Modality in political discourse

Abstract EN

The present study is based on the data composed of two political speeches delivered by the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the president Barack Obama.

The domain of politics is a rich field to investigate.

Political discourse in this paper is analyzed from a linguistic point of view, and it is an exercise on how language is used by politicians to arrive at the intended objective.

In order to persuade the audience, politicians exploit persuasive devices throughout their speech.

Of these persuasive devices is modality.

Modality here expresses probability and frequency of a proposition.

Two types of modality was concerned in this paper: moralization and modulation.

The analysis revealed that despite the fact that both political discourses include a wide range of modal devices, epistemic expressions are widely distributed throughout the texts.

In this respect, the speaker while delivering the speech is trying to appear uncertain and less confident.

Finally, a striking finding could be reached through the analysis.

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Key words: political speech, modality, persuasive devices, epistemic modality, deontic modality.