Split voices in political discourse

Abstract

In this paper, I consider dialogue in Parliament as central, because it is the dialogic instances that bring to the fore the multivocality of political discourse, and I will show there are “other voices [speaking] through the speaking voice” (Ionescu-Ruxăndoiu 2012, 152). I also start from the premise that, although restrictive and context dependent, in political discourse one may identify instances of the self. Politicians exploit language use with the purpose of creating emotions in their audience and their aim is to influence public opinion, to make voters think he/ she is “the right man at the right time”. Using extracts from the speeches delivered by a controversial Romanian politician, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, I will dwell upon the active management of voices in discourse as well as on projection of self into discourse with a view to discussing them as strategies used to construct a politician’s professional identity.