Fairclough Argument Essay

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In terms of language use, one of the approaches that Blair uses to construct the identity as a ‘normal person’ is presenting himself in a folksy and relaxed style. The term ‘style’, in the area of critical discourse analysis, as Fairclough (2003:25) defines, is the way of enacting particular political identity by using discourses. According to Fairclough (1995:164), there are ‘discourses of ordinary life and ordinary experience’, which are opposed to ‘official’ discourses. What Blair uses to build his political identity is a ‘lifeworld’ discourse (Pearce 2001:211). In the following sections, Blair’s strategic use of a conversational style in public election broadcast will be examined. The informality is one of the distinctive features of Blair’s language style in PEB. It is widely noted that in contemporary public communication, there is an increasing informality in politicians’ PEBs (Fairclough 1996:7; Pearce 2005:65-66), especially in Blair’s political broadcasts. In a broad sense, the ‘formality’ refers to the language style ‘associated with everyday life’ (Fairclough 2000b:1-2; Pearce 2005:65). Fairclough claims that the informality is made up by two strands: the conversationalization and the personalization …show more content…

The use of ‘I’ brings the individual life into the political discourse and makes it more conversational and personal. Communicating with audience in his personal identity helps Blair to build an intimacy with audience, which can ‘work well in the format of the PPB’ (Pearce 2005:81). In cases mentioned above, it is possible to replace ‘I’ for ‘we’, which presents the stance of the Labour party clearly and unambiguously. Thus, if Blair substitutes ‘we’ for ‘I’ in his text, as what most leaders in political history did, the language style is significantly more formal while the intimacy with audience is

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