Unit 5 — Political Discourse

Learning objectives Link to heading

• I can read / listen to a political speech and identify rhetorical moves (anaphora, antithesis, tricolon, frame-setting).
• I can use the vocabulary of rhetorical analysis (ethos / pathos / logos, kairos, frame, register shift).
• I can write a 400-word rhetorical-analysis essay.

curriculum framework (“Bildungsplan”) alignment Link to heading

• 3.4.1 / 3.5.1 Soziokulturelles Orientierungswissen / Themen
• 3.4.3.1 / 3.5.3.1 Hör-/Hörsehverstehen
• 3.4.3.2 / 3.5.3.2 Leseverstehen
• 3.4.4 / 3.5.4 Text- und Medienkompetenz

(Sources: https://www.bildungsplaene-bw.de/,Lde/LS/BP2016BW/ALLG/GYM/E1/IK/11-12-LF / https://www.bildungsplaene-bw.de/,Lde/LS/BP2016BW/ALLG/GYM/E1/IK/11-12-BF)

Lead-in story Link to heading

The class read three short speech excerpts from different decades and political camps: Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (1863), Margaret Thatcher’s the lady’s not for turning (1980), and a 2024 climate speech by a 17-year-old delegate at COP30. Mr. Yilmaz framed the question: what makes each of these technically effective, regardless of whether you agree with the content?

1. Activate Link to heading

Rhetorical-move scan. With your partner, list 5 rhetorical moves you have noticed in speeches. Mark each as structural / lexical / acoustic.

2. Input Link to heading

Reading — three excerpts (paraphrased) Link to heading

Lincoln (1863): Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Thatcher (1980): To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say. You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.

COP30 delegate (2024): I am seventeen. The policy you write today is the policy I am eighty-two years old in. I would like, accordingly, to be more than a footnote in this room.

Vocabulary — rhetorical analysis Link to heading

ethos / pathos / logos, kairos (the right moment), anaphora (repeated opening), antithesis (balanced opposition), tricolon (three-part structure), parallelism, frame-setting, register shift, periodic sentence, asyndeton.

3. Practise Link to heading

Niveau E — controlled Link to heading

1. Match: ethos → speaker’s authority; pathos → emotional appeal; logos → reasoned argument; kairos → timing.
2. Identify: Four score and seven years ago uses what acoustic move? (parallelism / archaic register / both)

Niveau E — productive Link to heading

3. For each excerpt, identify one structural and one lexical rhetorical move.

4. Produce Link to heading

Rhetorical-analysis essay, 400 words. Pick one of the three excerpts. Identify ethos / pathos / logos balance + 3 specific rhetorical moves + 1 kairos observation. Use 4 integrated quotes + 6 academic discourse markers + 1 cleft.

Sample Link to heading

Margaret Thatcher’s 1980 the lady’s not for turning line is, technically, one of the most efficient lines of post-war British political rhetoric. The mechanics deserve close reading. The antithesis — “You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning” — sets up two grammatical subjects (you / the lady) and two contrastive verb phrases. Accordingly, the second clause borrows the energy of the first while inverting it; the audience laughs at the you, then registers the not before the speaker has to argue for it. Beneath the antithesis sits a deliberate register shift: the lady — third-person, stately, almost fairy-tale — replaces the expected first-person I. The shift performs a Thatcher-specific kind of ethos: she presents her position as institutional, as if the lady were not the speaker but the office. More specifically, the line is also a literary allusion to Christopher Fry’s 1948 play The Lady’s Not for Burning; the educated audience hears the reference, the wider audience hears the rhythm. Both registers do work simultaneously. By contrast with Lincoln’s high-pathos “conceived in Liberty”, Thatcher’s pathos is dry — almost an anti-pathos — and the line lands precisely because of the restraint. Logos is implicit rather than argued: the audience supplies the reasoning. Kairos is exemplary: October 1980, three months into a recession, with media speculation about a U-turn at its peak. It is precisely the timing that makes the antithesis political rather than literary. In this regard, the line is a small masterclass in compression. Ten words do the work that a paragraph of conventional defence would have done less well. The lesson, for the rhetorical analyst, is that the most-quoted lines in political speech almost always combine three moves at once.

5. Reflect Link to heading

• I can identify ethos / pathos / logos balance and 3 specific rhetorical moves.
• I can use 6+ rhetorical-analysis terms.
• I can write a 400-word rhetorical-analysis essay.

One thing in your notebook: Write one sentence using something you learned in this Unit.

Exam example Link to heading

Part A — Comprehension (~24 BE) Link to heading

Listen / read twice.

“To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say. You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.”

1. Speaker / year: ___ . 2. Antithesis: ___ . 3. Register shift: ___ . 4. Allusion: ___ .

Part B — Analysis (~18 BE) Link to heading

Read the three excerpts above.

1. Lincoln archaic register: ___ . 2. Thatcher’s ethos move: ___ . 3. COP30 delegate’s frame-setting: ___ . 4. The kairos in each: ___ .

Part C — Composition (~18 BE) Link to heading

Composition prompt: Compare the rhetorical moves in Lincoln and the COP30 delegate in 250 words. Use 2 integrated quotes + 3 markers + 1 rhetorical-vocabulary term.

Mediation (~30 BE) Link to heading

Mediation prompt: A 250-word German Bundestag speech excerpt. Mediate the speaker’s rhetorical stance for an English-speaking political-rhetoric researcher. (Source provided in class.)

Downloads Link to heading

Common pitfalls Link to heading

• Don’t reduce rhetoric to good / bad.
• Pathos is not synonymous with manipulation.
• Quote integration is part of the analysis, not a decoration.

Further reading / listening Link to heading

• Sam Leith, You Talkin’ to Me? Rhetoric from Aristotle to Obama.
• Brian MacArthur, The Penguin Book of Twentieth-Century Speeches.

Downloads

Presentation

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Worksheet

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