Analyzing Genres in Political Communication

Book excerpt: Featuring contributions by leading specialists in the field, the volume is a survey of cutting edge research in genres in political discourse. Since, as is demonstrated, “political genres” reveal many of the problems pertaining to the analysis of communicative genres in general, it is also a state-of-the-art addition to contemporary genre theory. The book offers new methodological, theoretical and empirical insights in both the long-established genres (speeches, interviews, policy documents, etc.), and the modern, rapidly-evolving generic forms, such as online political ads or weblogs. The chapters, which engage in timely issues of genre mediatization, hybridity, multimodality, and the mixing of discursive styles, come from a broad range of perspectives spanning Critical Discourse Studies, pragmatics, cognitive psychology, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics and media studies. As such, they constitute essential reading for anyone seeking an interdisciplinary yet coherent research agenda within the vast and complex territory of today’s forms of political communication.