A Critical Discourse analysis of Obama’s political speeches

Abstract EN

This paper is a chapter of my PhD thesis.

This study aims at exploring the language used by the American president Barack Obama by analyzing two ofhis state ofthe Union speeches, ^he study is conducted, mainly, by applying Critical Discourse Analysis theory to the text under examination with the aim of pointing out the persuasive and manipulative features through this approach.

It aims to show how the linguistic strategies can be employed to serve different purposes for the speaker’s own interests.

When he wants to highlight some issues, the president Obama performs specific persuasive strategies.

However, when he wants to understate other issues, he performs the manipulative strategies to mislead his people.

This study adopts qualitative and quantitative methods to determine the presence of such strategies in Obama’s selected speeches.