Analyzing political discourse : towards a pragmatic approach

الملخص EN

This paper examines in the perspective of performance how politicians in political interviews rely on pragmatic strategies to grapple with the conflict between being uncooperative and truthful.

Four Iraqi interviews were analyzed.

An eclectic model has been used in the analysis which is based on the previous works on the pragmatic analysis of political discourse.

We have attempted to accomplish a comprehensive pragmatic approach that accounts for most of the pragmatic moves and strategies that are used by Iraqi politicians in managing their discourse.

Our conclusions have proved that indirectness is an essential property of any political discourse.

Communication in Iraqi political discourse is accomplished through such communicative strategies such as word play, metaphor, circumlocution, use of approximation and numbers, citing historical speeches and citation from the Holy Quran.

We have also found that cultural differences are reflected in the kind of verbal indirectness that politicians use.

Finally, we think that the conclusions achieved can be extended to other languages.