Corpus Based Study of Personal Pronoun’s Rhetoric in Obama’s and Xi Jinping’s Diplomatic Discourse

Wageche, Irungu; Chang-hai, Chi

doi:10.5539/ijel.v6n5p32

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 24 publications

(10 reference statements)

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“…The excessive use of second person pronouns and the plural inclusive first person pronouns in the inauguration speech could be attributed to his desire to involve his audience, who are his proponents, in his decisions and let them share him the responsibility. This result is in accord with the results of Wageche and Chi (2016) who observed that the use of second person pronouns and inclusive person pronouns enable the politician to show himself as a sensitive person who appreciated his audience. The moderate use of second person pronouns and the plural inclusive first person pronouns in Saudi Arabia could be explained as Trump's desire to make his audiences share the decision of fighting terrorism, extremism and their shared enemies.…”

Section: Findings and Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…The excessive use of the singular first person pronouns and the plural exclusive first person pronouns was assumed to be related to narcissism, but Carey et al (2015) refuted this idea and indicated that there is no relationship between the use of person pronouns and narcissism. Wageche and Chi (2016) attributed the excessive use of first person pronouns to the speaker's desire to reflect his power and dominance. Kacewicz, Pennebaker, Davis, Jeon and Graesser (2013) indicated that the overuse of first person pronoun has a strong relationship with the feeling of insecurity, anxiety and instability.…”

Section: Findings and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The first category is first person pronouns, which are used by the speaker to refer to himself such as "I" and "we". The first singular person pronoun, "I", is usually used to confirm the power and prominence of the speaker and to give a Sahifatul-Alsun 34 Jan 2018 sense of involvement with the audiences (Wageche & Chi, 2016). The first plural person pronoun, "we", is usually used by the speaker to direct the audiences to think like him and share in responsibilities (Li, 2009).…”

Section: Personal Deixismentioning

confidence: 99%

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دراسة تحلیلیة للإشارات النصیة فی الخطاب السیاسی للرئیس الأمریکی "دونالد ترامب" وفقا لنظریة فضاء الخطاب

خلیفة¹

2018

صحیفة الألسن

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Based on the Discourse Space Theory, this research sought to analyze the deictics used in the political discourse. Drawing on three speeches of the American President Donald Trump, this research explored the types of deictics and the frequency of using each type in each of the three speeches. To achieve this purpose, qualitative and quantitative analyses were conducted. The AntConc 3.5.0w was used to calculate the frequency of using each deictic type. Then, the percentage and the number of each deixis per 1000 words were calculated to facilitate comparison between the frequency of using each type of deixis in Trump's three speeches. The results indicated that Trump employed different types of deixis including the personal, temporal, spatial, discourse and social deixis. However, the frequency of using each type varied from one speech to another. It was observed that the audiences influenced Trump's use of deixis. Finally, the elements of the space in each speech could be defined. People, entities and events were located on different positions on the spatial, temporal and modality axes of the Discourse Space Theory.

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Section: Findings and Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Findings and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Personal Deixismentioning

confidence: 99%

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دراسة تحلیلیة للإشارات النصیة فی الخطاب السیاسی للرئیس الأمریکی "دونالد ترامب" وفقا لنظریة فضاء الخطاب

خلیفة¹

2018

صحیفة الألسن

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“…Indeed, most of the literature on the use of personal pronouns has used American presidents as exemplars. 4 In a diplomatic context, Wageche and Chi (2016) considered pronoun use in international platform speeches by Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping, which was of particular interest to this thesis. Coates (1983) classified the functions of modal verbs into categories, including capacity, deontic, epistemic, and logical.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Comparative Study on the Use of First-Person Pronouns in Ten International Diplomatic Speeches

Pokhrel

2022

REiLA Journal

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This paper explores how world leaders use first-person pronouns in diplomatic speeches as a case study on how stance is communicated in high-stakes situations. The dataset comprises ten speeches to security and the economy given by heads of state/governments to their counterparts at international conferences/summits. The data were analysed from a quantitative/corpus-linguistic perspective using AntConc (Anthony, 2021) to summarise general patterns of personal pronoun use and then from a qualitative/discourse-analytical perspective, identifying specifically related examples for more detailed interpretation in context. The contextual features considered for the critical discourse analysis were gender, ideology, and the political systems of the speaker’s country. The results showed that most lead favoured the plural first-person pronoun “we” over the singular “I”. This was especially marked for the Middle Eastern leaders in the sample. The plural form was used for two main functions: (i) audience-inclusivity, referring to the audience of delegates/attendees, and (ii) audience-exclusivity, referring to the nation represented by the speaker. The distribution of these functions in the individual speeches varied greatly, ranging from extreme inclusive use (85%; Temer [Brazil]) to extreme exclusive use (65%; Putin [Russia]); this was largely predictable based on the speaker’s role at the event (e.g., facilitator vs dissenter from a consensus view) and the level of perceived national power. “I” was found to be used mostly at the beginning of the speeches to extend gratitude to the organisers. However, it was often deployed to increase the speaker’s self-dedication throughout an address. Similarly, whereas deployed throughout the speeches to establish a sense of communal rapport between the audience and the speaker. The evidence does not suggest any major differences in the usage of first-person pronouns based on gender, as shown by similarities in the speeches of German Chancellor Merkel and Bangladeshi Prime Minister Hasina.

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“…Wageche & Chi (2016) further contends that while the overall understanding, methodology and techniques in political discourse can be replicated in diplomatic discourse, there exist one radical challenge in diplomatic discourse: ethnographic heterogeneity. For example, when Xi is delivering a speech in either Africa or Europe, he begins from the disadvantaged "outsider" position.…”

Section: Metaphor and Rhetoric In Discoursementioning

confidence: 99%

Conceptual Metaphors and Rhetoric in Barack Obama’s and Xi Jinping’s Diplomatic Discourse in Africa and Europe

Wageche¹,

Chang-hai²

2017

IJEL

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This paper examines the use of conceptual metaphors in Barack Obama's and Xi Jinping's diplomatic discourse in both Africa and Europe. Drawing on four speeches, this paper begins by examining the pervasiveness of metaphor utility in the speeches by using Pragglejazz Metaphor Identification Procedure. This paper examines the underlying concepts in the identified metaphors by using Lakoff and Johnson conceptual metaphor framework. Finally, this paper examines the significance of conceptual metaphors as a rhetorical strategy in diplomatic discourse. This paper found out that both Barack Obama and Xi Jinping employed an exceptionally high number of metaphors in their discourse in Africa and Europe. We found out that metaphors used by each leader do form an underlying concept. Barack Obama's diplomatic discourse embodies journey metaphors while Xi Jinping's diplomatic discourse embodies nature metaphors. The paper illustrates how both leaders draw on neutral lexical units such as distance, crossroads, pace, path, water, lions, mountains, wells, et cetera and charge them with metaphors as a rhetorical strategy in order to draw African and European audiences closer to their primary message.

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Corpus Based Study of Personal Pronoun’s Rhetoric in Obama’s and Xi Jinping’s Diplomatic Discourse

Cited by 4 publications

References 24 publications

دراسة تحلیلیة للإشارات النصیة فی الخطاب السیاسی للرئیس الأمریکی "دونالد ترامب" وفقا لنظریة فضاء الخطاب

دراسة تحلیلیة للإشارات النصیة فی الخطاب السیاسی للرئیس الأمریکی "دونالد ترامب" وفقا لنظریة فضاء الخطاب

A Comparative Study on the Use of First-Person Pronouns in Ten International Diplomatic Speeches

Conceptual Metaphors and Rhetoric in Barack Obama’s and Xi Jinping’s Diplomatic Discourse in Africa and Europe

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