The Royal Christmas Message Across Time – A Diachronic Linguistic Analysis

Abstrakt

The paper is a qualitative diachronic analysis of two virgin Royal Christmas speeches: one delivered by the late Queen Elizabeth II in 1952, and the other delivered by King Charles III in 2022. The research pertains to how the rhetoric, stylistic choices, and discourse strategies applied in the speeches reflect the historical context, politics, economy, dominant ideology, and personal ethos. The paper applies discourse analysis tools to illustrate the differences between the two monarchs in their use of style, register, and rhetorical strategies, which in turn serve to reveal how their ideological positions are embedded in their speeches in a given historical context. Another aspect worth discussing is how their use of language reflects changes to personal notions of monarchy itself, faith, nationhood, and identity. The analysis concerns speeches delivered by first-degree relatives, mother and son, and provides an appealing insight into how a generation gap may manifest through language.