Intimidation in Political Rhetoric: Analysing Threats in Joe Biden's Presidential Speeches

This paper examines threats made by American President Joe Biden in his speeches during the first year and a half of his presidency (۲۰۲۱-۲۰۲۲). It systemically analyses the structure of threats by examining features like conditionality, futurity, use of violent verbs, and reference to weapons. The grounds for analysing threatening language in the corpus of ۱۳ speeches by President Biden were based on the threatening strategies developed by Muschalik (۲۰۱۸). It is thus demonstrated that conditionality, futurity, and intentionality markers, such as the use of violent verbs and references to weapons, are typical for Biden's speeches. The discussion further points to a broad scope of understanding threatening language in critical discourse analysis. Significantly, the work adds to the limited literature concerning the speech act of threat, especially in political discourse, in which it shows that language nuances come into play in the conveyance of threats. This investigation enriches the literature on speech acts of threat and contributes significant insights into the complex interplay between language and power, emphasising the strategic use of impoliteness in high-stakes political communication.

کلیدواژه ها:

Political Discourse ، linguistic analysis ، speech act of threatening ، American President Biden