This thesis examines the political speeches of the Greek dictator Georgios Papadopoulos from the time his regime -- the self-titled 'Revolution of the 21st April' -- usurped power in 1967 until he himself was ousted in November 1973. The thesis proposes that the underlying aim of all of Papadopoulos's political speeches is the construction of a cyclical narrative of a past, present and future Greece. According to his political speeches, this construct proposes a 'dangerous', 'corrupt' and 'undemocratic' recent past that necessitated his 'Revolutionary' present; a 'revolutionary' present that strives to create the preconditions for a 'prosperous' future Greece; and a future Greece that shall embody the 'Helleno-Christian' ideals of the distant past, and detach itself from the failings of the recent past. The premise on which the research is founded is that patterns in his political speeches can be quantitatively identified and that, from these patterns, a qualitative interpretation can be developed. Thus, quantitative data were collated concerning the frequency of key terms and concepts, both literal and figurative, in all of Papadopoulos's political speeches and, then, cross-referenced with audience composition and date of delivery. These data were subsequently analysed holistically in the context of the political, social, economic and cultural aspects of Greece's recent history. The thesis developed from the data is divided into three parts. The first part examines the history immediately before and during the 7-year dictatorship. The second and third parts consider specific lexical terms and concepts and medical and biological analogies, respectively, in Papadopoulos's political speeches. Some examples examined in the lexicon component are Revolution, distant past, communism, security. Some examples analysed in the medical and biological component are doctor, infection, cells and the plaster cast. Clear correlation can be discerned between certain lexical and figurative preferences and audience composition and/or time of delivery; however, while clear lexical and figurative transitions and shifts are noted over the 6-year period, his underlying cyclical narrative is consistently present.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/257232 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | Mikedakis, Emmanuela, School of Modern Language Studies, UNSW |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
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