A Pragma linguistic Study of Assertion in Selected English Political Texts

Abstract

The current study is an attempt to explore the communicative functions of the language in the speeches of the presidents investigating the employment of illocutionary acts in two remarkable speeches of Joe Biden and Boris Johnson which belong to two different districts. The study aims at: analyzing the types of speech acts performed and examine each speech act according to the contextual criteria, highlighting the diverse types of forces within each speech act, stating the illocutionary act of assertion, and unfolding the similarities and differences in the way Biden and Johnson employ speech act theory to achieve their communicative goals. The data selected have been analyzed according to Searle`s model of speech acts Searle, (1969), (1979) and Vander vaken (1985). And employment of Searle felicity conditions in analyzing the speeches of Biden and Johnson. There are some differences in number and types of illocutionary acts of assertion used by Biden and Johnson for instance, the most frequent illocutionary act in both speeches is illocutionary act of Asserting There are some linguistic markers that are used by the politician in their speeches to show assertion The President Biden uses illocutionary acts of assertion more than the PM Johnson. The total frequency of illocutionary act in Biden's speech is 12 whereas in Johnson's speech is only 8 illocutionary acts. The most illocutionary act of assertion in Biden's speech is illocutionary act of Asserting with 25 % as shown in table 1, whereas in Johnson's speech is the illocutionary act of Asserting and Predicting with 25% as shown in table 2.