Research

'The style of speeches'
What is the difference between a minister saying that something is possible or that it is not impossible ? And what exactly is the rhetoric effect when someone says I don’t want to blame you for X, but… – thereby exactly blaming the addressee for X (a figure of speech called praeteritio)? Speechwriters do often have global ideas about the effect of certain stylistic devices, but a scientific basis for these intuitive judgements is lacking. 

Purpose & theoretical framework
The purpose of my PhD project is to develop a method for evaluating the effectiveness of the style of speeches. Starting point is the cognitive linguistic concept of ‘construal’: speakers can ‘construe’ the same phenomenon in different ways (see the example of possible / not impossible), and thereby evoke a certain perspective on that phenomenon.
 
Three phases in my project
My project is divided in three phases. In phase one, I will make an inventory of the perspectivisation phenomena a speaker has at his disposal. Using both classical rhetoric figures of speech (‘tropes’) and linguistic elements, this leads to a model for evaluating the effectiveness of the style of speeches. The model will be tested by a detailed analysis of two speeches, and adapted where necessary. The second phase of the project consists of selecting a few perspectivisation phenomena from the model (e.g. antithesis, negation, complementation constructions) and examining how these are actually used in a corpus of speeches. This leads to hypotheses about the rhetorical effect(s) of these phenomena, using cognitive linguistics to give my hypotheses a linguistic basis. In the final phase of the project, I will conduct a series of experiments, in which I will investigate to what extent the hypotheses about the rhetorical effect(s) of the selected perspectivisation phenomena are correct. 

Stylistics of Dutch 
My project ‘The style of speeches’ is part of the larger NWO research project ‘Stylistics of Dutch’, under the direction of prof. dr. Arie Verhagen. The purpose of this overall project is to develop a single, coherent model for analyzing style in different types (literary and non-literary) of texts. The research group has an interdisciplinary character, in which linguistics, rhetoric and literature are combined. My research subject concentrates on the style of non-literary texts (i.e. speeches) under the supervision of dr. Jaap de Jong; my colleague Suzanne de Werd (also a PhD candidate) will investigate the style of literary texts (i.e. prose), under the supervision of prof. dr. Jaap Goedegebuure. Ninke Stukker will join the project in 2009, as a linguistic post doc. Together with Arie Verhagen she will work on the monography that will complete the project in 2012.

Teaching activities

Teacher at the Language Centre / Inter Consultancy Bureau (Leiden University). More information on http://www.languagecentre.leidenuniv.nl.