Presidential Speeches Research Articles

Exploring Transitivity in Speeches of President Joko Widodo Using UAM Corpus Tool

This research investigates the transitivity system as a part of systemic functional linguistics theory together with the UAM Corpus Tools 3.2, developed by Donnel (2008) in the presidential speeches of the President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo (hereafter JW). It focuses on analyzing processes, participants, and circumstances. The research is a descriptive qualitative study. The speech transcripts of President Joko Widodo in 2015 and 2018 are stored in a text file (.txt) with UTF-8 encoding. The findings of this research showed that material process types were found more than other process types in 2015 and 2018. This indicates that, by using material clauses, JW strongly desires to emphasize real work or action work in his speech. In terms of the participants, Actor and Goal were the most dominant in 2015 and 2018. In terms of Circumstance, Location, Cause, and Manner were the most dominant in 2015 while in 2018, Cause, Manner, and Location were the most dominant. Location is again one of the most dominant circumstance features in the text. This can be considered as consistency in JW’s speeches. On the other hand, the fact that JW utilizes the same elements from the speech from three years prior means that this might not be regarded as a breakthrough.

Discourse and language of war: A comparison of the linguistic and rhetorical strategies employed in Russian, United States, and Ukrainian presidential speeches

In the context of war, political speeches employ emotionally charged language in the form of linguistic devices, in an attempt to persuade the audience and appeal to their emotions. This study examines how the Russia-Ukraine War was presented by Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Joe Biden, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. This study identifies the linguistic features as well as the rhetorical strategies employed in the three presidential speeches which reflect the power and dominance of the conflicting parties in the Russia-Ukraine war. Therefore, a critical discourse analysis of three presidential speeches on the Russia-Ukraine War was conducted. The study analyzed and compared the use of vocabulary, semantic structure, grammatical devices, and rhetorical strategies used by the three presidents to reveal the extent of language manipulation and ideologies in the context war. The study revealed the power of language in political speeches in three different narratives of the war. The findings of this study indicate that word choice, grammatical structures, and rhetorical devices were employed to evoke public emotions, to reflect power and influence beliefs, attitudes, and ideologies. The study revealed that language manipulation is clearly evident through the use of linguistic strategies such as powerful word choices, pronouns, modals, tenses etc., as well as emotional and logical appeals in the form of rhetorical strategies.

POLITICAL TEXTS AS AN IMPORTANT RESOURCE IN THE STUDY OF LINGUISTICS

The article provides theories that presidential speeches as a political resource become an object of research for various field studies, their investigation from the point of view of linguistics. The article also contains information about presidential speeches, studies aimed at determining the indicators of its use of the language.

Analysis of political discourse based on the English-language speech of President of Ukraine V.O. Zelensky as of October 6, 2022

Analysis of political discourse based on the English-language speech of President of Ukraine V.O. Zelensky as of October 6, 2022

Psycholinguistic Authenticity in US Presidential Speeches Based on Party

Psycholinguistic Authenticity in US Presidential Speeches Based on Party

역대 대통령의 광복절 연설문 어휘 양상 연구

This study aimed to extract feature extraction keywords using BigKinds for 68 speeches of the President of the Korea on Independence Day and present the current status of related words in sentences through the extracted keywords. As a research method, we used BigKinds, which applies an automatic algorithm of text mining method, to extract feature extraction keywords centered on nouns or noun phrases. Among national holidays, speeches on Independence Day emphasized Korea's history and identity, peaceful unification and security, democratization and democracy, economy and culture for the future of Korea, and people's efforts and cooperation. The purpose of Korea's democracy and freedom, efforts for our country's independence and unification, and expressions of joy at liberation and gratitude for the sacrifices of the ancestors were frequently used. In addition, for peaceful unification, efforts were made to ease inter-Korean tensions and promote inter-Korean economic cooperation, and words to achieve economic growth were used to strengthen security. Presidential speeches show lexical characteristics that reveal core values depending on domestic and international situations for each president, and it is necessary to continue presidential speech research and expand the data.

Exploring Multiple Identities in Barack Obama’s Speeches to the African and Arab Audience

Presidential speeches aside, being a type of political discourse is a viable expression of the different types of identities purposively constructed and negotiated to achieve intended communicative outcomes. Using two Barack Obama's speeches to the Arab and African communities, the study seeks to investigate how political actors construct their identities to a wider audience. Using an eclectic theoretical dimension of Stance Taking, Audience Design Theory and drawing insights from Discourse Pragmatics, the study notes that the discursive features of intertextuality, metaphor, rhetorical questions, pronouns, if conditionals, multiple audience, epistemic stance are deliberately deployed to reveal their individual, social, national, and racial identities of political actors to achieve both self and communal positionings. The study concludes that identity is consciously deployed in every form of language used to show both alignment and distinctiveness.

Public speech as a tool for nation-building: An analysis of Thabo Mbeki’s speeches

This study investigated the discursive strategies used in major speeches in South Africa with distinct socio-political systems, which put nation-building in a central place, making the nation both the context and an analytical unit for the study of nation-building. The research question that needed to be answered was: to what extent does a presidential speech, as a tool, reflect South Africa’s nation-building objectives? This study specifically examined various discursive techniques used in the political language of former President Thabo Mbeki. Two speeches by former President Thabo Mbeki were collected from the GCIS website. A general textual description of the speeches is made in terms of lexis and syntax to uncover the underlying ideology in the speeches. Thematic content analysis was adopted. The analysis was predominantly qualitative, supported by some statistical data, on the assumption that a purely qualitative analysis would not necessarily yield reliable results. The occurrence of linguistic features was presented; each text was transcribed and marked for relevant linguistic features. The critical discourse analysis revealed that, on a macro-level, the text of the speeches can be viewed as a manifestation of larger socio-political processes within the country. The texts illustrate a type of political speech positioned in a society in transition, as there are references to building a cohesive society, policy implementation, new programs of government, job creation, and poverty alleviation. The speeches did serve as a nation-building tool, as they conveyed the steps undertaken by the South African government to strive towards an inclusive and all-encompassing approach in an effort to achieve nation-building.

대통령의 국경일 연설문에 나타난 어휘 사용 양상

This study analyzes 76 commemorative speeches by South Korean presidents, focusing on Constitution Day, National Foundation Day, and Hangul Day. Among 28 Constitution Day speeches, key terms include “National Assembly, Republic of Korea,” “democracy, constitution,” and later, “unification, peace, autonomy.” Notable shifts occur, with “country's constitution” and “constitution establishment, constitution, North Korea” gaining prominence, followed by “democratic constitution,” “presidential election,” and “Republic of Korea.”
 National Foundation Day speeches (23 in total) highlight “Hongik Ingan, people, culture, history, authenticity,” transitioning to “unification, peace, North Korea, nation-building.” Early mentions of “North Korean Communist Group, national people, ethnic history, 60 million people” shift to focus on terms like “people, nation” later on.
 Hangul Day speeches (25 in total) feature evolving themes, from “scholar, culture, newspaper, national language, China” to emphasis on “King Sejong, cultural fi gure,” and eventually “culture, people, Hangul.” The 16th president's speeches uniquely emphasize “our language,” “King Sejong,” and “compatriots, Japanese colonial era Hangul, our language, Korean language.”
 The study extracts characteristic keywords using an algorithm, providing insights into presidential discourse on national holidays. However, interpreting their meaning solely based on data poses challenges. This research serves as a foundation, urging further studies for a clearer understanding of trends.

Changing Minds About Not Can but Ought

In my presidential speech to the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy (now the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies) at the 1974 Annual Convention, I took the position that requests for sexual reorientation should be declined in favor of addressing the ethical and political factors that underlie the allegedly voluntary requests of gay individuals to change in a heterosexual direction. Discrimination, prejudice, and sometimes hate crimes made it highly unlikely that requests for sexual reorientation were voluntary. The personal and professional context for my change of perspective is also described as are several pedagogical and persuasive strategies I have used over the past 50 years for changing people's minds about the propriety of sexual orientation change efforts.

Toward a Cognitive-Pragmatic Account of Humorous Metaphor in Chinese Diplomatic Discourse

Despite the repeated call for humor research, few attempts have been made to address humorous metaphors in diplomatic discourse. This paper examined each type of strategic humor behind these metaphors in Chinese diplomatic discourse from the perspective of cognitive pragmatics. Blending theory, metaphorical mapping, and inferential structure between source and target domain were examined to construe the implicature behind humorous metaphors in digital diplomacy, press conferences, and presidential speeches. We found: (1) multimodal resources can add more value to metaphor inference in digital diplomacy, especially with blending theory; (2) many offensive metaphors of PATIENT, PERFORMANCE have been attributed to the US and its allies.

Introduction: A Presidential Speech Retrospective

Introduction: A Presidential Speech Retrospective

The Trillion Dollar War: Presidential Budgets and the War on Drugs

Officially coined by Richard Nixon in 1971, the “War on Drugs” was greatly expanded under the Reagan administration. Regardless of party, subsequent presidents have continued fighting this so-called ‘War,’ as evidenced in their speeches. In this paper, I examine presidential speeches and initiatives ranging from Reagan to Trump. In doing so, I consider how their respective rhetoric and the funding they sought for their administrations’ initiatives have resulted in chronic overspending on this War. Not only have these efforts largely not had their intended results in eliminating drug use, but they also resulted in high incarceration rates while drug overdoses have increased since Reagan’s presidency.

THE USE OF ANTCONC TO INVESTIGATE THE PATTERN OF CORPUS REPRESENTATION IN JOKO WIDODO’S PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH

This research investigates the patterns of representation in Joko Widodo’s corpus of presidential speech. The research method used is a mixed method that combines quantitative and qualitative analysis. The data of the research are transcriptions of President Joko Widodo’s speech text in 2015 and in 2018. In order to be processed with a corpus analysis tool, the data is stored in a text file or .txt format with UTF-8 encoding. The instrument which is used in this study is AntConc. It also brings up words that often appear and keywords in the corpus and analyzes text patterns with certain letter arrangements. Regarding patterns in the text, several appear from words contained in the corpus. Among them are the existence of words that have prefixes, suffixes, prefixes and suffixes, and repetition. Further, from the frequency and keyword analysis, it can be seen that Joko Widodo is focusing his attention on achieving the goals for the Indonesian nation and state, both in the 2015 and 2018 speech texts. It can be concluded, therefore, that Widodo is consistent in his speech patterns. On the other hand, this may be considered a new breakthrough because the speech from 2018 uses the same speech patterns as the speech from three years earlier.

The Translation Obstacles of Passive Voice in Obama’s Presidential Speeches

This paper aimed at finding weather if the English passive voice construction used in Obama’s political speeches, will be preserved or not when translated into Arabic. This paper hypothesize that the passive voice construction is not preserved during the process of translation from English to Arabic. In conclusion according to the analysis of the samples most of the translators use active voice instead of the passive voice in translating the statements that is due to the fact that the complexity of Arabic language differs from that of the English language, both languages differ in culture and norms and follows different grammar. This study provides an overview on translating passive voice forms from English to Arabic using Obama's presidential speeches. This paper serves as a valuable resource for analyzing passive voice constructions, developing translation strategies, and evaluating translation outcomes. It is expected to contribute to the field of translation studies and enhance understanding of the complexities involved in translating between these two languages. It attempts to present a valuable addition to a topic in need of more relevant information.

The Multivocality of Covid-19 Pandemic: A Reflection of Social Representations from Presidential Speeches in Tanzania

The study investigated how news of the Covid pandemic has been constructed and shared among the common public. The study assessed whether presidential speeches or discursive others influenced the nature of their discursive constructions on mitigation measures. The study employed participants from the four major cities of Tanzania. A sample size of 60 respondents was purposively selected. The data for this study were qualitatively analysed. The study used Social Representation Theory (SRT) to guide the study on how the public received the pandemic news. The study also assessed how the presidential speeches or discursive others influenced the nature of their discursive construction on mitigation measures. The findings showed that discursive constructions and sharing of the pandemic news among the public were constructed around the polysemous definition of Covid-19 as normal flues, asthma and complicated diseases. Results showed that presidential speeches positively influenced audiences' panic relief and raised self-consciousness. On the other hand, presidential speeches negatively influenced the audiences to delay responses and downplay the pandemic self-consciousness. This study recommends that political leaders need to consider their discourse choices when addressing global issues, as the public trusts people in power.

Discursive Strategies Utilized in King Abdullah II's Speeches during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Addressing the Nation

While several researchers have investigated the linguistic features of Presidential and Royal speeches, there is a gap in the literature regarding discursive strategies used in the speeches of Presidents and Monarchs during crises. The study aims at identifying the main discursive strategies used by His Majesty King Abdullah II in addressing Jordanians during COVID-19. Therefore, the study adopted the Positive Discourse Analysis approach (PDA) to investigate the usage of discursive strategies in three speeches of King Abdullah II during COVID-19. The study revealed that the King used nomination, prediction, argumentation, perspectivization and intensification, and mitigation strategies in appeasing Jordanians and conveying his directives to the government regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

Catching the political leader's signal: Economic policy uncertainty and firm investment in China

This study uses a text dataset of the Chinese President's speeches and reports from November 2012 to December 2021 to construct an original economic policy uncertainty (EPU) index: President Xi Jinping's EPU (XiEPU). XiEPU moderately correlates with a previous study's representative EPU, showing notably different peaks. Our index spiked in April 2016 and January 2017. Using firm-level panel data from 2012 to 2019, we find that a higher value of XiEPU is associated with a lower investment rate at the quarterly level. Moreover, there are noteworthy heterogeneous effects among firms and periods. Specifically, we find a stronger effect of XiEPU on manufacturing sectors, a weaker effect on state-owned enterprises, and a stronger effect in the second term of Xi Jinping's presidential tenure after November 2017.

Confrontational or ‘Statespersonlike’ Style? Examining Finnish and French Presidents’ Public Speeches and Messages, 2000–2020

Presidents can use public speeches for a variety of purposes from rallying support for their initiatives to attacking their opponents or building societal consensus. Contrary to general expectations regarding dual executive systems, this article suggests that presidents in semi-presidential regimes can benefit politically and in terms of popularity from ‘statespersonlike’ behaviour, and thus, they should generally refrain from negative and contentious statements. Examining the tone and content of formal speeches and informal messages of Finnish and French presidents from 2000 to 2020, the study shows that under varying constitutional frameworks and general practical expectations, the presidents in both countries by and large employ a ‘statespersonlike’ style in their speeches. Presidential speeches primarily express a positive tone, and they contain few references to other state institutions and economy and other governmental domains. Instead, presidents typically seek to portray themselves as guardians of national interest, with foreign policy and national unity emphasized in the speeches.

Engaging Students’ Writing Competency on Metadiscourse Markers Using Donald Trump Presidential Speeches

This study aimed to investigate the implication of Donald Trump Presidential speeches as the teaching material of Metadiscourse Markers (MM) in writing class. It employed a qualitative study of English students after the pandemic situation. The research population consisted of 30 second-year students (male and female) from one selected class of Contextual Written Language Skills (CWLS) in the English Education Department of State University of Medan, Indonesia. The CWLS students’ writing ability was assessed using a questionnaire and Donald Trump Presidential speech transcripts taken from millercenter.org. The study referred to Hyland’s metadiscourse taxonomy (2005) and Lee’s contextual factors in writing (2016). The findings revealed that there was a distinct improvement in CWLS students’ writing ability between males and females on MM. This study also found that methodological variables such as teaching material and instructional design were some of the influencing factors in the learning process of MM using Donald Trump Presidential speeches.