ABSTRACT
This chapter examines an example of ‘life-style politics’ in a British context. It focuses on P. Chilton’s analysis of a well-known political speech, given 50 years ago by British Conservative politician Enoch Powell, which has since become known as the ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. Powell uses an ‘indirect-meaning strategy’, leaving it to the listener to make the inference that immigration will lead to a race war. Powell was subsequently expelled from the shadow cabinet for the inflammatory nature of his speech. In his analysis of parts of the speech, Chilton focuses on three of the four strategic functions political language may have. These are legitimation/delegitimation, coercion and representation/misrepresentation. Chilton sees two basic kinds of legitimation at work in Powell’s speech: one is the speaker’s claim to have better knowledge of the ‘real’ facts and therefore to be more ‘rational’ and more ‘objective’ than his political opponents.
