A Cognitive Discourse Analysis of the Domain of Supremacy in Selected Speeches by Joe Biden
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Abstract
This study is an attempt to showcase how the domain of ‘SUPREMACY’ is conceptualised in some speeches delivered by Joe Biden. This conceptual structure, domain, is necessary to profile relevant scenes of experience during speech based on cognitive attentional strategy. The cognitive mechanisms are not enough to conceive of the ideologies represented in these speeches. Thus, this study adopts the Cognitive Discourse Analysis approach and investigates the cognitive and discursive mechanisms employed by the linguistic and ideological structures in Biden’s selected speeches. This study investigates this domain in five speeches made by Biden employing an analytical and qualitative method. The prominent question that this study attempts to answer is: How are the linguistic and ideological structures that represent the domain of ‘SUPREMACY’ projected in the conceptual structures of Biden and entrenched by the listeners? This study concludes that the domain of ‘SUPREMACY’ is conceptualised in these speeches through the use of some facets from the most prominent to the least prominent, such as ‘SUPERIORITY’, ‘POWER’, ‘PROSPERITY’, and ‘DOMINANCE’. The cognitive identification-attention strategy is maintained in constructing the domain of ‘SUPREMACY’ in the speaker’s mental structure. Although some of the conceptualised facets are covertly represented in the ideological patterns of the selected speeches, the Cognitive Discourse Analysis approach employs cognitive and critical mechanisms to conceive them to profile the domain of ‘SUPREMACY’.
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