THE IMPLICIT CONTENT OF KAMALA HARRIS’S AND JOE BIDEN’S POLITICAL DISCOURSES

Abstract

The speech of participants in any discourse, particularly political discourse, contains both explicit and implicit meanings. Political discourse is characterized by its ambiguity, making the correct interpretation of the messages conveyed by politicians — implicatures (“what is left unsaid”) — a challenging task. This requires the establishment of unwritten communicative rules according to which the speaker must avoid both excessive brevity and unnecessary verbosity. Still, politicians use implicatures as a strategy to influence the electorate, deliberately resorting to ambiguity in their speeches. However, this strategy does not always yield desired results, as the reactions within the discourse, particularly from the media and political circles, may distort the original meaning of what was said. This highlights the relevance of analyzing the implicit information derived from the political discourses of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at various stages of their careers. The study examines quotations from their political speeches, addresses, and interviews, as well as the editorial content from the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, and other leading American publications from 1987 to 2024.

The theoretical foundation for the practical implementation of the research area is the theory of implicature proposed by English philosopher Herbert Paul Grice, who also formulated the principles of effective communication within the framework of the so-called Cooperative Principle. A harmonious synthesis of the maxims of the Cooperative Principle with implicit meanings is necessary for reaching mutual understanding between the speaker and the listener, which is particularly relevant for political discourse.

As a result of the study, based on Grice’s theory of implicatures, violations of the maxims of the Cooperative Principle were analyzed in the political discourses of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It was found that such violations, identified through stylistic devices (euphemisms, metaphors, allusions, hints, etc.), generate implicit meanings that influence the audience’s perception. The study demonstrated how Grice’s theory of implicatures is applied in real political communication contexts, based on context, background knowledge, and historical background, which contributes to the development of discourse analysis, pragmatics, and political linguistics, while also potentially finding practical applications in media analysis, critical thinking. and rhetoric.