Suchergebnisse

Persuasion is the central element of political propaganda of all times. From a historical point of view, it is a fact that, especially in conflict situations, the hegemonic actors adopt specific techniques and language choices for purposes of propaganda. The question of interest is in what ways and to what extent they are used in a targeted manner in order to influence different types of low- and middle-class audiences. A well-documented example is the persuasive use of language in Nazi propaganda before and during World War II. In this context, our question is whether past and present-day propagandistic and electoral campaigns make recourse to the same linguistic devices and strategies in order to persuade their intended audience. To this purpose, we shall concentrate on Hitler's propaganda by primarily drawing on Victor Klemperer's (1933–1945) diaries and compare his linguistic observations to a corpus of campaigning speeches and programs by the German right-wing populist party AfD (Alternative für Deutschland).

- ; Electoral turnout figures reveal that in recent years young voters have shown a strong disaffection with politics, which could be explained by the increasing lack of communication between them and the political class. By examining some strate­gies adopted by German politicians to approach young people and by addressing the characteristics of young people's language, the paper will first focus on an interview with Angela Merkel by woman YouTuber Ischtar Isik. To ascertain whether the language used in the interview by this young influencer truly represents her usual way of speaking, a second document will be analysed, in which Ischtar, this time as interviewee, deals with general topics. Conclusions will be drawn based on the data resulting from the comparison between the two interviews. ; -