Political Language
Denton and Dan F. Hahn, they establish that successful politicians use specific linguistic devices. Denton and Hahn are both professors at universities and authors of many articles and books relating to communication and politics. These functions of political language that FED included in his speech were action stimulation, agenda-setting, and projection for the future and past. Through the use of Denton and Hands “Language and the Presidency” will help analyze the specific functions of political language that FED uses in his first Inaugural speech.
The first significant factor in Franklin Roosevelt (FED) 1st Inaugural speech was his use of “action stimulation” (Denton and Hahn peg. 262). This was very important because of the situation the United States was in. In the years before FED was elected, the United States was in the worst economic depression and unemployment was at an all time high. In order to get everyone back on their feet, FED used this important technique to motivate many Americans to improve their country through hard work.
At the beginning of his speech he stated, “let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into (Roosevelt, “1st par. 1). He was responding to events that were occurring at the time and encouraging his audience to face this crisis as well as the fear that comes with it. Since many Americans had lost hope in themselves and the government, Roosevelt uses action stimulation to help regain confidence in themselves and him. He tried to stimulate his country by getting everyone to face this fear of failure.
By having this fear, the only thing that was going to occur was making people less productive. This function of political language was very important in this situation in order to get people back in the workforce and encouraged to put more trust in their new president. In order to get people and the country as a whole back into a better economy, Roosevelt makes a point to plan what is necessary to get there. According to Denton and Han this technique is called “Agenda-setting” which is used when politicians either address a problem or predict a problem.
By talking about a retain problem and bringing attention to it this would bring it to the publics attention, then would set out a plan to overcome the problem (Denton and Han, peg. 264). In Fad’s case he recognizes that the United State’s primary task was to put people to work then explained some steps people would have to take to achieve the task. In his speech he states, “we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use for the land for those best fitted for the land” (Roosevelt, “1st par. ). In this statement he made, he helped people recognize the reason unemployment was becoming a problem then informed his audience what they should do to increase employment. In this part of his speech he planned steps that was made to get his country back into a better economy and to get the workforce back to normal. What FED brought to the publics attention was the fact that the overbalance of population was a problem then he stated what plans were necessary to overcome this problem. Lastly, another significant technique FED used was “projection for the future and past” (Denton and Han peg. 64).
This function of political language is important because it’s where the president made promises Of a brighter future, which involves a sense of security from the new leader. In Fad’s speech he used this when he stated, “But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me” (Roosevelt, “1 SST . ” Par. 19). It was important to gain trust from his people and by saying this he made sure that even if things weren’t improving fast he would not forget about his “duty’.
At this time it was important for FED to take charge and make sure everyone knew that he knew all of the possible future outcomes. This was also critical at this time because he had to be prepared for anything that came his way, if he really wanted to make a change. At this same time there were many other negative events happening in different parts of the world and he made sure that his country knew that he was absolutely prepared for anything that could eventually happen. Overall, President Franklin Roosevelt used these techniques from Denton ND Han very well.
