Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Speech action analysis as a subset of discourse analysis, one of the approaches in linguistics, is used to analyze the speech texts of Iraqi Massoud Barzani, the president of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. After explaining the topic and expressing the theory of speech actions, Searle’s speech acts are presented. Then, speech acts are analyzed in the speeches of Massoud Barzani and Nouri al-Maliki, and the results are compared. Both speakers have attempted to convey their meaning (non-expressive action) to the targeted audience by influencing their audience (affective or expressive action) by using specific sentences (expressive action). In this article, by analyzing the spoken action of the sentence structure they have used, it is shown how to put together the action sentences: statement, commitment, etc. Both speakers have tried to compel their thoughts to the audience, and this process is shaped in their speeches.