oa Speeches schrijven op muzikaliteit

Rhythm and blues in speeches. Speechwriters about musicality in Dutch governmental speeches

Politicians are not only concerned with whát they want to say but also hów something to say to persuade their audience. Classical orators (like Aristotle) stressed the importance of rhythm, volume and word stress in the actio, the fifth task of the orator (Formarier, 2011). In contemporary rhetorical handbooks like Atkinson (1984, 2004) are many advices about musical factors like intonation, accent and melody, but aren’t called as ‘being musical’ factors. To make ‘musical techniques’ more explicit, we determined the conceptions of speechwriters about musicality. The method to reach this aim was to interview ten speechwriters from different departments of the Dutch government about musical aspects. After these interviews the gathered visions are compared with each other and with the advices from the classical and modern books. The results of this qualitative research will lead to a better insight in the rhetorical use of musicality in governmental speeches.