Analysis of Discourse Markers in International Speeches and Television Interviews of Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi and Hassan Rouhani

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

Abstract

This research is dedicated to examining the types of discourse markers used in the speeches of Presidents Rouhani and Raisi based on Fraser's (2009) approach. According to this approach, a discourse marker is a word or phrase that connects two segments of speech without altering their propositional content. Discourse markers indicate the type of relationship between the two segments and serve a connective role, falling into four main categories: contrastive, inferential, elaborative, and temporal. In addition to the aforementioned roles, discourse markers can also play a mitigating role in discourse, reducing the directness and certainty of statements. The corpus of this study consists of speeches by the two presidents (Rouhani and Raisi) collected from various sources. The analysis of the data shows that the use of elaborative discourse markers in the speeches of both presidents is more frequent than other connective discourse markers, as they aim to maintain the coherence of their statements. Regarding mitigating discourse markers, both presidents have used them almost equally and sometimes employed multiple strategies simultaneously to mitigate their statements. For instance, they used ambiguous pronouns, modal verbs, and modal adverbs in a single sentence to express their views cautiously.

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Main Subjects

References

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Journal of Iranian Dialects & Linguistics
Volume 9, Issue 2
March 2025
Pages 83-109

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History

  • Receive Date: 08 March 2025
  • Revise Date: 13 April 2025
  • Accept Date: 12 May 2025

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