Discursive Construction of Ingroup and Outgroup Identity in the Bilateral Speech by President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez

Abstract

This article investigates the speech by President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to determine the discursive strategies used to construct ingroup and outgroup identity, and the functions that these strategies perform. The bilateral speech delivered by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and President Joe Biden on June 28th, 2022 serve as the study’s data. Extracts from the speech were purposively sampled and subjected to critical analysis using Ruth Wodak’s (2009) Discourse Historical Approach. Findings reveal that nomination strategy is linguistically realised through reference, nominalization, material, mental and verbal processes. Nomination identifies the United States, Spain, Ukraine and Russia as the major social actors and categorizes the United States, Spain, and Ukraine as ingroup actors and Russia as outgroup actor. Through predication, the ingroup actors and their actions were metaphorically labelled positively using positive predicates and modifying adjectives. Conversely, the outgroup actor and its actions were framed negatively using negative predicates and modifying adjectives. The actions of the ingroup actors were legitimized using the topos of usefulness and advantage while those of the outgroup actor were delegitimized using the topoi of threat and danger. Perspectivisation, through the linguistic tools of reporting and describing, highlight the overt and conscious stance of ingroup actors as well as their involvement in the discourse while the factuality and validity of their propositions were registered through the intensification strategy linguistically realised through declarative sentences.