A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF PRESIDENT BIDEN’S REMARKS ON ‘PANDEMIC POLITICS

The literature is enriched with different linguistic studies on world leaders’ speeches delivered to respond to COVID-19. However, studies that investigated speeches of Presidents on pandemic politics are still in want. This study carried out a critical discourse analysis of the pandemic politics in the remarks of President Biden on fighting COVID-19. The September 9, 2021 speech of the US’s President Biden was purposively selected for this research because of its relevance to the subject matter. After the speech had been downloaded from the White House Official website, it was closely read. Copious extracts which convey hidden meanings and help to illustrate Biden’s discourse themes were noted and analysed qualitatively. The research adopted an adaptation of van Dijk’s model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) theoretical frameworks to espouse meanings in the speech. The interdependence of the two tools for analyzing socio- political discourse makes them suitable for the analysis. Results found that, in a bid to navigate vaccination issues, Biden carefully deployed language to communicate three main discourse themes; negotiating with people, legislating rules and ventilating anger against those peddling pandemic politics. Thus, by appealing, educating and begging, vaccine shots were negotiated, and by condemning, blackmailing and threatening, compulsory vaccination compliance was legislated. Emphasizing those discourse themes served not only to conscript the people into accepting vaccination but also to flatten the curve against COVID-19. The study provides useful insights on the responses of government to the dissenting people’s opinions on the issue of compulsory vaccination during pandemic. It is, however, suggested that other researchers could explore a comparative analysis to investigate how different political leaders globally have framed vaccination policies and pandemic responses through different rhetorical strategies.