POLITICAL (IM)POLITENESS – SPEECHES, INTERVIEWS AND DEBATES
POLITICAL (IM)POLITENESS – SPEECHES, INTERVIEWS AND DEBATES

Summary/Abstract: The paper aims to investigate how political debates, interviews or speeches usea wide range of (im)politeness strategies and techniques in order to set an emotional mood among the participants and the viewers. The study explains that impoliteness thrives in political interactions as context-embedded behaviour; (im)politeness has different functions for different individuals depending on what kind of community they're interacting in. More than ever, political framework provides the tools for those interested in analysing how politeness and impoliteness work together and go beyond specific patterns of political behaviour. Political encounters are confrontational and competitive, at times highly adversarial, but by nature, political and parliamentary encounters contain numerous face threatening acts (FTAs) of varying gravity, mostly directed at speakers’ political opponents. Actually, Culpeper (2011) mentions that impoliteness is expected during parliamentary debates, while Harris (2001) agrees that“systematic impoliteness is not only sanctioned but rewarded”. For example, during the elections in 2016, ex-president Trump uses disagreement with others, promotes self-praise and uses indirectness in his speeches, as well as sentences lacking in relevance or information. Likewise, French president Macron was publicly held responsible for impolite words such as "irresponsible" and "no longer citizens", addressed to unvaccinated people. Even president Zelensky’s speeches, which receive standing ovations, contain some impoliteness elements, while rebuking his audience in an undiplomatic language: “If you fail to live up to this moment, then shame on you!”

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