Suostutteleva puhe, puhutteleva suostuttelu

»Sanan» valta

Authors

• Päivikki Suojanen

Abstract

The article deals with religious and political speech from the persuasive communication and behavioral point of view. The empirical material of participant observation has been gathered by the author from the prayer meetings of Finnish revival movements and political election meetings held in the 1970’s and 80’s. The author discusses three realities of persuasive discourse, the reality of the objective world, of the symbolic world, and of the perceptual world. Finnish persuasive discourse is a ritual discourse, which, when performed with the ritual intonation in the proper context, will produce the »right» interpretation. Formal Finnish persuasion discourse displays two inner constructions, the traditional prestige construction and another which can be called the manipulation construction. The article also discusses the limits, reasons, and influences in the varying Finnish persuasive communication modes. Especially from the syncronic variation point of view, the main varying universal features are: the symmetry of speech, its rhytm and intonation, terminal features, redundance, oppositions and contrasts, and finally its symbolization.