9 types (25%), 3 types (8.3%), 9 types (25%) and 2 types (5.6%) respectively. The dominant illocutionary acts in Hillary Clinton’s speech are assertives. Assertation showed the highest frequency of assertives. So, the total of data were 36 types of illocutionary acts founds in Hillary Clinton’s concession speech to Donald Trump.

The Last Wild Passenger Pigeon Makes Her Concession Speech, and: After the Blight

The Last Wild Passenger Pigeon Makes Her Concession Speech, and: After the Blight Kathleen Brewin Lewis (bio) THE LAST WILD PASSENGER PIGEON MAKES HER CONCESSION SPEECH My mother called me Piqua, as she bentover our warm whorl with bits of worm. A word she taught me: flock.How I dreamt of them, a feathered risingabove the trees, cries of coo-roo coo-roo.Safety in numbers, winged joy! They hunted us, devoured us.One day we were gone. I combedthe woods for markings like mine:blue-gray head, rosy breast, graceful neck.I called into the deep hush. I have lost the race. [End Page 20] AFTER THE BLIGHT after Anya Silver The poem was the wood and the way out of the wood.The poet wound her way through a forest,up to the porch of an old cabin, its floor plankedwith chestnut cut and planed before the blight,back when the trees cast shady alcoves,sheltered songbirds. (Remember the smellof roasting chestnuts?) She napped on the porch,on the smooth planks, rose to gather fresh words,plucked them from the limbs of the ghost trees,lined up the words, sent the poem downstream,out of the wood and into the field,which was full of light. [End Page 21] Kathleen Brewin Lewis Kathleen Brewin Lewis is the author of two chapbooks of poetry, Fluent in Rivers and July's Thick Kingdom. Her writing has also been published in Southern Poetry Review, Southern Humanities Review, Tar River Poetry, Cider Press Review, and Still: The Journal. Copyright © 2019 Berea College

Psycholinguistic features of political leader speech

Political language has always been an important socio-cultural phenomenon. The article focuses on some psycholinguistic aspects of a political leader speech. Attention is paid to the psycholinguistic methodology of studying aspects of political leader speech peculiarities. The analysis is based on Hillary Clinton’s concession speech. The purposes of the article are to analyze the speech of the American political leader from the point of view of psycholinguistics and characterize the psychological state of the political individual during her speech. It has been established that the speech is characterized by long and complex sentences, which indicates a slight emotionality of the speaker. The vocabulary diversity coefficient is high enough and indicates the richness, diversity and eloquence of the language policy. The verb correlation coefficient indicates a low aggressiveness of the speech, in which gratitude to voters for support and expressing a desire to cooperate with the elected presidential candidate for the sake of the bright future of a common homeland. The logical coherence coefficient indicates a logically structured speech, which is characterized by logic and connectivity. The rate of embolism is extremely low, which indicates the high level of the politician’s speech and the corresponding social status of the speaker. The speech is structured, meaningful, logically connected with the use of appropriate methods of influencing the audience.

“If indeed this is the will of the Ekiti people”

Abstract Based on the idea that the quality of a democracy may be measured against the quality of its public communication, this paper deploys Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to investigate a Nigerian gubernatorial concession speech in discursive terms. It argues that as an uncommon genre in political discourse in an emerging democracy this hybridised speech both indexes a growing culture of ‘fair competition’ in Nigeria’s eighteen-year-old civilian rule and presents the incumbent as a deft political actor who strategically claims political capital. The paper examines the text’s generic structure, the political and other actors mentioned or implied in it, its manipulation of pronominal references for rhetorical effect, as well as the epistemic uncertainty implied by a query-concession sequence noticed in it. Drawing on the concession speech literature, the paper charts a course for studying the concession speech as an emerging genre in a neonatal democracy like Nigeria.

Making Transportable Identities Relevant as a Persuasive Device. The Case of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 Concession Speech

Transportable identities are often extraneous in discourse, but they can be brought to the surface and made relevant, also as a means to persuade an audience. I discuss the case of the concession speech Hillary Rodham Clinton gave on June, 7th 2008 after she lost against Barack Obama in the Democratic Primaries. In order to successfully reposition herself from an opponent to a supporter of Obama, Clinton draws on several aspects of her transportable identity to stress the similarity between herself and Obama. Next to focusing on the fact that they are both Democrats, Americans and human beings, she zooms in on their membership of two powerless groups: namely that of women and African Americans. Both from a historical and a personal perspective, these two categorizations of herself and Obama are presented in a highly persuasive way and create unity between the two former opponents. As such, I not only show how identity, which relates to the concept of ethos in classical rhetorical terms, is discursively constructed in a speech, but also how it serves the argumentational goal of repositioning oneself entirely.

Rhetorical Devices in Hillary Clinton Concession Speech

After her losing in United States presidential election on November, 8th 2016, Hillary Clinton delivered an amazing and encouraging concession speech for all audiences around the world. One factor attributing to Hillary's success in a speech is that she has skillfully applied the variety of rhetorical devices. In accordance with this fact, this research tried to analyze the rhetorical devices and their respective function applied in the Hillary’s speech by using Harris’ theory. By watching the speech record and reading the transcription, the researchers collected the data. Then, to describe the phenomena qualitative research design was used in this research and textual analysis is used as a research method. Moreover, this research is kind of library research. The result shows there are thirteen rhetorical devices that were applied in the speech. Regarding to emphasis rhetorical devices, Hillary frequently used a sentential adverb, alliteration, anaphora, conduplicatio, diacope and epistrophe. For association rhetorical devices, Hillary utilized antanagoge, antithesis, metaphor, and parallelism. For decoration rhetorical devices, Hillary tended to apply asyndeton, polysyndeton, and sententia. Emphasis rhetorical devices are the most repeatedly used in her concession speech. Hillary used emphasis rhetorical devices to directly emphasize her point and purpose and also making the points of the speech is distinctly and explicitly delivered to the audiences. Keywords : rhetorical devices; Hillary Clinton Concession Speech; United States Presidential Election.

A Critical Discourse Analysis of Concession Speeches Goodluck Jonathan, Kayode Fayemi and Mitt Romney

A Critical Discourse Analysis of Concession Speeches Goodluck Jonathan, Kayode Fayemi and Mitt Romney

Guest of Honor: Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and the White House Dinner That Shocked a Nation. By DeborahDavis. New York: Atria Books, 2012. 308 pp.

Guest of Honor: Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and the White House Dinner That Shocked a Nation. By Deborah Davis. New York: Atria Books, 2012. 308 pp. Deborah Davis was both inspired and intrigued by a portion of Senator John McCain's concession speech to President Barack Obama on election night on November 4, 2008. During the address, Senator McCain proffered: century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt's invitation of Washington to visit--to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and prideful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African American to the presidency of the United States. Let there be no reason now ... for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth. His remarks piqued the interest of Davis and led to her work on the story behind Washington's dinner at the White House. author begins by chronicling and juxtaposing the lives of Washington (whom she casually refers to as Booker T. throughout the manuscript) and President Theodore Roosevelt (casually referenced as TR) from their births until their deaths. 308-page book consists of 30 short chapters including an introduction and an epilogue, and proceeds in chronological sequence. As might be predicted, the reader is introduced to during the time of his enslavement in Hales Ford, Virginia, and to TR during his upbringing in New York. Davis spends roughly two-thirds of the book setting the context for the eventual dinner at the White House and the fallout that ensued shortly afterwards. A few of the more interesting chapters feature discussions on the Jim Crow South, challenges that Washington and Roosevelt faced raising their daughters, the assassination of President William McKinley, rodent infestation of the White House and the poor condition of the manse, and Washington's role as advisor to Roosevelt. Davis's discussion of Scott Joplin's ragtime opera, Guest of Honor, along with his connection to the White House affair, is also quite refreshing. According to the author, Roosevelt invited Washington to dine with him and his family at the White House on October 16, 1901, representing a clear breach in the code of racial etiquette for those familiar with the ways of the South. Neither Washington nor Roosevelt anticipated the sort of backlash they experienced. Southern whites were livid and attacked Washington and Roosevelt throughout the press. For example, Governor James K. Vardaman of Mississippi derided Washington for his part in the affair, saying that the White House is so saturated with the odor of the nigger that the rats have taken refuge in the stable (p. 238). Similarly, other indignant southerners lambasted Roosevelt: The most damnable outrage which has ever been perpetuated by any citizen of the United States was committed yesterday by the President when he invited a nigger to dine with him at the White House. …

A study of the concession speech by President Goodluck Jonathan

When language is used to communicate to an audience, the listeners are given an insight into the intention of the speaker. This study analyses the concession speech made by President Goodluck Jonathan. It adopts the speech act theory in the classification of the illocutionary acts which are contained in the speech. The simple percentage is used in computing the frequency of the various illocutionary acts. Our findings show a preponderance of the representative speech act and the absence of the directive.

Pragmatic Analyses of President Goodluck Jonathan’s Concession Speech and General Muhammadu Buhari’s Acceptance Speech: A Comparative Appraisal

Drawing on Austin’s (1962) Speech Act Theory, this paper investigates President Goodluck Jonathan’s Concession Speech and General Muhammadu Buhari’s Acceptance Speech for the purpose of examining the impacts of context and evaluating their effects on Nigerians. The application of Speech Act Theory to these political discourses has revealed valuable findings. To mention but a few, this study has shown a high proportion of claiming assertive speech acts in Jonathan’s speech indicating thus how unity, stability and progress of Nigeria depends on Jonathan who has excellently proved this by conceding victory to his opponent Buhari. This has been confirmed by the very low proportion of these acts in Buhari’s speech. Furthermore, Jonathan’s acts of thanking, congratulating and praising indicate not only his high degree of recognition, attachment to peace and democracy but also his magnanimity whereas those of Buhari indicate his degree of recognition. Through the use of directive speech acts both Jonathan and Buhari have proved to be law abiding and peaceful. Through the use of commissive speech acts Jonathan has proved to be democratic and patriotic whereas Buhari has proved to be open, cooperative and democratic. The thoughtful performance of the different speech acts has enabled both speakers especially Jonathan to maintain peace and stability in Nigeria.

Triumph in Defeat: The Genre of Third Party Presidential Concessions

I argue through analysis of the genre of concession speeches that third party presidential candidates have rhetorical norms of their own that address their unique challenges as political outsiders. I contend that their concessions are a variant of the concession genre warranted by the recurring situational barriers and overall purposes for minor party presidential campaigns. In developing this argument, I describe the function and form of traditional concessions, offer an alternative theory based on the analysis of over 30 such statements by various third party nominees from 1948 to 2008, and then provide three case studies demonstrating the genre.