Critical Discourse Analysis of the Speech Acts of Netanyahu’s Speeches on Iranian Nuclear Power

This study aimed at shedding light on the use of speech acts in political discourse, in general,and in the speeches of Israeli Prime Minister, Netanyahu. To reach this aim, ten speeches delivered by this politician were analyzed based on the speech act framework. Since it is assumed that speech acts are able to produce response from audiences, Fairclough s framework (1995) was used to investigate the way the two politicians do so. In addition to the descriptive statistics, the data were subjected to Chi-square statistical analysis for the significance of the differences regarding the use of speech acts in the speeches. The results indicated that the politician frequently used assertive speech acts in his speeches. Other types of speech acts were also used in the speeches; however, assertives were the most frequent ones. The analyses indicated that theNetanyahu used similar speech acts in his speeches; however, the descriptions of the subject matter, deliberative choices of the acts, topics selected for witnessing their acts and the persuasive use of language varied between them. It is hoped that the insights gained from this study will contribute to the development of more inclusive pedagogical materials for EFL students and scholars

کلیدواژه ها:

Speech Act ، Political Discourse ، EFL ، Discourse Analysis ، Critical Discourse Analysis ، Speech Act Theory