Contextual and Cultural Differences in Speaker-Audience Interaction in Korean Political Oratory

This study investigates speaker-audience interaction in political oratory. The aims of this study are (1) to investigate the contextual and cultural differences in speaker-audience interaction in political oratory, (2) to contribute methodological innovations in the analysis of political discourse, and (3) to emphasise the practical implications of the study for real life. By combining qualitative and quantitative methods, speaker’s verbal and nonverbal behaviour and audience’s behaviour (forms of response and collective behaviour) are analysed in three speech contexts of Korean presidential election 2012: acceptance speeches to the nomination as political parties’ candidates for presidential election, presidential election campaign speeches, and presidential inauguration speeches. It is presented that: (1) there are close relationships between orator-audience interaction and speech contexts beyond the cultural dimensions; (2) invitation to respond is shaped by multiple layers of resources (verbal devices and nonverbal factors); (3) grammatical order is an important factor in the cultural differences in terms of the projectability of turn completion in orator-audience interaction; (4) the production of orator-audience interaction occurs by mutual respect of each other’s turn and mutual collaboration to achieve their shared goals; (5) audience behaviour has evolved through the political time periods. It is argued that political speech context (i.e., the purpose of oratory, speaker-audience status, political culture and system), language, and nonverbal factors are important variables in studying speaker-audience interaction. Based on the findings, practical implications in social and political behaviour are presented.