A Phono- Pragmatic Analysis of Threatening and Warning Phrases in Three Selected Speeches of Trump In 2020

Abstract

Former President Donald Trump is one of the most political figures to join the United States presidential election. He was known for his use of warning and threatening phrases. In the broader domain of verbal expression in speech, intonation’s function goes beyond the speaker’s level of phrases or sentences. A speaker forms an utterance taking into consideration that it is performed through an expression’s communicative force. In this analysis, a descriptive qualitative methodology is employed to achieve the objectives of the study. The selected speeches are analyzed following Speech Act Theory (SAT) and Brazil’s model to understand the intended meaning of the words. Other researchers in this field of phonology and pragmatics will benefit from this analysis because it clarifies the role of commissive acts and intonation in political speeches. The findings of this study substantiate the importance of Brazil’s model in analyzing tones pragmatically. SAT was utilized to critically evaluate the effectiveness of verbal communication in conveying the speaker’s intention. Based on the study results, it is evident that commissive acts, particularly threats and warning, are present in the three speeches expressed in an indirect illocutionary front.