Performing positive politeness: political rhetoric in state dinner speeches by US-American presidents

Abstract In state dinner speeches, US-American presidents address international partners with the communicative goal of consolidating and improving bilateral political relations. The present paper aims to investigate the ways in which positive politeness strategies are employed in this epideictic genre to establish a good rapport with other heads of state. The study is based on a dataset of 32 dinner speeches covering a period of 32 years from George H. W. Bush to Joseph R. Biden. It adopts a qualitative approach that combines politeness theory with move structure analysis, identifying characteristic rhetorical moves that create familiarity by referring to common past events, shared values, and joint activities. As is shown, politeness in dinner speeches relies on recurring discursive techniques such as displaying strong interest in the international partner, seeking agreement regarding political agendas, paying compliments, and conveying optimism about the bilateral alliance. These politeness strategies are realized by a variety of linguistic devices such as inclusive first-person pronouns, illustrative metaphors, positively connoted stance markers, superlatives, adverbial amplifiers, and quotations from eminent writers of the partner country. Such genre-dependent positive politeness dominantly fulfils a face-enhancing function and helps the orators to construct engaging identities of the interactants.