Those Bloody Politicians!

Many high profile people and politicians try to be as unique as possible, so that they stand out from the rest. There are many ways one can identify this, especially their linguistic features and how they assert themselves using them. As well as that they use specialist lexis in their field. But for the most part they don’t want to completely alienate themselves from the rest of us, so they try to conform to the public, so that the public don’t think too highly of them and see them as people they can’t connect with.

A great example could be politicians like David Cameron. When speaking he wants to come across as someone powerful yet someone who is connected to the public. The register he uses when speaking is very formal, and his grammar is standard. A great example is from his speech when he won the 2010 General Election where he states “I think we need to sort this out”. Despite the sentence being short, it has an imperative which shows that he wants to take control. But at the same time he tries to conform to us by saying ‘we’ which is an interrogative. In terms of his formality he comes across as well-spoken individual.

Another feature he uses frequently in his speech is the heavy use of ‘I’. This is an indication of the power that he intends to show across by suggesting he can do these things. But as the speech goes on he starts to use ‘we’. By doing this he tries to make the listener feel included. Addressing the reader is a great persuasive method. Other persuasive methods include the list of three. An example is “the strong, the stable and the good”. The Prime Minister may use persuasive methods to try and convince people that his ideas are the best, therefore building a strong leadership. Another important method is the use of specialist lexis. David Cameron mentions terms like ‘government’ and ‘coalition’. These like many examples show that he knows what he is on about, and it proves to people that he takes his field seriously.

At the end of the day politicians will always try to come across as powerful people, which could be the reason why the general public don’t conform to them. But the best politicians are the ones that can speak well and get people listening and approving them. According to Wareing there are three types of power. Political, Personal and Social. Political power is used by politicians, personal power is held by people in their occupation and social power comes from Age, Gender, Race etc.

In conclusion to the overall idea that politicians don’t connect with people, you should first think of the language they use. Politicians like Cameron will use all of these features, making him seem like he is above us and that he holds a large amount of power, but at the same time he sacrifices that connection. Whilst stronger politicians like Blair and Thatcher will set out to connect with people first, ultimately making them more popular. 

Robin Beales