| Keywords [eng] |
stance, epistemic stance, effective stance, subjectivity, intersubjectivity, economy, presidential discourse, political discourse, autoriaus pozicija, episteminiai žymikliai, autoriaus paveikumo pozicijos žymikliai, subjektyvumas, intersubjektyvumas, ekonomika, prezidentinis diskursas, politinis diskursas |
| Abstract [eng] |
The present thesis is a corpus-based study that aims to analyze the use of epistemic and effective stancetaking acts in speeches by the former American President Donald Trump, and the current President Joe Biden, concerning economy. The present study sourced its data from various reputable resources, including the official website of the White House, as well as the archives of the White House, in addition to websites such as Time Magazine and the World Economic Forum. Subsequently, the data was self-compiled into a corpus comprising of 42,697 words, with speeches ranging from the year 2016 to the year 2023. Moreover, the theoretical frameworks chosen for this study, which were anchored on Marín-Arrese’s (2021a, 2021b) categorization of epistemic and effective stance subcategories, as well as her fourfold distinction of subjectivity and intersubjectivity (2011) helped to analyze and classify all subcategories of epistemic and effective stance, as well as the dimensions of (inter)subjectivity. Based on the analysis of the data, the results indicate that Donald Trump utilizes subcategories of effective stance slightly more frequently than epistemic stance, particularly markers of intentionality (e.g. I will, I am going to, I want to), which indicate the speaker’s intention and commitment. In contrast, Joe Biden employs a significantly greater number of subcategories of epistemic stance than effective stance, specifically through the use of epistemic modals (e.g. may, could, might, will), which demonstrates his level of (un)certainty about the communicated proposition, in addition to expressions of marked enunciational positioning (e.g. as I said, let me say, as I mentioned), allowing him not only to convey his knowledge, but also reinforce his claims and assertions by explicitly invoking himself as the source of the claim with the use of the first-person pronoun I. Regarding the dimension of (inter)subjectivity, it is observed that both speakers employ subjectivity more prominently than intersubjectivity. Notably, Trump demonstrates a preference for implicit subjectivity, enabling him to evade personal accountability, whereas Biden employs explicit subjectivity to emphasize personal responsibility instead, representing an opposite approach. |
