Style and grammar in political discourse: complementation and its argumentative-rhetorical potential

This contribution is a plea to pay more systematicattention to the infrequently studied, fine-grained grammatical phenomenon ofcomplementation in the analysis of political discourse. The way the Dutchradical populist Geert Wilders uses complementation serves as a case study tothat end. In the first half of the contribution, an in-depth description of thephenomenon of complementation is given; it is argued that the use ofcomplementation affects the degree of certainty by which a speaker presents hisideas. The second half of the contribution reports on a diachronic analysis ofGeert Wilders’ use of complementation in 47 parliamentary speeches held between2004 and 2009. It is argued that Wilders’ use of complementation significantlydecreases between 2004 and 2009. The decrease is not a gradual transition: abreak occurs between 2006 and 2007. This is an indication that Wilders offersless room for discussion from this period onwards. Strikingly, Wilders’ changeduse of complementation coincides with the moment that political scientistsindicate as the moment that Wilders’ political views radicalized. The casestudy not only shows that studying complementation can add to the inventory oflinguistic phenomena relevant to the analysis of political discourse; it alsostresses the significance of combining quantitative and qualitative methods ofanalysis for the quantification of stylistic phenomena.