Invitations to Affiliative Audience Responses in Japanese Political Speeches

Abstract

This article reports the first investigation outside the United Kingdom of rhetorical devices used by political speakers to invite applause. Fourteen techniques for inviting affiliative audience responses were identified from 36 speeches delivered during the 2005 Japanese general election. Notable differences in audience reactions between the two cultures were observed: In response to Japanese speeches, there was an absence of isolated applause and a greater diversity of affiliative responses (laughter and cheering, as well as applause). Seven rhetorical devices identified as implicit applause invitations in British speeches were used by the Japanese politicians, but accounted for only 29% of applause incidents and 17% of all affiliative responses. A distinction between implicit and explicit rhetorical devices is proposed for future cross-cultural research on audience reactions to political speeches: In this study, explicit invitations received the highest proportion of applause incidents (68.1%) and of all affiliative audience responses (71.2%).