Rhetorical analysis of political communication in contemporary foreign linguistics (2010-2018)

Abstract

The new insights into studies of political communication that have been coming from the tradition of cognitive linguistics have rested mainly on the methodologies already standard in the field of political linguistics overall. However, scholars continue applying traditional rhetoric methods to political communication analysis. This paper reviews the methodology of rhetorical analysis of political communication in contemporary foreign linguistics within 2010-2018. The main trends of rhetorical researches are delineated, namely rhetorical criticism, reframing, semiotic analysis, and textual analysis. The widely spread topics of rhetorical studies are identified: theoretical and methodological investigations; studies of political leaders' idiolects; metaphorological studies; researches into institutional discourses; analysis of rhetorical strategies; contrastive investigations. The distinctive feature of the contemporary rhetorical approach is that its methodological boundaries are diffusive. The contemporary rhetorical approach to political communication covers both traditional rhetoric methodology and heuristics of other approaches such as cognitive linguistics and discourse analysis. © 2019 Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Philology. All rights reserved.