A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF BORIS JOHNSON AND JOE BIDEN’S SELECTED PRE-ELECTION SPEECHES

Abstract

The present study emphasizes the importance of language used by Joe Biden and Boris Johnson in their selected pre-election speeches. The speeches were delivered by both politicians in their respective countries to win the general election, held in 2019 and 2020 in the UK and the USA respectively. The present research study has analyzed the two speeches; one of each politician. In this regard, the researcher has used Norman Fairclough’s Three-dimensional Model (1989) of Critical Discourse Analysis. The stages in this model consist on text, discursive practices and social practices. These are also known as description, interpretation and explanation stages. The findings of the study show that Mr Joe Biden used first person pronoun ‘I’ too many times than second and third person pronouns (i.e., you and we). Apart from this, Mr Boris Johnson has used second person pronoun ‘we’ too many times than other two pronouns (i.e., you and I). Moreover, Mr Joe Biden has used personal pronoun ‘I’ more than the use of Mr Boris Johnson in his speech.