148
4. ‘Us’ against ‘Them’
One of the most effective
persuasion strategies used by political speakers
is the
unification of the in-group in opposition to an out-group perceived as an
opponent or threat. This strategy is typically used in introducing and evaluating
the situation and indicating the problems moves of a political speech. The
speech delivered by David Cameron at the Conservative Party
conference in
2011 (7) exploits this strategy to represent his evaluation of the situation after
the Conservatives won the elections in 2010 and to outline the priorities of his
policy.
(7)
The new economy we’re building must work for everyone. You know the
real tragedy of New Labour’s economy? Not just that it was unsustainable,
unbalanced, overwhelmed with debt. But that it left so many behind.
Labour talked opportunity but ripped the ladders of opportunity away.
We had an education system that left hundreds of thousands unprepared
for work. A welfare system that trapped millions in dependency. An
immigration system that brought in migrant workers to do the jobs that
those on welfare were being paid not to do.
We had a housing system that failed to meet demand, so prices shot up and
fuelled an unsustainable boom. And we had a government that creamed
the taxes off the boom to splurge back into benefits – redoubling the failure
all over again. Labour: who tell us they care so much about fairness,
about justice, who say they want to hit the rich and help the poor – it was
Labour gave us the casino economy and the welfare society.
So who’s going to lift the poorest up? Who’s going to get our young
people back to work? Who’s going to create a more equal society? No,
not you, the self-righteous Labour Party. It will be us, the Conservatives
who finally build an economy that works for everyone and gives hope to
everyone in our country.[…]
Let’s turn this time of challenge into a time of opportunity. Not sitting
around, watching things happen and wondering why. But standing up,
making things happen and asking why not.
We have the people, we have the ideas, and now we have a government
that’s freeing those people, backing those ideas.
So let’s see an optimistic future. Let’s show the world some fight. Let’s pull
together, work together. And together lead Britain to better days.
(Cameron, leader’s speech,
Conservative Party conference, Manchester
2011)
While using the inclusive
we
to position himself as the leader the party (
It will
be us, the Conservatives
) and the nation (
We have the people, we have the ideas,
149
and now we have a government
), Cameron evaluates negatively the New Labour
economy by qualifying it as
unsustainable, unbalanced, overwhelmed with debt.
He thus holds his political opponent – ‘them’, the Labour Party – responsible
for problems related to
the education system, prices, taxes and what he calls
the
casino economy and the welfare society
. In order to strengthen support for his
policy he strives to engage the audience at the Conservative Party conference
by using a series of rhetorical questions to which the speaker himself provides
the answer. This essentially interpersonal persuasion strategy aims at decreasing
the distance between the orator and the audience and inducing agreement by
involving the audience in the thinking process and presenting
the answer provided
by the speaker as the product of a mutual agreement between the orator and the
audience (Halmari 2005: 117). The answer provided by Cameron is that it is
‘us’, his party,
the Conservatives who finally build an economy that works for
everyone and gives hope to everyone in our country
. This allows him to address
the audience by the anaphorical repetition of the imperative
Let’s
in a direct appeal
to unite under his leadership and support the solution to problems and the action
plan suggested by him. The construal of a coherent representation of ‘us’ against
‘them’ is facilitated by assigning to ‘them’ the agency
of actions evaluated by use
of negative lexis, such as
unprepared
,
trapped
,
dependency
,
failure
, while the
agency of positively evaluated actions is assigned to ‘us’ and indicated by lexical
items
expressing positive attitude, e.g.
optimistic future
,
hope
,
better days
.
Persuasion strategies associated primarily with the construal of ideational
coherence are inherently related to the perception of coherence of the interpersonal
plane of discourse, as the situation described as well as problems and solutions
suggested by the speaker are presented and evaluated from his/her ideologically
biased point of view and are affected by the relationships established between the
speaker and the audience.
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