Intimidation in Political Rhetoric: Analysing Threats in Joe Biden's Presidential Speeches

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 Department of English Language and Literature, Mustapha Stambouli University of Mascara, Mascara, Algeria

2 Department of English Language and Literature, Dr Moulay Tahar University of Saida, Saida, Algeria

Abstract

This paper examines threats made by American President Joe Biden in his speeches during the first year and a half of his presidency (2021-2022). It systemically analyses the structure of threats by examining features like conditionality, futurity, use of violent verbs, and reference to weapons. The grounds for analysing threatening language in the corpus of 13 speeches by President Biden were based on the threatening strategies developed by Muschalik (2018). It is thus demonstrated that conditionality, futurity, and intentionality markers, such as the use of violent verbs and references to weapons, are typical for Biden's speeches. The discussion further points to a broad scope of understanding threatening language in critical discourse analysis. Significantly, the work adds to the limited literature concerning the speech act of threat, especially in political discourse, in which it shows that language nuances come into play in the conveyance of threats. This investigation enriches the literature on speech acts of threat and contributes significant insights into the complex interplay between language and power, emphasising the strategic use of impoliteness in high-stakes political communication.

Keywords

Journal of Research in Applied Linguistics

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 22 December 2024

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