The study of Illocutionary Speech Acts Use by Iran's Minister of Health Addressing the COVID-۱۹ Outbreak

All sectors of society were affected by the COVID-۱۹ pandemic. The news of COVID-۱۹ was frequently used amongthe people. Accordingly, Language was deeply impressed by this event. This pandemic disrupts the national condition.The authorities of each country especially their minister of health response to this condition and state their plans todeal with this pandemic. Thus, the speeches have become worth surveying for linguistics researcher. Therefore, thisstudy aims to identify the Illocutionary speech acts used by Iran's Minister of Health, Dr. Saeed Namaki, Addressingthe COVID-۱۹ pandemic. Among his dozens of messages, only the messages that cover all his messages’ general contentwere analyzed using the descriptive-analytical method. The collected data were examined by statistical methods suchas the Chi-square test and SPSS software. The result shows that Dr. Namaki made all five categories of Searl (۱۹۶۹)illocutionary speech acts with varying amounts of each class. Most speeches he made were assertive and the last wasthe commissive speech acts. Statistically, these differences among the frequency of illocutionary speech acts weresignificant (P<۰.۰۵).

Keywords:

Illocutionary Speech Acts , COVID-۱۹ Outbreak , Iran's Minister of Health , Chi-square test