Interpersonal Meaning in Michelle Obama’s Political Campaign Speech at the 2024 Democratic National Convention

This paper examines how Former First Lady Michelle Obama (henceforth, the speaker) deploys language in her political campaign speech in support of Kamala Harris, a presidential candidate, delivered on August 21st, 2024 at the 2024 Democratic National Convention (henceforth, DNC) held in Chicago, to encode interpersonal meaning. Guided by theoretical underpinnings (Mood and Appraisal) from Systemic Functional Linguistics (henceforth, SFL) and the descriptive mixed-method research design, the study specifically analyzes the interpersonal resources the speaker employs in her speech to negotiate social relations and construe feelings as well as a relationship of solidarity. The findings reveal that she uses, in varying proportions, Mood features (Mood, Modality and Adjunct). They also indicate that the speaker employs, in varying proportions, Appraisal features (Attitude, Engagement and Graduation) to construe feelings in her speech. The study concludes that the speaker deliberately makes use of the aforementioned interpersonal resources to influence or persuade and manipulate her recipients with a view to getting them to act in her own interest; i.e. vote for her candidate, Kamala Harris, whom she depicts positively, while she at the same represents her opponent, Donald Trump, exclusively in negative terms. While this analysis has demonstrated how the speaker deploys interpersonal resources to interact and bond with her recipients, unveiling the stance she takes towards what she communicates to them, including the two vying candidates, it has not explored how she uses language to encode ideational (experiential and logical) and textual meanings. Future research can look at these aspects.