Communication Science Studies – Spoken Discourse Analysis Verbal Rhetoric and Leadership Style: A Comparative Study of Tun Dr. Mahathir Bin Mohamad and Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.200827.069How to use a DOI?

Keywords

verbal rhetoric, leadership style, Mahathir Mohamad, Najib Razak

Abstract

The inquiry on leadership communication is one of the most frequent research topics on leadership. Studies of leadership have become both appealing and demanding subjects since the act of leaders, their strategies will determine the future development of a state or country. Leadership is a behavior carried out by communication, in which communication clarifies perceptions of a leader’s charisma. Communication style in relation to leadership becomes a relevant subject to discuss as it is one of the characteristics of highly effective leaders. This paper is a comparative study of verbal rhetoric and leadership styles between two non-western leaders, PM of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad and Najib Razak. The purpose of this study is to critically analyze the spoken discourse of the two Malaysian Prime Minister. This study employed a descriptive research design with a qualitative approach. This approach was applied to describe a language or discourse; sought to describe how language is used persuasively in speeches. This present study adopted Aristotle’s three modes of persuasion, namely: providing facts (logos), appealing people’s emotions (pathos) and projecting credibility (ethos). The primary data were taken from the video streaming website YouTube, while various sources such as Internet sites, journals, and books as secondary data were used to support the primary data. This study also utilized a historical approach purposefully to analyze the data according to the following year: 1982, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2003, 2018, and 2019. The aim was to comparatively analyze how the two leaders formed and reflected their leadership styles during their tenure as Prime Minister through the use of verbal rhetoric. The research findings revealed that there are differences between Mahathir and Najib Razak in employing all three modes of persuasion.

Copyright

© 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Nur Fatmawati
AU  - Muhammad Amin
AU  - Nawawi Nawawi
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/08/28
TI  - Communication Science Studies – Spoken Discourse Analysis Verbal Rhetoric and Leadership Style: A Comparative Study of Tun Dr. Mahathir Bin Mohamad and Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak
BT  - Proceedings of the 1st Annual Conference on Education and Social Sciences (ACCESS 2019)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 274
EP  - 278
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.200827.069
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.200827.069
ID  - Fatmawati2020
ER  -