Explorations in Political Discourse: Methodological and Critical Perspectives

The book presents an application of inductive and deductive research modes in an analysis of political discourse. The discussion is illustrated with text samples from inaugural addresses of US presidents and various speeches given by prominent NATO politicians. It is argued that both analytic approaches have their inherent inadequacies, which poses a need for an integrated research mode. Also, numerous observations are made about the rhetoric of the analyzed text types.

The Author: Piotr Cap received his Ph.D. from the University of Lódź, where he is currently Assistant Professor. He collected most of the data for the «Explorations...» while carrying out research at UC Berkeley in 1997-98. His interests are primarily in pragmatics, political linguistics and methodology of analysis.