Analysing Political Speeches: Rhetoric, Discourse and Metaphor

Exploring speeches by public figures such as Taylor Swift, Greta Thunberg, Emma Watson, Tony Blair, and Donald Trump, this engaging textbook explains the ways in which political speeches can be analysed. It examines the role of language in speeches and how it can be used to challenge or reinforce prevailing social, cultural and political attitudes. The author breaks down why and how speeches are effective, impactful, and important through a variety of topics and lenses in order to provide a framework to better understand them.

Each chapter introduces a particular discourse approach and then applies this in a model analysis of a passage of text. The chosen texts concern issues of social, cultural and political importance that address topics of significant importance to the audience to which they were delivered. Students are encouraged to engage with the text and consider how approaches to text analysis, such as cohesion, context analysis and metaphor analysis, may be adapted to provide a more critical perspective.

Fully updated throughout, this third edition:
· updates the critical approaches by addressing contemporary issues such as the rise of populism, climate change and Artificial Intelligence
· integrates Moral Foundations Theory
· includes two new chapters on Populism, and AI and Climate Change offering key insights into these important and critical types of discourse
· incorporates new core texts making it more relevant to current readerships.

Analysing Political Speeches provides a critical framework for evaluating rhetoric, uncovering metaphorical language, and analysing the discourse of political speeches in a rapidly evolving democratic landscape.

• Publication date: 12 November 2026
• Page count: 392
• Dimensions: Height 232 mm; Width 156 mm; Thickness 30 mm
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Format: Paperback
• ISBN-13: 9781350529571