김일성의 담화 분석을 통해 본 북한체제의 정당화 전략

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the strategy of persuasion used by Kim Il Sung to justify North Korea's political system by studying his speeches.

Kim Il Sung seems to have understood the necessity and importance of persuading the public from the inception of his rule. Thus, he tried to make the public attend continuously to persuasion in the process of revolution and development in North Korea. Lots of his 'speech' and 'writing' provide good evidence of how important he considered persuading the people. It is known that language plays a crucial role in revising people's consciousness and Kim Il Sung seems to have known the method and effects of language in use.

Specifically, this dissertation is focused on analyzing the strategy of Kim Il Sung's speeches, which was a way to persuade the people. As a result, the analysis proves the followings.

First, Kim Il Sung made speeches to strengthen the basis of his own power as the structure of power was undergoing changes in North Korea. The change in the power structure goes along with an alteration in dominant speech as a way of justification. Kim aimed to justify his power basis and policies through his speeches. Kim Il Sung made speeches to support his dominant ideology as well as political system. In this sense, Kim Il Sung communicated his dominant ideology to the people through his speeches, therefore justify his authority.

Second, it was by manipulating normative language that Kim Il Sung could construct the logic to justify the one-man ruling system. If a man wants his actions to be justified, he cannot help but persuasively explain his deeds by use of normative language. In other words, a man's language can be justified only when it is expressed in the normative structure. As Kim Il Sung manipulated the normative language in North Korea, he established the logic in justification of dictatorship and personal worship.

Third, Kim Il Sung maintained this strategy which allowed the people to effectively assimilate themselves to his speeches by using popular "Moon Poong (speech style)" and the art of speech. Kim Il Sung's speech is largely composed of two versions of style. The one is the leader's "Moon Poong" as an expressive style, and the other is 'the quotation from Kim Il Sung's speeches' as a principal way of propagation.

Kim Il Sung, who knew 'the power of language' better than any one else, concentrated his efforts on persuading the people from the beginning of his reign. His calculated speech style moved the people to elicit their consent from both the ruling class and the ruled.

This dissertation proves that Kim Il Sung persuaded the people by language, convincing them of the justification of his absolute power, thereby constructing the basis of social and mental consent that made Kim Il Sung's dictatorship called "U-il System (the one-man ruling system)" possible. Existing studies focused only on what the ideology is in North Korea and how the ideology and the justification of North Korean political system can be related to each other. This dissertation, however, shows the mechanism of foundation and maintenance of the North Korean political system more methodically by analyzing Kim Il Sung's speech.