Cogency of argumentation in Obama's (2013)‎ speech on the use of chemical weapons in Syria : a pragmatic study

Abstract EN

This study attempted to bridge the gap between cogency of argumentation and political discourse constructed in Obama's (2013) speech regarding the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

It was concerned with analysing the speaker's argument in an effort to persuade the American Congress to approve the strike of the facilities that belonged to Al-Assad's regime.

The data were selected to examine the premises adopted by Obama and the conditional construction of his hypotheses.

The current work was qualitative in nature since it observed, described, and examined the selected data.

The researcher employed Toulmin's (2003) six components of argument realized in the data to ascertain how these elements could effectively participate in helping the speaker achieve his objectives.

The researcher also advocated Gruyter's (2001) model to examine the degree of cogency utilized by Obama's speech in question.

The results of the study revealed that Obama was linguistically successful in manipulating all the components of the model.

However, he objectively failed to win support from Congress and the majority of the American allies.

The study also indicated that Obama showed a low degree of cogency in his proposition.

It further showed that the hypothetical realities overwhelmed the factual realities based on the results obtained from the analysis of the conditional constructions.