Speech Act Analysis of President Joe Biden’s Remarks on Covid-19 Response and the Vaccination Program

Abstract

This research paper examines two selected remarks by President Joe Biden on Covid- 19 response and the vaccination program in the USA. The selected discourses deserve scrutiny as they focus on an international issue affecting the world populations. These discourses have been studied in light of Austin’s (1962) speech act theory for the purpose of identifying, analysing and interpreting the different speech acts in order to decode the deep messages conveyed. Based on a mixed method, the data have been collected analysed and interpreted. The study reveals the predominance of representative speech acts with 52.38 % and 60 % respectively in discourses 1 and 2 followed by directives with 17.85% and 24.21%. As for the commissives, they represent 17.85% and 11.57% in Discourses 1 and 2. Expressives represent 11.90% and 03.16% whereas declaratives are almost non-existent in both discourses as they represent only 1.19% and 01.05% respectively. It has been contended that representative speech acts have enabled the President to highlight the importance of vaccination against Covid-19 in the USA on the one hand and to describe the risks nonvaccinated American citizens are taking for their reluctance to get their shot on the other hand. Through directives, the President has performed the acts of begging, requesting, suggesting, warning, ordering and even threatening at the same time his fellow citizens to get vaccinated not only for their own interests but also for the ones of their family members, neighbors and the whole country. The expressive speech acts have helped him to express his satisfaction related to the effectiveness of the vaccination campaign, his joy related to this emerging solution and his gratitude to his people. It has been observed that the presence of declaratives suggests an immediate change in the state of affairs in the USA.