Traces of Discursive strategies in President Trump’s speech on the US withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal

This study investigates the salient discursive strategies deployed by US President Donald Trump in order to justify his decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. The analysis was based on the transcript of Trump’s speech on termination of the deal, delivered from the diplomatic room of the White House on May ۸, ۲۰۱۸. By adopting van Dijk’s model of Critical Discourse Analysis (۲۰۰۴), the findings revealed that the most frequent discursive strategies used by President Trump were Negative other representation, Lexicalization, Hyperbole, Counterfactuals, Authority, Polarization, Populism, and Number Game. Through such strategies, President Trump constructed Iran, its nuclear program, and the deal as a Security Threat to the United States of America, its allies in the Middle East, and the international community as well. Consequently, he convinced the audience that his decision to withdraw from the deal was reasonably justified

Keywords:

Critical Discourse Analysis , van Dijk’s model , the Iran nuclear deal , Discursive Strategies