Authenticity of political rhetoric of people

In our paper, we address the question of the authenticity of political rhetoric which uses the inclusive term “the people”. We build on the knowledge of classical rhetoric on the importance of sincerity, one of the fundamental pillars of a speaker’s ethos (character) and at the same time a prerequisite for his credibility. We introduce the term “rhetoric of people” to designate that part of deliberative rhetoric that addresses the people in a significant way, and bears their sealing in content, stylistic and argumentative plan. We especially single out populist rhetoric only as a special case of the rhetoric of people, in which there is a pragmatic use of authenticity as a tool to achieve specific social goals linked to the political capital of the speaker, primarily to image creation (we put it in opposition to charisma). Since style is a significant bearer of speech authenticity, our aim is to identify the stylistic values and stylistic strategies applied in the interest of authenticity and to elucidate them as instances of sincerity or, conversely, pretense. In doing so, we draw on the pragmatic grasp of linguistic style developed in the work of Professor Juraj Dolník (2010; 2023), who explains style through its anthropic character and social meaning.