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Interview with Alan Finlayson: Supplementing the tropes

Writer's picture: Alan FinlaysonAlan Finlayson

We talk to Alan Finlayson about his Journal of Language and Politics article, Supplementing the tropes: Poststructuralist discourse theory and rhetorical political analysis. He explains what prompted him to explore the interconnections between PDA and RPA, and shares some key takeaways.


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Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán: on Pexels


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Sometimes research into the language of politics can, I feel, approach its object as primarily an interesting example of language. That’s fine but for RPA language use is primarily an interesting example of political action. I want to know the what, why, how and effects of that (and how we might do it differently or better).



Why did you decide to write this piece?

When it comes to the study of language and politics there is a large variety of methodological and theoretical approaches to choose from: Critical Discourse Analysis; the Discourse Historical Approach; Foucauldian Discourse Analysis; Interpretive Policy Analysis; Discursive Psychology; Argumentation Theory; Poststructuralist Discourse Theory and more.


It might seem foolish to argue for yet another. But that is what I do in this article.

In Political Studies I am an advocate of Rhetorical Political Analysis and I think that it might be of interest and use to those working on language, communication and media. For me, RPA emphasises two things. Firstly, and simply, it urges attention to (and use of) the long rhetorical tradition of theory and analysis which – from ancient history to the present – has given us terms, tools and concepts that can help us focus on the things people are doing – for themselves and to each other – with political language. This can enrich and enliven analyses.


Secondly, to think in terms of rhetoric is to attend to the particular kinds of persuasive actions people undertake using language in very particular situations. That is to say, it prioritises the context, the problems and political conflicts, within and out of which speech action emerges. Sometimes research into the language of politics can, I feel, approach its object as primarily an interesting example of language. That’s fine but for RPA language use is primarily an interesting example of political action. I want to know the what, why, how and effects of that (and how we might do it differently or better).

So, I partly wrote the article in order to explain that position to colleagues working on language and politics. In contrast to a certain hermeneutic of suspicion which often informs the critical study of political language I think that we should emphasise the political things we can do with words and the extent to which that is not a power to be fearfully exposed but one to be exercised by citizens as part of their existence as free political beings.


More specifically, I wrote the article to continue a conversation with friends and colleagues working within Poststructuralist Discourse Analysis drawing on Laclau. It’s not that I disagree with this directly, more that I worry that about the risks of confining analysis to a very high level, viewing case-studies as opportunities to affirm the general propositions of theory and from which a political prescription may follow automatically: to constitute a people in opposition to the elite, around a Name.


That is a form of politics. But it’s not the only one and I don’t think we can know, in advance or independent from a specific situation, that it’s the best one. Rhetoric, as Aristotle famously puts it, is about identifying the ‘available’ means of persuasion in particular situations. Supplementing PDA with rhetoric doesn’t refute it but may change it, directing our attention to the specifics of political situations and to the wide range of creative actions which have the potential to be born within them.


What are the key takeaways?

In the article I argue that Laclau’s conception of rhetoric is limited and limiting. He conceived of it as figurative language (as part of a more general philosophical claim about ‘the social and ‘the political’). That’s a way of thinking derived from modern literary studies. It takes one component of classical and renaissance rhetoric and elevates it, eclipsing the others. A takeaway is that we shouldn’t reject that component but supplement our analyses by looking at other elements of rhetorical action. In some situations the figures are not the most important thing, and when they are it is as part of larger rhetorical situations and actions.


A second takeaway is the utility of two rhetorical concepts.


Firstly, the conception of political speech action as a product of ‘invention’. Here the word is linked to ‘inventory’. In Rome, in order to develop an argument, rhetoricians were trained to look to their ‘inventory’ - their collection of commonplace forms of argument and the traditions, common opinions and common sense of audiences. There they hoped to find the tools to build something new. So here rhetorical action is always part of a particular cultural and historical situation.


Secondly, I explain the standard rhetorical concept of the enthymeme: the form of logical argument which makes use of premises and patterns of inference drawn from the common opinions of the audience. This is why people hate rhetoric. It makes use of the opinions of ‘the people’ and that is often assumed to mean that it is either inferior to proper philosophical reasoning or no more than pandering to prejudices. But from the political and rhetorical point of view what most people already think is the raw material for political art (at least in a democracy). We can think things anew, undertake new actions and transcend old prejudices only by reworking, reordering and rearranging our present ways of thinking at moments of decisive opportunity. The article includes some examples of what I mean and of how that can be achieved.


Where do you plan to go next in your research?

I have been urging colleagues in politics and linguistics to make more use of the rhetorical tradition for a long time and I expect to continue to do so. But I am also working on political ideologies and rhetorics in digital political culture. Online platforms create novel rhetorical situations and very particular political communities (with their own evolving stock of commonplaces). This is completely transforming the who, what and how of political rhetoric in ways which we are only beginning to understand. The effects, however, are obvious.

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