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Tony Blair and Winston Churchill: analysis of their speeches.

   It is worthy to note that the political situation that both leaders were in differed greatly and therefore would have an effect upon their speeches. The major factors which need to be taken into consideration are the distinct differences between the wars. Winston Churchill was faced with a world war that was inevitably going to happen, and had begun 8 months prior to him entering into office. The nation had to fight in order to protect their country from invasion; therefore entering the war was not a personal choice that Churchill made. This is an important aspect to take into account when studying his speeches. Unlike Blair, Churchill did not have to persuade the nation that it was a’ just war’ he had to persuade the country to continue fighting and remain positive. Tony Blair was not faced with the threat of a World War, he personally made the decision to join forces with America and attack Iraq. His speeches thus required him to persuade Britain in his decision.

Methodology

  In order to conduct the analysis, a wide array of political speeches composed by the two British Prime ministers Winston Churchill and Tony Blair were collected.
After reading through the nine speeches collected, I decided to analyse just four, two from each leader, one addressing the nation and one to the House of Commons. Within the speeches I looked at the use of personal pronouns, I analysed modality and evaluation and I finally looked at emotive language used as another means of persuasion. My aim was to discover the techniques employed by both men in order to persuade each of their own political parties, and the country as a whole.

Analysis of personal pronouns

   The analysis of the speeches begins with the particular pronouns chosen by each leader. Crystal (1995) gives the simplest definition of a personal pronoun as a grammatical form referring directly to the speaker (first person), addressee (second person) or others involved in an interaction (third person).

The use of first person pronouns

   Personal pronouns are very much related to the relationship of power and solidarity therefore the choice of pronoun that each Prime Minister uses reflects this. Throughout each of the four speeches, choices are made by the speaker in terms of personal pronouns and this pronoun represents someone. Both table1.1 and table 1.2 show that when addressing the nation and the House of Commons each leader uses the first person pronoun ‘I’ on a number of occasions. ‘I’ appears to be used by both leaders much more frequently when addressing the House of Commons. I would be inclined to suggest that the reason for this is because each Prime Minister is solely persuading the Government; therefore the beliefs he is expressing are his personal ones. ‘We’ is used more often when addressing the nation as it can refer to the Prime Minister and the Government who are in support of each other. As a persuasive device ‘I’ is used to add a personal touch to the speeches and thus portrays that both Blair and Churchill are committing themselves to their beliefs and will stand by their actions. It is used when the leader should perhaps indicate his individual responsibility for certain actions. The other first person pronouns used are ‘Me’ and ‘My.’ ‘My’ is used when each leader is expressing their personal views and opinions, for example “My detestation of Saddam.” (Blair 18th March 2003) ‘Me’ functions in a similar way to ‘I’ as it represents the speaker and shows that he is committing himself.

Table 1.1

A list of personal pronouns used in Address to the nation

Table 1.2

A list of the personal pronouns used in Address to the House of Commons

As previously mentioned, the personal pronouns in each speech are used to represent people. The pronoun that I will be analysing and discussing at length is the use of the subjective first person plural ‘we’ as it is the most frequently occurring in all of the speeches. I wished to determine why and also how it is used as a persuasive device. The use of the pronoun ‘we’ can become fairly complicated in that it can refer to a number of different people. From the four speeches, I have analysed ‘We’ in terms of inclusive ‘we’ and exclusive ‘we’. As discussed earlier in chapter 2 of this study, there is a standard distinction between inclusive and exclusive uses of ‘we’. Exclusive ‘we’ does not refer to the addressee. According to Wales (1996:66) it is generally used to refer to the speaker and third parties who may or may not be present in the immediate situation. The use of the exclusive ‘we’ can be exploited to share responsibility. Inclusive ‘we’ refers to the speaker and the listener. Through the use of inclusive ‘we’ it is possible to see that the leaders presume to speak on the addressee’s behalf, for example “We must not allow ourselves to be intimidated by the presence of these armoured vehicles…” (Churchill 13th May 1940). Tables 1.3 and 1.4 refer to the use of both categories of ‘we’ by each speaker. In his address to the nation Churchill uses inclusive ‘we’ a number of times to refer to himself and the people of Britain and thus encourage solidarity. It is used most frequently by both leaders in order to persuade the audience to work as a team as it were by producing apparent collective utterances, for example “we will” “we shall” etc.

 Table 1.3

The use of inclusive and exclusive ‘we’ in address to the House of Commons

Table 1.4

The use of inclusive and exclusive ‘we’ in address to the nation

   From my analysis I discovered that the actual discourse referents of ‘we’ are limitless. Frequently there is a blur of the inclusive/exclusive distinction of ‘we’ simply because the speaker implies that the audience are of the same view (or same country.) Both Churchill and Blair often use ‘we’ with the double inference and presumption that they are not only speaking on behalf of the party or Government (Exclusive) but also on behalf of the audience (inclusive.) Its precise interpretation is dependant on the particular context of use and the inferences to be drawn on the basis of the mutual knowledge of the speaker and interpreter. Fairclough (1989:127) notes “the rhetorical implication is that the audience must share the Government’s views as being the only correct ones.” All in all this is the aim of the leader’s speeches. Tables 1.5 and 1.6 show how I have chosen to break down the particular references of ‘we.’

   There is often vagueness about who exactly inclusive ‘we’ includes however throughout these speeches I have interpreted it as being the Prime Minister and the nation united. Throughout these speeches I have interpreted it to imply joint responsibility or involvement, ‘you and me together’ as it were.

Table1.5

The referent of inclusive and exclusive ‘we’ in address to the House of Commons

Table 1.6

The referent of inclusive and exclusive ‘we’ in address to the Nation

   ‘We’ is used on a number of occasions to refer severally to the United Nations (in Blair’s speech), the British Government, the British Armed forces and the country as a whole. The overall meaning here is a consensus of beliefs and values represented by the British people and opposing the abnormal ‘other’ such as the insanity of a devilish Saddam.

   One of the reasons for the use of the pronoun ‘we’ is that politicians can never be certain that the decisions they have made will always necessarily be viewed in a positive way. Therefore the use of ‘we’ spreads the responsibility. ‘We’ can certainly be manipulated for political effect and is used in these speeches to establish a sense of group unity. The use of ‘we’ by Blair and Churchill has a plausible representative value of the Government / political party and can therefore act as a useful linguistic mediator between the leader and his audience. In theory it would appear that such principles benefit the speaker and maximise those of the audience, in other words it benefits the speaker as they are persuading the audience that war is a good choice.

   The first person pronouns ‘our’ and ‘us’ are used in a similar way to ‘we’ “Of our country, of our empire, of our allies…” (Churchill 13th may 1940) and again promotes unity and belonging.

The use of second person pronouns

   ‘You’ is the second person pronoun I will be referring to and is used by each leader as a form of direct address for example in his speech Blair says “let me tell you…” It appears that Blair uses ‘you’ more than Churchill as a direct form of address and therefore attempts to involve all of his audience and make them an active part in his address.

The use of third person pronouns

   Churchill and Blair use a number of third person pronouns including ‘they’ ‘them’ their’ ‘he’ ‘him’ and ‘his’ to represent different people and groups of people. In Churchill’s speeches, ‘them’ was used to refer mainly to the French and British armies. However in Blair’s speeches the main referent of ‘them’ was the Iraqi people and the enemy Saddam Hussein and his people. He also used it to refer to the UN this would be mainly to avoid repetition. Churchill also used ‘them’ to refer to the German army (the enemy) but also to the British troops.

   The pronouns ‘they’ and ‘their’ function in a similar way to that of ‘them.’ However in semiotic and semantic terms specific ‘we’ and ‘they’ are in binary opposition to each other. In other words it gives the effect of positive versus negative in the fact that ‘we the people’ are a positive force and ‘they the enemy’ are a negative force. In Blair’s case this would be Britain and America versus Iraq, this is an underlying positive versus negative opposition but in terms of good against evil.

   The last personal pronouns I will briefly discuss are the uses of ‘he’ ‘him’ and ‘his’ which are used as a means of reference by the leaders. As is shown in table 1.2 ‘him’ is used 3 times by Blair when referring to the enemy Saddam Hussein. This might be because he either wants to avoid repetition or requires a greater impact on the speaker by not using his name. Churchill does not use ‘him’. ‘He’ and ‘His’ are also used by each speaker to refer to the enemy and thus avoid repetition.

Analysis of Modality and Evaluation

   According to Freeborn (1995:163) “Modality enables us to refer not to facts, but to the possibility or impossibility of something happening, its necessity, certainty and whether the action is permitted.” Modality is what the leader’s commit themselves to in their speeches and is expressed through a number of modal verbs as seen in table 1.7 and 1.8. Modality can be categorised under two separate headings: Epistemic modality indicating probability of an event or uncertainty, and deontic or evaluative modality indicating preference, obligation or desirability.

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