Metaphor and Emotiveness as Rhetorical Devices in Abbas’s Address to the Pope

Managing any linguistic event means steering the situation towards serving one’s own purpose or goals via careful wording of one’s message. This is immensely achieved through using emotive words that address the receiver’s emotions rather than his/her intellect since managing linguistic occurrences is closely intertwined with subjectivity and emotiveness. In other words, language must be warm, intimate, and sentimental and addresses conscience to effect persuasion. Furthermore, Language is the carrier of image. For the image to be understood, two conditions must be met. First, image must be accessible, i.e. exists or can be imagined in the immediate context and culture. Second, it must be acceptable, i.e. makes sense and/or appropriate in the immediate context as well as culture. Communication is thwarted or hindered if the image is not embedded in the linguistic message. In other words, no image, no comprehension. In order for the words to be understood and to effect persuasion, the sounds must be conjoined with an image, and this image must be intrinsic, i.e. extracted from the immediate cultural and situational context and is context-friendly. Critical analysis of Mahmoud Abbas’s discourse regarding the use of metaphor and emotive language as rhetorical devices during Pope Francis’s visit to Palestine in May 2014 leads to the following questions: Was the president familiar with discourse formation and progression? Did the president strategically or haphazardly use these devices? Did the president achieve the sought goal? The argument in this paper rests on the assumption that President Abbas of Palestine strategically and successfully employed both persuasive techniques in his discourse through mediation where he used emotive language and images taken from the immediate surrounding context of situation and context culture. Eventually, he was familiar with the pros and cons of such strategy.