“Intonation and emotional framing in political rallies:A multimodal approach to populist political speech”

IF 1.4 2区文学 Q2 COMMUNICATION

Language & Communication Pub Date : 2025-09-15 DOI:10.1016/j.langcom.2025.08.003

Pablo Agustin Artero Abellan

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Abstract

This article examines how intonation functions as a mechanism of emotional framing in political speech. Drawing on a multimodal analysis of campaign rally fragments from Donald Trump and Barack Obama during the 2016 U.S. election, the study investigates how prosodic features—pitch contour, tempo, pausing, intensity, and voice quality—shape affective alignment and ideological positioning. Using acoustic analysis (via Praat) and discourse-pragmatic interpretation, the article identifies distinct prosodic strategies that frame reassurance, attack, and collective emotion. Trump's delivery is characterized by steep pitch falls, high intensity, and compressed tempo, projecting certainty and control. Obama, by contrast, employs rising–falling contours, tonal modulation, and slowed tempo to model emotional co-presence and reflective unity. These patterns reveal contrasting affective logics of leadership: one performative and populist, the other dialogic and compositional. The article contributes to prosodic pragmatics, political communication, and affect theory by demonstrating how intonation operates not merely as an expressive overlay but as a core semiotic system for constructing political meaning in real time.

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政治集会中的语调与情感框架：民粹主义政治演讲的多模态分析

本文探讨了语调在政治演讲中的情感框架作用机制。通过对2016年美国大选期间唐纳德·特朗普和巴拉克·奥巴马竞选集会片段的多模态分析，该研究调查了韵律特征——音高轮廓、节奏、停顿、强度和语音质量——如何塑造情感一致性和意识形态定位。通过声学分析（通过Praat）和语篇语用解释，本文确定了构建安慰、攻击和集体情感的不同韵律策略。特朗普的演讲特点是音调陡降，强度高，节奏紧凑，表现出确定性和控制力。相比之下，奥巴马则采用上升-下降的轮廓、调性和慢节奏来模拟情感上的共存和反思上的统一。这些模式揭示了截然不同的领导力情感逻辑：一种是表现型和民粹主义，另一种是对话型和构图型。本文对韵律语用学、政治交际学和情感理论做出了贡献，展示了语调不仅是一种表达叠加，而且是实时构建政治意义的核心符号学系统。

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来源期刊

Language & Communication Multiple-

CiteScore

3.40

自引率

6.70%

发文量

期刊介绍： This journal is unique in that it provides a forum devoted to the interdisciplinary study of language and communication. The investigation of language and its communicational functions is treated as a concern shared in common by those working in applied linguistics, child development, cultural studies, discourse analysis, intellectual history, legal studies, language evolution, linguistic anthropology, linguistics, philosophy, the politics of language, pragmatics, psychology, rhetoric, semiotics, and sociolinguistics. The journal invites contributions which explore the implications of current research for establishing common theoretical frameworks within which findings from different areas of study may be accommodated and interrelated. By focusing attention on the many ways in which language is integrated with other forms of communicational activity and interactional behaviour, it is intended to encourage approaches to the study of language and communication which are not restricted by existing disciplinary boundaries.