Self and Other-Presentation in Arabic & English Political Discourse: An Overview

Abstract

This chapter discusses how political leaders use Self/Other-Presentation techniques to convince their audience with their ideologies. politics has become one of the most important elements of the functioning of modern society, designed to regulate the relationship of people within the society, to ensure the sustainability of social processes. The distinguishing features of political communication are publicity, one-direction (from a communicator to a recipient), unstable and heterogeneous character of the audience. Despite recent significant advancements in political discourse research and studies, Arabic political discourse deserves more focus, at least in light of the region's recent acceleration of political events.  Therefore, this study investigates how political leaders in the Arab-Islamic-American Summit held in Riyadh in May 2017 use Self/Other-Presentation to send messages to their allies and opponents, in both Arabic and English. significant developments have been achieved in political discourse research and studies. Due to the accelerated pace of political events in the Arab world in the last decade, Arabic political discourse deserves more attention. The study also aims at investigating the predominant devices used within self and other presentation model in both Arabic and English political discourse. The findings of this study should be cautiously interpreted as the analysis is applied to one speech in Arabic and one in English. Therefore, further research on the topic is encouraged on other Arabic and English varieties.