Revue Algérienne des Sciences du Langage
Volume 2, Numéro 1, Pages 50-59
2017-06-10

Discourse Analysis Of Political Speech In English: Implications Forforeign Language Critical Listening Development

Authors : Belabbes Ali .

Abstract

This paper examines the discourse of political speeches to discover their potential for use in the foreign language classroom to illustrate persuasive strategies and argumentation. Through detailed analysis of authentic speech, the paper highlights linguistic, lexical, and cultural features of this type of discourse in order to demonstrate how such a tool can be used both in and outside the classroom. Among the various types of political discourse, the discourse of candidates in the 2016 presidential election in America receives much attention in large part in this article because of its cultural and linguistic authenticity and its high availability. A variety of practical suggestions to implementing media literacy in ELT, at various levels of English instruction are provided, including how to guide students listening critically to persuasive messages.

Keywords

Propaganda, persuasion, discourse analysis, speech acts, rhetoric, critical listening