THE NEW RHETORIC OF THE POLITICAL DISCOURSE, FROM ART TO PRAGMATISM

After it was regarded for centuries as queen among all studied disciplines and occupations, rhetoric moves at a certain point in history in the shadows, but spectacularly returns due to the true performances triggered by the political and electoral campaigns. Beyond the fact that it needs to convince its audience, by any means possible, and that it must follow a logical relationship between statements and arising conclusions, the new art of discourse focuses on the public, adapting itself to it in a manner as flexible as possible. The hereby paper aims to study the rise and fall of the contemporary political discourse, depending on various approaches, by focusing on the realities of Romania in the year of 2012. After a review of the rhetoric concepts and rules it is obliged to comply according to Charles Perelman, we shall focus on analyzing the audience, which obviously has a very important role because it is forcing the speaker to adapt to the place, time and characters it has to face. In this case, we shall analyze the moment of the referendum which took place in July 2012, by studying both the speeches given in Parliament and those outside it, in order to see if, in a crisis situations, the basic rules of discourse were still observed. This is because, beyond the aimed purpose which of course prevails and may accept many means, political discourse must not ridiculous decade.