The Campaign Slogans of 2008 and 2016: Meta-Analysis Of
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The campaign slogans of 2008 and 2016 : meta-analysis of the literature produced on political slogans with a view to establishing a protocol for analyzing the structure and rhetoric of Barack Obama’s, John McCain’s, Donald Trump’s and Hillary Clinton’s slogans Louise Anglès d’Auriac To cite this version: Louise Anglès d’Auriac. The campaign slogans of 2008 and 2016 : meta-analysis of the literature pro- duced on political slogans with a view to establishing a protocol for analyzing the structure and rhetoric of Barack Obama’s, John McCain’s, Donald Trump’s and Hillary Clinton’s slogans. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2018. dumas-01960550 HAL Id: dumas-01960550 https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-01960550 Submitted on 19 Dec 2018 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Louise-Noor Anglès d’Auriac École Normale Supérieure de Lyon Département des Langues, littératures et civilisations étrangères Parcours « Études Anglophones » The campaign slogans of 2008 and 2016 Meta-analysis of the literature produced on political slogans with a view to establishing a protocol for analyzing the structure and rhetoric of Barack Obama’s, John McCain’s, Donald Trump’s and Hillary Clinton’s slogans. Mémoire de Master 1 Soutenu le 22 juin 2018 Sous la direction de M. Sébastien Mort Maître de conférence à l’Université de Lorraine 1 Louise-Noor Anglès d’Auriac Table of contents TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................................................................... 2 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 4 1. FROM SUSPICION TO SLOGANEERING: THE DYNAMIC EVOLUTION OF THE STUDIES OF SLOGANS ......... 8 1.1. DURING WARTIME: A SLOGAN IS A THREATENING SOCIAL TOOL ........................................................................... 8 1.2. THE STRUCTURAL INFLUENCE: A SLOGAN IS A CODE ........................................................................................ 12 1.3. BRANDING: A SLOGAN IS A COG IN THE MASS MEDIA MACHINERY ...................................................................... 15 1.4. THE RISE OF COGNITIVE STUDIES: A SLOGAN TRIGGERS METAL PROCESSES ........................................................... 16 2. FROM AN ETIOLOGICAL TO A FORMAL METHODOLOGY: BUILDING A PROTOCOL ................................ 19 2.1. A SLOGAN IS A DEFINED BY ITS EXTRA-TEXTUAL COMPONENTS .......................................................................... 19 2.1.1. The 14 features of a symbolic tool ................................................................................................ 19 2.1.2. Slogans as strictly defined by context ........................................................................................... 21 2.1.3. A slogan is strictly defined by its reception: appealing the superego, the ego or the aggression . 23 2.1.4. A slogan is designed by its emitter: understanding the communicator’s interest ........................ 25 2.2. SLOGANS AS DEFINED BY THEIR TEXTUAL COMPONENTS .................................................................................. 27 2.2.1. The rhetorical and poetic form of slogans .................................................................................... 27 2.2.2. A slogan is a specific language in itself ......................................................................................... 28 2.3. A SLOGAN AS DEFINED BY ITS COGNITIVE POWER ........................................................................................... 35 2.4. A SLOGAN IS DEFINED AS A BRANDING TOOL ................................................................................................. 38 2.5. BUILDING A PROTOCOL ............................................................................................................................ 43 3. THE 2008 AND 2016 CAMPAIGNS: SLOGANEERING TO MARKET A BRAND ........................................... 46 3.1. 2008-2016: TWO VERY SIMILAR ELECTORAL CONTEXTS ................................................................................. 46 3.1.1. The political backgrounds ............................................................................................................. 46 3.1.2. An analogy between issues and dynamics .................................................................................... 46 3.1.3. The electorate’s concerns .............................................................................................................. 50 3.2. BRANDING A CANDIDATE, A PARTY AND A VISION OF THE COUNTRY ................................................................... 51 3.2.1. Branding tools ............................................................................................................................... 51 3.2.2. The branding rhetoric .................................................................................................................... 52 3.3. … ADVERTISED BY A SLOGAN WITH RHETORIC CHARACTERISTICS… ..................................................................... 54 3.3.1. A meaningful morphosyntax ......................................................................................................... 55 3.3.2. The mastery of phonic schemes .................................................................................................... 60 3.3.3. An empty semantic toolbox ........................................................................................................... 67 4. THE 2008 AND 2016 CAMPAIGN: THE POLITICAL RHETORIC OF SLOGANS ............................................ 78 2 Louise-Noor Anglès d’Auriac 4.1. A BLATANT POLITICAL MESSAGE ................................................................................................................. 78 4.1.1. 2008: the questionable hero vs. the unifying manifesto ............................................................... 78 4.1.2. 2016: the candidate of the mass vs. the inadequate inclusiveness ............................................... 79 4.2. A POPULIST DISCOURSE ............................................................................................................................ 83 4.2.1. A dislocated social order ............................................................................................................... 84 4.2.2. “The differentiation of an excluded element” ............................................................................... 85 4.2.3. Empty signifiers “link together popular demands in a chain of equivalence” ............................... 86 4.3. A DISCOURSE ON DEMOCRACY ................................................................................................................... 90 4.3.1. The people an inclusive and a transformative dynamic ................................................................ 91 4.3.2. The legitimacy: selling legitimacy of proximity through compassion, familiarity and defective anonymity .................................................................................................................................................... 94 4.3.3. The electoral process ..................................................................................................................... 99 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................................. 104 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................................... 108 1) PRIMARY SOURCES ........................................................................................................................... 108 A. ANALYSES OF SLOGANS ............................................................................................................................... 108 B. THE 2008 AND 2016 ELECTIONS .................................................................................................................. 108 i. Newspaper article and webpages .................................................................................................... 108 ii. Blog posts ......................................................................................................................................... 109 iii. Discourses ........................................................................................................................................ 109 iv. Video recordings .............................................................................................................................. 109 2) SECONDARY SOURCES ....................................................................................................................... 109 A. CONTEXTUAL ANALYSES .............................................................................................................................. 109 i. Studies of propaganda ....................................................................................................................