Interactional Linguistic Resources in Concession Speeches: An appraisal of Selected Political Leaders in Ghana and the United States of America

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine the interactional linguistic resources in concession speeches of Selected Political Leaders in Ghana and the United States of America. The past three decades have witnessed an increasing scholarly interest in political discourse. Despite this, concession speeches have received limited scholarly attention. This study, therefore, comparatively analyzed the concession speeches delivered by John Dramani Mahama and Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo-Addo of Ghana and Hillary Clinton and Al Gore of the United States of America. Speech Act and Metadiscourse Interactionist Theories were used to examine the interpersonal linguistic resources found in the speeches. The speeches, were analyzed qualitatively. The study concluded that speakers of CSs in the two different cultural contexts use similar statements, as has already been discussed earlier in this study. For instance, the four losing candidates used almost the same interpersonal linguistic resources (hedges, boosters, self-mention, attitude markers, and engagement markers) to establish a bond between them and their interlocutors and supporters. It is recommended that, concession speeches (CSs) to be studied from other theoretical perspectives, this will allow for a detailed analysis of a wider range of linguistic resources such as noun phrases, verb phrases, and the use of adjuncts, beyond the SAs in CSs in order not to treat them as mere rhetoric in politics.

“Money Doesn’t Like Noise”

“…Finally, Mesu, Sekyi, Fenyi, & Asiedu (2022) examined the interactional linguistic resources of four political leaders in Ghana (Nana Akuffo-Addo and President Mahama) and America (AL Gore and Hillary Clinton). The interpersonal linguistic resources found in the speeches were examined using the Speech Act and Metadiscourse Interactionist Theories.…”