Speech acts and politeness in Nixon and Bush's victory speech : a pragmatic study

Abstract EN

This study is primarily concerned with examining the speech acts and politeness strategies manifested in American presidential victory speech.

The study aims at showing the applicability of both Searle's classification of speech acts and Leech's politeness maxims appeared in this genre by finding out the frequency and percentage of the two types.

Then, analyzing the variation of these types among the selected samples.

The research follows a mixed method of analysis as both qualitative and quantitative methods are used.

It has been concluded that four forms of Searle's illocutionary acts have appeared in American presidential victory speech.

These acts are assertives, expressives, directives and commissives, while declaration speech acts have never been used by the selected candidates.

Regarding politeness theory, it has been found that approbation and agreement have the most frequent occurrence in this genre compared to the other maxims.