THE EFFECT OF PUBLIC DISCOURSE. Lia Lucia EPURE, Assistant Professor, PhD, Vasile Goldis Western University of Arad

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1 THE EFFECT OF PUBLIC DISCOURSE Lia Lucia EPURE, Assistant Professor, PhD, Vasile Goldis Western University of Arad Abstract: Going beyond the interests and power references, the public discourse belongs to a symbolic communication, which uses an entire range of signs, emotional reactions, and has as main purpose the immediate stimulation of the cognitive level of the receivers. This fact emphasizes the possibility of amplifying the conceptual analysis of the public discourse, transferring it into the political area, pointing out the main shape of some social figures (His Majesty King Mihai I of Romania) and political characters (The President Traian Băsescu and Victor Ponta), through which the specific performance mechanisms of this type of discourse are indicated. Keywords: Public Discourse, Political Discourse, Noble Discourse, Cynical Discourse, Fluctuating Discourse Introduction Interpersonal communication finds its maximum expression through discourse. This offers authenticity and validity to the ideas which are expressed in a moment well chosen, exercised and analyzed, its results being in direct accordance both with these criteria and the entire potential, charisma and total social recognition of the speaker. During the discourse, the orator, as Aristotle defines him in his work Retorica 1, represents the notion of Ethos, notion that refers to the image which he creates about himself when he speaks, intones, gesticulates, his credibility being shown by this form of communication. The basic finality of a well built and conclusive discourse has in mind the achievement of some clearly shaped goals in the speaker s conception, because the individual s inputs, which are the receivers of the transmitted information and which react according to the quality of the information, but also of the transmitter. Based on this idea, through a brief exemplification, there can be noticed a series of types of discourse, which by way of nature, prove how different are their initiators based on behavior, ethics and character. Throwing this idea into the actual political and economical context of our society, we can define types if political discourse, in order to relate in a maximum way to the basic problems that influence us directly. In order to present more obviously the types of political discourse we will expose three models which are found in the expression of some political and social characters from our country. Therefore, we ll present the type of discourse that is noble and elegant of His Majesty King Mihai I of Romania from the platform of the Parliament Palace on the 25 th of October 2011, discourse that places his in antithesis with the cynical discourse of President Traian Băsescu asserted after the referendum in June Complementary to these types of discourse, we ll also present that of the actual Prime Minister Victor Ponta, who uses a floating and 1 Aristotel, (2004), Retorica, Editie bilingvă, traducere, studiu introductiv şi index de Maria Cristiana Andrieş, note şi comentarii de Ştefan Sebastian Maftei, Bucuresti, editura IRI, p

2 fluctuant discourse, having in mind his position regarding the social character problem: the exploitation from Roşia Montană. Chapter 1 Public Discourse: General Concepts Public discourse is an essential part of language and, extrapolating at the level of contemporary society, it becomes a definitive element when transmitting opinions, concepts and regarding the controlling of the entire human auditorium s general state. In Aristotle s view a discourse comprises three elements: 2 the author, the discourse subject and the receiver. The discourse disposes of a series of ethical and behavior features, among which we can mention the basic ones: ethos, pathos and logos. These three features represent the persuasive techniques in a discourse. The inducement technique relates on two aspects: in the first case, there is persuasion as a method, that style based on the thoughtful analysis of that which means to be persuasive, and in the second case it refers to ways of persuasion issued by the author himself. The ways of persuasion from discourse start either from the speaker s character, either auditor s feeling or they can be found in the intrinsic value of the topic. When all these co-operate in harmony, the orator is faultless. The call to ethos works as a discourse persuasive technique, the speaker adapting his display according to shape of the receivers. This fact expects a previous knowledge of these, but also a control of the actual discourse which has to be in full accordance with the ideas asserted in previous speeches. The main purpose of this way of approach is that of offering a plus of rightfulness to the speaker. The most remarkable downsize that the audience can offer in these cases comes when the audience has previous knowledge of the author, which it recognizes as very important voice in the social, political, cultural, media, etc. life and with a notable presence within these parameters. The discursive ethos as a self-author image consists in using the personal image and credibility achieved by the speaker during time in order to ensure the purpose for which the discourse was made. 3 According to Dominique Maingueneau the ethos is involved in the enounciating scene which represents and sustains the self-author image, an ethos, in the acceptance of the positive image of the speaker. 4 Maybe the most efficiant way to use the ethos during a speech is during the political discourse, basic area on maintaining the power within a society. Political discourses are structured around two types of themes: positive and negative. Speakers are using positive speeches when approaching dail problems which the country deals with and use negative speeches especially when they refer to contracandidates in power at that moment. Therefore, dichotomies such as: I / Us vs. Him / They can be observed in any political discourse. Political discourses usually incorporate ideological, political, economical and social messages. In these cases, the speakers structure their speeches in order to emphasize their own ideology. As a result, all the discourses are involved in achieving persuasion. One basic trumps of public-political discourses is the entire range of words that imitate best the speakers 2 Idem, p Idem, p Maingueneau, Dominique, (2004), Discursul literar, traducere de Nicoleta Moraşan, Iaşi, Editura Institutul European, p

3 messages. Thus, a call is made to a series of words that accentuate the persuasive ideological message, words based on positive or negative themes, delivered with a high frequence in order to seize the auditory s more emphatic attention. Chapter 2 Case Study: Types of Public Discourses In the given context, the discourse is a fundamental part of politics, being connected to it on two levels 5 : on the social-political level of the description, where political processes and structures consist of events, interactions and discourses of the political actors and on the socialcognitive level of the description, where political representations of the society represent the aura of these discourses. The political discourse in its final aim comes to provoke basic behaviour within the comunity, such as: admiration, consideration, respect, vote or absenteeism, repulsions or revolts, etc. The first type of discourse analyzed in this presentation is the type of discourse called elegant, noble, remarkable and inspiring, which was approached so beautifully and sublime on the 25 th of October 2011, when His Majesty King Mihai I of Romania, from the platform of the Parliament Palace, evokes feelings full of dignity and respect to the country s history and distinguishes ethic and moral principles, more or less respected within the hierarchy of values from the Romanian society, as well as disturbances and remedies from the basic fields that assure the correct existence of a country. The whole richness of this discourse, given the time and place where it happened and the social and political conjunction in which it was affirmed, streamed a surprisingly effect within the entire political, public and mostly academic opinion, becoming a very representative case, model study and analysis for more profile university chairs from Romania. The eloquence and heaviness of this display bears in mind the colossal historical experience of a unique character in the history of our country, a king who always understood the needs of this nation, highly emphasizing the elements which can offer it the demanded and well deserved authenticity and here we recall the reign of the law, constant institutions, predictability and prosperity, treasuring human rights and private property, values that can brighten Romania. On the strength of ethics and morality, the king becomes a source of authority because the state of a nation depends on its proximity to the king. Under this circumstance, such a discourse becomes an important powerful factor, an adequate symbol of grace and appreciation of a personality that defines an undoubtedly component of history. King Mihai I is the last head of state alive from World War II. His safe arrival to the parliament has contributed to the improvement of Romania s image on European level and his entire exposure was well received both by the occidental congresses and by the world s greatest non-eu powers (Russia included), because it is a real fact that in Europe still exist constitutional monarchies which care for such gestures. After a break of more than 60 years, period that also stands for major historical transformations, the king re-enters the Parliament Palace platform and in his introduction he eulogizes the December events and the souls taken down of those days. A highly proof of 5 Petru, Ioan, (2002), Modelul hexadic in politologie, Editura Ştefan Lupaşcu, Iaşi, p

4 respect, consideration and deference can only arise from such a figure, a moral integrity and from a pure reason, justified by all the precepts of dignity and selflessness. The King s speech reaches highly sensitive key elements of our society, in antithesis with the law and institutions respect politics besides the one that brings prejudices to the citizen if applied in contempt of ethics, signaling the invading of social values and institutional discouragement. King Mihai is a defender and a militant of democracy. The fundamental democratic values are basic criteria for Romania to re-become an authentic democracy and to be integrated in the European Union and to respect European values. At this level also appears the ideological factor, representing the way in which our nation did not fully learn up to this point to adopt the correct principles of democracy which, unfortunately, are not fully normal with those applied in the western nations, having a start point the actual mentality which did not totally detach the communist background. King Mihai forwards his discourse up to a motivational direction, representing a constructive message for the entire Romanian society which, altogether, induces solidarity and stability, these features being a result of good and fair governance. There is nothing allusive, ambiguous and implicit within it. The total opposite type of speech can be found in Romania s President, Traian Băsescu, a discourse affirmed when he was declared a winner of the referendum for the President removal in July 2012, a cynical discourse which heads out to the receivers manipulation, giving false and calumniated information regarding media trusts and prestigious TV posts which tried to afford the reality in the most honest and objective mode. Regarding this speech, effects such as concealment, hypocrisy, distortion of reality become representative. Traian Băsescu is well aware of the manipulative effect of mass-media and, according to the social paradigm that a persistent falsehood becomes true through its consequences, the public opinion becomes, therefore, easy to influence and its credibility is clearly irritated by the concealed political speech of the President. When the limits of knowing the reality are clearly determined, the truth value of the statements is the first step towards the communicational triad analysis: reality-display-discourse. When this triad is deformed, the concept of deception appears. The deceitfulness emphasized within the speech represents only the speaker s ideological and temperamental weight, in this case, the actual President of Romania. The truth and ethics that build the fact and claimed reality of the present world become notions that are shaped according to the interests of those who lead us. When President Traian Băsescu deforms the reality in his speech, trying to determine the people that the referendum he just won is the universal desire of most of Romania s people, he offers false information. This idea is sustained by the way in which, by receiving-order, he modifies the whole legislative configuration regarding the number of electors that have to vote so that he remains in position, this being of % of Romania s total population, not of the total population that has the right to vote. With this occasion, the President has made the procedure, through which he can be constitutionally removed, impossible. Epistemologically speaking, in reality there is a large number of opinions that do not reach the truth, the real knowledge, but are also not just simple errors. All these displays become simple opinions through which people come close just proportional to the truth, in order to come together with the idea that they live at level of contingent reality, of daily 164

5 practice. In other words, at conceptual level are being elaborated the most cultivated communicational persuasive and manipulative ways. Generally speaking, trying to simplify the diversity of what s real leads, inevitable, to errors in thinking, any designs of mental displays in discourse lead to deforming the communicated information, therefore, the lie finds action in a favorable space deception is not one with error: when error contrasts reality, the lie contrasts the truth. 6 The President s speech is an intentional communicative step of transmitting false information by the speaker in order to deceive the receiver. The lies from the politics area achieve different forms, from false statements to intellectual operations that defy the criteria of accurate thinking, from polemic steps that have the objective to distract attention to counterargued anticipation of possible idea reactions of the opponents. This type of lies are used in order to manipulate that what is imagined and contemplated creatively, influencing the way to see the reality, but also opinions ensemble of ideas regarding political, social, economical and media problems. After the present speech, we could make a balance regarding the politics area, elaborating a quotation that says that in politics it s not good to say the whole truth. After what Hannah Arendt stated: honesty was not considered a political virtue, and the deceit was considered just a perfectly justified way in political transactions 7, the lie mechanism works in every society (democratic, monarchic, totalitarian) as a necessary element of social cohesion, being controlled by the decisive political power. Based on the etymologic concepts of discourse, the author of this type of concealed speech has the advantage of already knowing what the audience wants to hear, the deceit becoming much more alluring for its ration than reality. It s obvious the fact that in this case, the perpetuation of own interests and their justification within the political area is directly planned. Comparatively, in order to be credible, the political discourse has to respect certain elementary standards of common sense and to bring in dialogue plausible facts because only in this case it can become convincing. The area of what s real is too big in order to be covered by false value discretion issued by deceit. The whole political context in which the June 2012 referendum regarding the President s suspension took place shows in a clinching way, the position of western great powers towards the events that happen in our country. In the most severe script, judging by the events that took place in this episode of the Romanian political life, the President s speech, annihilating the logic and reality, could receive a totalitarian shade. The main fighters against these political and social events are representative of massmedia who became satirized by the President, fact that evidently took place after the victorious approach of the respective event. The detractor and ironic expressions are frequently repeated, the real intention of the political speaker being that of imposing a certain way of thinking or even its annihilation and to mask the real reality if it s not agreeable with his own advanced conceptions. The natural result of these manifests is represented by a series of thinking stereotypes and preconceptions expressed through different patterns. 6 Roman, Jakobson, (1963), Essais de linguistique generale, Les Edition de Minuit, Paris,. apud Oswald Ducrot & Todorov, (1972), Dictionnaire encyclopedique des sciences du langage, Les Editions du Seuil Paris, 1972, p Hannah Arendt, (1999), Criza republicii, Editura Humanitas, Bucureşti, p

6 The President s discourse addresses mainly that part of population which could easily become manipulated considering the limitation and pattern the thinking and political language. The population s opinion pointed in the promoted ideology is a convinced desire of the President, all these in order to consolidate the actual political position he has. The two types of discourse emphasized and analyzed up to this point represent an obvious antinomy from all points of view: the quality of the expressed content, the personality and the historical importance of the two speakers Alongside these, we find the fluctuating type of discourse issued also by a high and actual dignity presence of the Romanian society, Romania s Prime Minister, Victor Ponta, who reveals a floating character, based on moral compromises when talking about the factor of power achievement, applying to his difference attitude regarding the enormous problem of major social impact of Roşia Montana. It s obvious the way in which the pro Roşia Montana attitude of the actual prime minister before the 2012 parliamentary elections argues the anti Roşia Montana from the actual context, fact that divulges an entire series of quibbling that resort from this event. It can also be pointed out from this speech a persuasive strategy, very effective in the political area, giving the social and political context in which the speech takes place, the speaker s authority from those moments, the quality of the offered arguments, the semantic strategies used, etc. Evidently that the actual prime minister, Victor Ponta, in order to gain admiration and assurance from the electors when he was only an eager pretender towards the position he now has, he reached the population s sensitive points, such as exploitation problem from Roşia Montana. In the actual context, this problem of major social interest with its all later implications gives birth to a series of manifests and events within the population that militates and protests for the blocking of this killing project of mind field exploitation. From here, the fluctuating type of discourse issued by a high dignity presence can be emphasized in the most absolute way, who is not the proud sustainer against the mine project as he used to be. The personal interests seem to have priority against the general interest. It can be noticed that any form of persuasive and amateur political communication expects a certain association between communicative possibilities and their political finalities, between the semantic and empirical plan of political discursive statements. The direct approach of these statements is the prior and ulterior prime minister s attitude regarding Roşia Montana and ways he influenced the discourse regarding this event to his own benefit. But, having in mind the complexity of the persuasive and amateur political discourse, the opinions and attitudes that register through communicative strategies within the pale of people, it manifests as a series of large accepted concepts by the easily manipulated audience, giving, therefore, meaning to the events and encouraging group political interests achievement. The background and opinions of citizens regarding parties and politicians, value judgments and attitudes which are direct manifests of political steps are mostly changed by using media ways which represent the basic weapon of influential political characters. The processing of political information becomes the processing of speech, because the majority of political actions are done by speech and communication. The floating political discourse is a form of political utterance, through which there are identified actual political situations, and under the form of actual political recommendations are provided favorable political opportunities for the future. In order to be more legitimate and in 166

7 order to reach the point of power practicing, the initiators of this type of amateur political discourse use a series of strategies, among which polemic denials, justifications, cause rejection, etc. With help from polemic denial, the actual prime minister rejects a former content stated through a different assertion, without affirming strictly the former problem. Victor Ponta also uses the strategy based on the possibility of an A and a non-b relationship, in order to reason that a state of things did not establish the appearance of another state of things, leaning on the fact that the first state could not determine any effect for the second state or on the second possibility of a B without A, where even if A didn t happen, B would still took place. The moral incidence of the prime minister in this case is proved by all media and political displays, affirming the idea according to which the prime minister uses non-uniform speeches when obtaining political and social personal benefits. In the conflict between political opponents, the speech has the purpose to make known the assertions of conquering the power and to communicate certain messages to the wide audience. Far away from backing up the status-quo, the discourse is a necessary political weapon in the political battle, used at all levels, from international diplomacy to rural politics. Conclusions Once with the assumption of discourse as an investigation element, there can be outlined a dimension of the semantic intercession of this fact that studies discourse a communicational influence perspective, which it can have at social level. Language is a by excellence an intentional factor, but its purpose points out to another one and not itself. In this context, the discourse manifests itself as dynamic unit of statements production, as a force through which a certain performance is achieved and the capacity to produce effects and to comply with some specific concepts. In the context of those recently presented, the effect of the three types of discourse is obvious and of mark from all points of view, in all social dimensions and at all human categories. The monarchal and noble speech of King Mihai transcends the other two types of discourses, this one being the most displayed by the media, analyzed, elaborated and not last, used as a comparative study case within prestigious universities from our country. This fact represents the most elementary criteria through which King Mihai s personality becomes imposing, historical, and his allocutions become a reason for analysis and standard in further academic research. The discourse of President Traian Basescu and that of Prime Minister, Victor Ponta represent speeches that cannot be enclosed faithfully in none if the social, political or academic contextual display, because the steps proposed by them are not in accordance with basic ethics principles of society, therefore, they cannot influence in any way the well continuity of the society. References Aristotel, (2004), Retorica, Editie bilingvă, traducere, studiu introductiv şi index de Maria Cristiana Andrieş, note şi comentarii de Ştefan Sebastian Maftei, Bucuresti, Editura IRI. Hannah Arendt, (1999), Criza republicii, Editura Humanitas, Bucureşti 167

8 Maingueneau, Dominique, (2004), Discursul literar, traducere de Nicoleta Moraşan, Iaşi, Editura Institutul European. Petru, Ioan, (2002), Modelul hexadic in politologie, editura Ştefan Lupaşcu, Iaşi. Oswald Ducrot & Todorov, (1972), Dictionnaire encyclopedique des sciences du langage, Les Editions du Seuil Paris. 168