The Linguistics of Charisma

Charisma is seen as an innovative, dynamic and inspiring force. But it also has a seductive and manipulative side. Why do so many politicians have so much charisma? Which linguistic aspects make a person charismatic? And are there similarities, for example in their use of language, their way of expressing themselves? This work aims to find answers to these questions. It analyses a wide range of past and present public figures in several countries such as Germany (Helmut Schmidt, Angela Merkel), France (Charles de Gaulle, Emmanuel Macron), Great Britain (Margaret Thatcher, Boris Johnson), the United States (John F. Kennedy, Donald Trump), and also Ukraine (Yulia Tymoshenko, Volodymyr Zelensky). The author points out charisma's indicators and how to identify their linguistic aspects. She develops a methodology for indexing past charismatics and determining future ones. Her findings are of interest for all specialists in the humanities studying the interrelationships between language, personality, media, and culture.

Nataliya Petlyuchenko is a professor at the A.V. Nezhdanova Odesa ­National Academy of Music (Ukraine) and a visiting scholar at the Technical University of Dresden (Germany). She is the author of over 70 research papers, including 4 monographs. A recipient of the ­Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, her academic interests include political discourse, charisma studies and computational phonetics.