Organization, reasoning, and persuasive communication strategies in privilege speeches of Filipino senators Christie Elise C. Cruz Faculty of Arts and Letters, University of Santo Tomas, Philippines
[email protected] Alejandro S. Bernardo Faculty of Arts and Letters, University of Santo Tomas, Philippines ernardoandreahoocom Abstract Persuasive privilege speeches are heavily relied upon by Filipino senators in dealing with their constituents and fellow politicians. Through a privilege speech, Filipino senators promote their advocacies defend their ork and reputation and generall attempt to inuence their listeners. However, despite the central and highly public role that privilege speeches play in the Philippine sociopolitical arena, no study has, thus, far attempted to scrutinize the structure, reasoning, and persuasive strategies present until this paper. This study, therefore, used the theories by Wood and Goodnight (1996); Froemling, Grice, and Skinner (2011); and German, Gronbeck, Ehninger, and Monroe (2010) to examine 58 privilege speech transcripts featuring ilipino senators otained from the offcial esite of the Senate of the hilippines Through this paper, it was revealed that Filipino senators present their points and claims in such a way that the audience would feel the relatable and personal nature of the issues tackled. It was also shown that the Filipino senators favor structuring their speeches by presenting the issue or necessity, proposing a solution, and then appealing for action. The study was also able to highlight how Filipino senators applied a combination of logical and emotional appeals to establish, maintain, and raise credibility. Keywords: Persuasion, reasoning, structure, public speaking, persuasive communication 1. Introduction Persuasion is a facet of language that is deeply embedded into its nature.