The presentational dimension of Geert Wilders’s populist argumentative style
This study responds to van Eemeren’s (2019, 2021) call for research on the prototypical argumentative styles used in particular domains or
communicative activity types by particular individuals or groups. It explores the argumentative style of Dutch politician Geert
Wilders in presenting populist arguments, i.e., arguments claiming that if many people hold a certain standpoint, this standpoint
should be accepted. A corpus study of 27 texts taken from the website of Wilders’s political party reveals four characteristics of
this presentation that deviate significantly from the general descriptions of this type of argument given in the textbooks: (1) absence of indicators, (2) implicit standpoint, (3) wide range of verbs to indicate what “the people” think or believe, (4) use of
a construction indicating that the speaker is acting as a mouthpiece (“on behalf of the people, I say”).
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The populist argument
- 3.Corpus and method
- 4.Non-argumentative populist references and regular symptomatic argumentation
- 5.Presentational characteristics of Wilders’s use of populist arguments
- 5.1Leaving out argumentative indicators
- 5.2Leaving standpoints implicit
- 5.3Using atypical verbs to introduce standpoints
- 5.4Using constructions without a verb in indicating the people’s opinion
- 6.A combination of presentational characteristics
- 7.Conclusion
- Notes
-
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