STRATEGIES AND TACTICS IN BULGARIAN PRESIDENTS’ INAUGURATION SPEECHES (The ritual in the political language)

Yoanna Kirilova
Institute for Bulgarian Language, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Abstract

One of the most important features of the inauguration is that it is a verbalized ritual, corresponding to an initiation rite. This performative speech act, by its very nature, relates to the ancient man’s understanding of the power of the creative word.
The purpose of the article is to outline communication strategies and their accompanying tactics in the inaugurating presidential speech as a type of ritual political text and to relate them to the four main functions of the inaugural address – integrative, inspirative, declarative and performative. The strategic approach has been used as a key to achieving this goal. The subject of the study are the inaugural speeches of three Bulgarian presidents.

Keywords: inauguration, ritual, strategy, tactics, performative