Pragmatic Competence in U.S. Foreign Policy Discourse: A Comparative Analysis of Obama, Trump, and Biden Speeches
Keywords:
pragmatic competence, foreign policy discourse, implicature, politeness strategies, speech acts, deixis, diplomatic communicationAbstract
Language plays a crucial role in international diplomacy, as political leaders use it not only to convey information but also to shape international relations and diplomatic outcomes. Although political discourse has been widely studied, the role of pragmatic competence in foreign policy communication remains relatively underexplored. This study investigates how pragmatic competence functions as a strategic resource in the foreign policy discourse of Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. The data consist of a corpus of foreign policy speeches and public statements delivered between 2009 and 2024, including United Nations General Assembly addresses, White House press conferences, and official governmental statements. The study is grounded in Grice’s (1975) theory of conversational implicature, Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory, Speech Act Theory (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969), and Critical Discourse Analysis. Using a qualitative comparative approach, the study examines pragmatic strategies across the three presidential discourses.
References
[1] J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962.
[2] J. Biden, “Remarks by President Biden at the 2021 Virtual Munich Security Conference,” The White House, Feb. 19, 2021.
[3] J. Biden, “Remarks by President Biden before the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly,” The White House, Sept. 21, 2021.
[4] P. Brown and S. C. Levinson, Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
[5] P. Chilton, Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice. London and New York: Routledge, 2004.
[6] J. W. Creswell, Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches, 4th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2014.
[7] N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln, Eds., The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research, 4th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2011.
[8] N. Fairclough, Language and Power. London: Longman, 1989.
[9] N. Fairclough, Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. London: Longman, 1995.
[10] H. P. Grice, “Logic and Conversation,” in Syntax and Semantics, vol. 3, Speech Acts, P. Cole and J. L. Morgan, Eds. New York: Academic Press, 1975, pp. 41–58.
[11] B. Obama, “Remarks by President Barack Obama in Prague,” The White House Archives, Apr. 5, 2009.
[12] B. Obama, “Remarks by the President on a New Beginning,” The White House Archives, June 4, 2009.
[13] B. Obama, “Remarks by the President to the United Nations General Assembly,” The White House Archives, Sept. 23, 2009.
[14] B. Obama, “Remarks by President Obama in Address to the United Nations General Assembly,” The White House Archives, Sept. 24, 2014.
[15] J. R. Searle, Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969.
[16] D. Trump, “Remarks by President Trump and Prime Minister Abe of Japan in Joint Press Conference,” The White House Archives, Feb. 10, 2017.
[17] D. Trump, “Statement by President Trump on the Paris Climate Accord,” The White House Archives, June 1, 2017.
[18] D. Trump, “Remarks by President Trump to the 72nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly,” The White House Archives, Sept. 19, 2017.
[19] D. Trump, “Remarks by President Trump at the NATO Summit in Brussels, Belgium,” The White House Archives, July 11, 2018.
[20] D. Trump, “Remarks by President Trump to the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly,” The White House Archives, Sept. 25, 2018.
[21] T. A. van Dijk, Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 1998.
[22] J. Aloqli, M. Al-Azzawi, and H. Salih, “Political Rhetorical Force: Analyzing the Dynamics of Threat in President Biden’s Speeches,” Cogent Social Sciences, vol. 11, no. 1, 2025.
[23] M. Handayani and B. E. Pranoto, “Theo van Leeuwen’s Exclusion and Inclusion Strategies: An Analysis of President Joe Biden’s Political Speech,” Linguistics and Literature Journal, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 1–10, 2023.
[24] E. N. Kadim, “A Critical Discourse Analysis of Trump’s Election Campaign Speeches,” Heliyon, vol. 8, no. 4, p. e09256, 2022.
[25] R. Körner, J. R. Overbeck, E. Körner, and A. Schütz, “How the Linguistic Styles of Donald Trump and Joe Biden Reflect Different Forms of Power,” Journal of Language and Social Psychology, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 418–438, 2022.
