Self- representation in Biden's Speech on Fighting the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

The current study is A critical  Discourse  Analysis to the Self-representation in Joe Biden's speech ''On fighting the COVID-19 pandemic''. The problem of study lies in the scarcity of the studies that tackle the self-representation in Biden's speeches about the Covid-19 rescue plan. The study attempts to answer the  following question: what are the self-representation  strategies used by Biden ''on fighting the COVID-19 pandemic'' . It has hypothesized that certain self-representation strategies are adopted on three levels of analysis: the meaning level, the argumentative level and the rhetorical level ,moreover each level involves more frequently used strategy than the other strategies. It also aims at figuring out the positive  self-representation strategies used by Biden as well as identifying the most frequent strategy  and the least one in each level. The study has adopted an eclectic model which is amalgamation of two of Van Dijk's models (2000 and 2006). The study conducts qualitative and quantitative analyses. Finally, the study concludes that, to represent himself positively during the ‘'COVID-19 pandemic'', the president of USA uses the following strategies of self-representation which are: :"actor description", "lexicalization", "national self-glorification'', "victimization", "generalization" ,"evidentiality'' , "populism", "burden", "reasonableness", "comparison", "metaphor", "repetition", ''hyperbole'' and ''number game . Moreover ,the quantitative analysis demonstrates that , among meaning , argumentation and rhetoric levels ,the most frequently used strategy is ''actor description'' whereas the least one is '' national self-glorification''