Cognitive and discursive features of Joe Biden's address to the joint session of the United States Congress on April 29, 2021

O.I. Afonina

Moscow State University, Moscow, 119991 Russia

E-mail: afonina-olya@mail.ru

Received July 10, 2022

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Full text PDF

DOI: 10.26907/2541-7738.2022.5.74-83

For citation: Afonina O.I. Cognitive and discursive features of Joe Biden’s address to the joint session of the United States Congress on April 29, 2021. Uchenye Zapiski Kazanskogo Universiteta. Seriya Gumanitarnye Nauki, 2022, vol. 164, no. 5, pp. 74–83. doi: 10.26907/2541-7738.2022.5.74-83. (In Russian)

Abstract

This article examines the cognitive and discursive aspects of Joe Biden’s April 2021 statement on the epidemiological situation in the United States and the American Jobs Plan. The relevance of the research stems from the need to better understand the tactics and strategies employed by politicians to influence their audiences at the times when politics plays a key role in our lives. Here, the lexical and syntactic features of U.S. President Joe Biden’s speech were considered in order to describe him as a linguistic personality. The main methods used were descriptive, contextual, and keyword analyses. A number of examples prove that Joe Biden uses very expressive linguistic devices to achieve the maximum effect on his listeners: firstly, the U.S. President was found to place particular emphasis on stylistic devices; secondly, various parenthetical elements were highlighted; thirdly, certain distinctive expressive devices were identified; finally, special attention was given to the study of the syntax of the statement. Based on the obtained results, the linguistic personality of Joe Biden within political discourse was characterized in detail. For example, he uses linguistic and pragmatic devices to influence the audience rather than to convey the message. An important generalization is that the discourse of a politician reflects social problems, and the functions of lexical means vary depending on the socio-political situation in a state.

Keywords: political discourse, cognitive and discursive analysis of text, politician’s linguistic personality, parenthetical additions, stylistic devices

Figure Captions

Fig. 1. Ratio showing the number of uses of elliptical and non-elliptical sentences.

Fig. 2. Ratio showing the number of uses of active and passive voice constructions.

Fig. 3. Ratio showing the number of uses of direct and inverted word order.

References

1. Aleksandrova O.V. Problemy ekspressivnogo sintaksisa: na materiale angliiskogo yazyka [Problems of Expressive Syntax: Based on the English Language.]. Moscow, Lenand, 2021. 214 p. (In Russian)
2. Vodak R. “Discourse–society” relationship: A cognitive approach to critical discourse analysis. In: Budaev E.V., Chudinov A.P. (Eds.) Sovremennaya politicheskaya lingvistika [Modern Political Linguistics]. Yekaterinburg, Izd. Ural. Gos. Pedagog. Univ., 2006, pp. 123–136. (In Russian)
3. Aleksandrova O.V., Strelets I.E. The place and role of diplomatic discourse in modern discourse studies. Kognitivnye issledovaniya yazyka, 2021, no. 1: Cognitive Studies of Natural Communication. Proc. Panel Discussion, pp. 413–420. (In Russian)
4. Arnold I.V. Semantika. Stilistika. Intertekstual’nost’ [Semantics. Stylistics. Intertextuality]. St. Petersburg, Lenand, 2016. 444 p. (In Russian)
5. Lasswell H. Style in the language of politics. Politicheskaya Lingvistika, 2007, no. 2, pp. 165–177. (In Russian)
6. Sheigal E.I. Semiotics of political discourse. Doct. Philol. Diss. Volgograd, 2000. 175 p. (In Russian)
7. Dem’yankov V.Z. Tetradi novy’kh terminov. Nomer 39. Anglo-russkie terminy po prikladnoi lingvistike i avtomaticheskoi pererabotke teksta. Vyp. 2. Metody analiza teksta [Notebooks of New Terms. No. 39. English-Russian Terms in Applied Linguistics and Automatic Text Processing. Vol. 2. Methods of Text Analysis]. Moscow, Vses. Tsentr Perevodov, 1982. 287 p. (In Russian)
8. Chudinov A.P., Budaev E.V. Cognitive and discourse analysis of metaphor in political communication. Politicheskaya Lingvistika, 2008, no. 4, pp. 143–156. (In Russian)
9. Masalova M.A. Rhetorical persuasive strategies in Joe Biden’s inaugural address: A critical discourse analysis. The Scientific Heritage, 2021, no. 67-4, pp. 65–70. (In Russian)
10. Shapochkin D.V. Cognitive model of political discourse. Aktual’nye problemy lingvistiki: materialy ezhegod. nauch. konf. [Current Problems of Linguistics: Proc. Annu. Sci. Conf.]. Yekaterinburg, Ural. Gos. Pedagog. Univ.: Inst. Inostr. Yazykov, 2005, pp. 126–127. (In Russian)
11. Nelyubin L.L. Stylistic expressive means of language. In: Nelyubin L.L. Lingvostilistika sovremennogo angliiskogo yazyka [Linguistic Stylistics of Modern English]. Moscow, FLINTA, 2013, pp. 114–122. (In Russian)
12. Ivantsova E.V. About the term “linguistic personality”: Origins, problems, prospects for use. Vestnik Tomskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, 2010, no. 4, pp. 24–32. (In Russian)
13. Parastaev G.N. Lexical and semantic features of American political discourse. Cand. Philol. Diss. Moscow, 2012. 208 p. (In Russian)
14. Galperin I.R. Stilistika angliiskogo yazyka [English Stylistics]. Moscow, Vyssh. Shk., 1981, 334 p.

The content is available under the license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.