Persuasive Strategies utilized in the Political Speeches of King Abdullah II: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This study investigates the persuasive strategies used in seven speeches of King Abdullah II of Jordan delivered before the UN, European Parliament, Islamic Countries Cooperation, and Arab League between 2007 to 2021. The study adopted the persuasive strategies: Intertextuality, Creativity and Metaphor, References, and Circumlocution to uncover how the King employed the rhetorical/persuasive strategies in his speeches. The discourse analysis approach of Fairclough is also adopted to analyze the speeches. The study revealed that King Abdullah II used creativity and metaphors, reference, circumlocution, and intertextuality. He used creativity strategy to highlight reality as it is. Besides, he uses intertextuality to convince the international community of his vision. On the other hand, the King utilizes neutral references (we, our, your, you) in his speeches to avoid impersonalistion. The study concluded that the King successfully used persuasive strategies to convey his vision toward political issues.

Keywords:

• Persuasive strategies
• King Abdullah II speeches
• critical discourse analysis
• political discourse analysis

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT

Discourse has been defined as structures and activities that use specific collections of words to reflect human thought and social reality while simultaneously constructing meaning in the world. This study investigates the persuasive strategies used in the speeches of King Abdullah of Jordan for addressing the regional and global parties to reach peaceful agreements on the core of the Middle East Cause, Palestine. The findings showed that King Abdullah used four persuasive strategies: creativity, metaphors, intertextuality, and references to persuade his audience with his vision to Middle Eastern Crises

1. Introduction

Discourse Analysis (DA) has gained wide prominence in investigating language in use at the extra-sentential levels since the 1990s. DA aims to scrutinize the intended ideologies between language and society(Haider, 2016). (Haider, 2016) shows that language affects social groups. DA is an interrelated discipline to all science, including politics, to identify the underlying meaning contained in the discourse. Moreover, (Van Dijk, 1993) added that Critical Discourse Analysis (henceforth CDA) keeps the relationship between culture, society, power, text, and talk. DA relates to examining the language in usage with its connection to CDA. (Tenorio, 2011) showed that CDA is part of Critical Theory, which aims to uncover the power behind discourses. It questions the status quo by thoroughly analyzing the language used in speeches. (Fairclough, 1992) indicated that CDA discusses power relations, society ad culture discourses, ideological and historical works, and mediation between texts and society.

Politicians use language to convince others, mold others’ thoughts, and achieve particular political goals. Hence it plays an essential role in political discourse. Politicians usually use language to put social, economic, and certain political acts into practice. Political speeches are written eloquently to persuade the audience (Haider, 2016). Politicians use several strategies to express their agendas in striking language, thereby persuading agendas(Fairclough, 1992). (Wortham et al., 2017) show that Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) focuses on politics, such as speeches, debates, and interviews. As per(Van Dijk, 1993), PDA relates to the study of politicians’ talks in different political activities at the level of the government and international meetings, such as the U.N. General Assembly. The main feature of PDA is to investigate the linguistic choices at word levels, such as connotation, loaded words, and euphemism, and the usage of functional theories of language and discourse models.

Jordan has a geostrategic location in the world. Stability has been a significant element of Jordan’s status. This advantage has allowed Jordan to pursue its aims more effectively and has given it a positive, effective, and worldwide solid image. Moreover, All of this was made possible by the personal qualities of Jordan’s political leadership, led by His Majesty King Abdullah II, because His Majesty’s character, as well as the respect and appreciation he enjoys around the world, contribute to Jordan’s role, position, existence, and power to affect events. The focus of this study is Jordan, which is located in a hotspot in the Middle East and is surrounded by conflict zones due to its borders with occupied Palestine, Iraq, and Syria. It is clear that King Abdullah II’s speeches are politically significant because they areaccessible to many people domestically, regionally, and globally(Al-Khalafat, Haider, 2022).

In his speeches, King Abdullah II of Jordan has addressed all international policymakers to reach peaceful solutions for the political conflicts in the Middle East, mainly the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He seizes opportunities in all international meetings, summits, interviews, and seminars to speak out his vision of peace. The peace message contained in his addresses shows his firm standpoint and commitment to working with the international community to achieve a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace based on the two states’ solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This paper analyses discourse of peace used in King Abdullah II of Jordan’s speeches on international, regional, and local occasions to find a peaceful solution for the core Middle Eastern crisis, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Linguistically, peace indicates living in harmony with others. (Kempf, 2003) shows that peace carries various meanings: the absence of war, living in harmony, and the valuable ways of dealing with emerging conflicts. To understand the multiple uses of the word peace in Royal or Presidential speeches, Discourse Analysis helps us to uncover the hidden ideologies in discourse or speech. Politicians use language to serve their agendas and meticulously manipulate the expected audience(Van Dijk, 1993). Political speeches are full of persuasive strategies to support the speaker’s vision and agenda.

1.1. Political persuasion

Historically, Persuasion is linked to the language of politics(Wróbel, 2015). Persuasive political discourse is a proper discussion between reasonable people on what various activities should be done to address a social issue. All politicians are expected to participate in the decision-making process or persuade others using correct facts and arguments and define what action to take is most effective in addressing the on-focus issues. (Johnson & Johnson, 2000) showed that persuasive language is created to express the purpose of persuading the audience of a proposition’s validity (or fallacy). The speaker must hypothesize and maintain an adequate model of the hearer’s beliefs and update it according to the effects that the speaker’s propositions have on the hearer’s mental state; this is what is referred to as planning a communications strategy. Therefore, political discourse is a democratic decision-making approach.

2. Literature review

In general, political discourse in general and critical discourse analysis have been the subject of several studies. Several studies have tackled the concept of discourse analysis in the political speeches of presidential or royals (Carreon & Svetanant, 2017) (Hussein, 2016) (Hussein, 2016) and Royal speeches (Khawaldeh & Abu Hatab, 2022). (Khawaldeh & abu Hatab, 2018) indicated that CDA primarily focuses on the implied ideologies in discourse, racism, social inequality, and power relations. It aims to identify how social and power have communicated within the speech. (Fairclough, 1992) showed that CDA relies on uncovering the ideological relations of power. It aims to provide explanations to disclose the ideological relations of power and provide interpretations depending on systematic approaches to the analysis of CDA.

(Fairclough, 1992) brought Dialectical-Relational Approach for CDA. It examines power, ideology, and language. He divides CDA into three main approaches: description of the text, discursive analysis, and socio-cultural process analysis. On the other hand, (Wodak, 2014) brought CDA’s historical approach. His approach highlights the relationship between historical norms and accumulative information concerning time and place. This approach relies on the idea that linguistic analysis is insufficient for interpreting the intended ideologies since the contextual features are essential in socially, politically, and ideologically forming functions of the contexts. Therefore, he affirms the importance of extra-linguistic components. This approach distinctively employs the socio-political components and co-text utterances to interpret the discourses. The above techniques make it necessary to take the three stages proposed by (Fairclough, 1992) to provide an accurate interpretation of such significant speeches presenting King’s policy. The study has adopted the three stages (Fairclough, 1992)to figure out the main strategies used by the King to convey his peace vision for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.: Description, interpretation, and explanation. The description focuses on the formal aspects of the text; interpretation concerns the relationship between the text and communication. Explanation focuses on the communication between communication and social context.

(Mohammed, 2019) examined the linguistic features used in King Abdullah II’s speech at the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly. He adopted (Fairclough, 1992; Van Dijk, 1993; Van Dijk, 1993) and (Johnstone, 2017) frameworks to identify the main linguistic functions used in King Abdullah II’s speech. The study found that using evidence in King Abdullah II’s speech has a significant role in convincing the public. (Al-Suod & Al-Matari, 2017) investigated the emotive expressions used in three speeches of King Abdullah II. They find that King Abdullah II uses his skillful competence to convey his visions and ideas. They indicated that King Abdullah II highlights the importance of co-existence and cooperation among world people and countries, having a peaceful solution for Arab-Israeli conflict and global conflicts.

(Ayasrah, 2017) scrutinized the problems encountered by M.A. students in rendering metaphors in King Abdullah II speeches. He chose 22 M.A. students from the University of Jordan and Middle East University. He uses two evaluation methods: a comprehension test and interviews. He found that the type of metaphor is set in accordance with the situation and the context of speech. M.A. students tend to use free, literal, paraphrasing, and omission. He concluded that M.A. faces problems translating metaphors due to the inability to choose an appropriate translation strategy, lack of cultural awareness, and inability to analyze figurative language. (Rabab’ah & Rumman, 2015) investigated the hedging acts and their frequencies in the speech of King Abdullah II. They adopted the (Salager-Meyer, 1994) hedging taxonomy. They found that modal auxiliaries are the most frequent device in the addresses of King Abdullah II. They asserted that the hedging strategies used help convey the pragmatic and semantic functions of the speeches indirectly and politely.

The literature showed that the previous literature investigated the linguistic functions utilized in King Abdullah’s speeches. The use of persuasive strategies was not prevalent clearly in the previous literature. Therefore, the current study aims to examine the persuasive strategies used in seven political speeches of King Abdullah II. After viewing the literature, the research indicates that there is no single research conducted to analyze the persuasive strategies used in delivering the discourse of “peace” and the utilized persuasive strategies in the speeches of King Abdullah II of Jordan.

3. Methodology

This section illustrates the research methods and procedures used in the study.

3.1. Data collection

The corpus of this study has been collected of seven King Abdullah II political speeches delivered at regional and international summits, such as the General Assembly of United Nations, European Parliament, Islamic Countries Cooperation, and Arab League between 2007 to 2021. The speeches were collected from the official website of King Abdullah. The reason behind the selection of addresses is the relevance to the paper’s aims. They revolve around peace and the urgent need for solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Thus, such political speeches could fulfill the objectives of the present study to uncover the ideology of peace ideology contained within King Abdullah II’s addresses. Translating the delivered speeches in English into Arabic is conducted by translators and interpreters working for the Jordanian Royal Court (Ahmad et al., 2017).

3.2. Data analysis

The present study analyses the chosen corpus for the study using (WordSmith, 2022) to highlight the typos, tokens, frequency of the most recurring words, the frequency of the word “peace,” and the collocation of the word “peace” in the corpus. In addition, the study adopts the three dimensions of CDA proposed by (Fairclough, 1992) as a conceptual framework: text analysis, discursive practices, and social practices. The study also uses (Van Dijk, 1993) to highlight power relations, historical, historical, and political context of the word “peace” mentioned in King’s speeches.

4. Results and discussion

This section consists of two parts. The former will analyze the corpus by providing statistical information about typos, tokens, frequency of the most recurring words, the word “peace,” and the collocation of “peace” in the corpus. The latter will analyze the persuasive strategies proposed by (Obeng, 1997) used in the speeches of King Abdullah II in the light of the CDA’s three dimensions (Fairclough, 1992).

4.1. Statistical information

The researcher analyzes the chosen corpus using Wordsmith7. The tools provided by Wordsmith8 allow the researchers to identify the number of tokens and types in the selected corpus. Tokens are the minor units that appear in the corpus regardless of their frequency. On the other hand, type is the unique words repeated in the corpus. The study will show the token and type ratio to highlight the text features’ lexical density.

4.1.1. English source text vs. Arabic text

In this part, the researcher compares the size of the English corpus (S.T. corpus) with its Arabic counterpart (T.T. corpus). Wordsmith7 is used as shown in the below Figures 1 and 2.

Figure 1. English corpus statistics (WS8).

Figure 2. Arabic corpus statistics (WS8).

The figures above illustrate the statistics concerning the English and Arabic corpora.

4.1.2. Types and tokens in the study’s corpus

The above table illustrates the size of both English and Arabic corpora. English Corpus is 26,759 tokens, while the Arabic corpus has 20,278 tokens. This difference shows that the English corpus is larger than the Arabic corpus. The type (distinct words) is 3,562 words, while its Arabic counterpart is 6,803. The difference in the number of types indicates that Arabic has more unique words due to the lexical density of Arabic, which suits the Arabic language. An Arabic word can be translated into several English words, such as the Arabic word “انلزمكموها,” which can be translated as ‘shall we compel you to accept it. The type and tokens ratio indicates the English type/tokens is 13.43, while the Arabic corpus is 33.55. This is also apparent in Standardized TTR for the English corpus is 44.97, while the Arabic one is 67.82.

4.1.3. Frequency analysis

Frequency analysis counts the most frequent words used in the text. Thus, it represents the frequent and less frequent words in the text. For the aim of this study, the researcher created a frequency list to identify the most frequent words in both English and Arabic texts. Besides, the frequency of the noun ’peace’ in the speeches of King Abdullah II is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. The most frequent words in the English and the Arabic corpus.

Figure 3 illustrates the most frequent words in the English and Arabic corpora. It is noticed that there are 26 frequent words in the English target corpus are grammatical (function) and content words. These include definite and indefinite articles such as “the” and “a” prepositions such as “on,” “of,” “for,” “to,” and “in,” pronouns like “that,” “it,” “this,” “we,” conjunctions “and.” The Arabic wordlist, on the other hand, contains some function words, such as “مع,” and content words like الأردن, العالم, السالم, العربية, المتحدة Function words are called closed words. They play a significant role in establishing the relationship between two grammatical entities. They are used to express tenses and grammatical relationships. Each functional word has a different meaning depending on its grammatical relationship. (Dabbagh, 2021) shows that that function word has essential meaning to understand sentences. Function words occur in functional words more than content words.

Translators should have a comprehensive knowledge of function words. The misinterpretation of function words leads to political and social issues that nations cannot accept. Furthermore, function words may cause different views, and the translator should consider them while translating from one language into another (Akan et al., 2019).

The frequency of the noun “peace” in both texts should be highlighted in both texts as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. The frequency of the word peace in English and Arabic speeches of KING Abdullah II.

The above figure shows that the word “peace” has considered one of the 19 most frequent words in the English Corpus, while it occupies one of the twelfth most frequent words in the Arabic corpus (See Table 1).

Table 1. Types and tokens in the study’s corpus

Criterion	English Corpus	Arabic Corpus
Tokens	26,759	20,278
Types	3,562	6,803
Type/ tokens ratio	13.43	33.55
Standardized TTR	44.97	67.82

4.2. Persuasive strategies

The second part analyses the selected speeches of King Abdullah II to identify the persuasive strategies used by King Abdullah II to convey the vision of peace. Persuasive strategies are creativity, intertextuality, Circumlocution, reference, and metaphor, respectively, as proposed by (Obeng, 1997). Three stages (Fairclough, 1992) will also be employed to analyze the persuasive strategies indicated above.

4.2.1. Creativity and metaphors

Although creativity and metaphor are two distinct strategies, they are both directed to serve the same end, creative speech. As a result, it is necessary to address them all together to convey the findings concisely. Metaphors require a semantic mapping from one conceptual area to another, which is frequently done with unusual or deviant language. Political actors utilize metaphors to compare one idea and another (Crystal, 1994).

Creativity is the art of using words to develop ideas to serve the speaker’s purpose. In politics, creativity is the central pillar that Politicians use to persuade the public of their initiatives and agenda. According to (Van Dijk, 1993), discourse is an ideology. Therefore, creativity is the most important tool the speaker uses to communicate his ideas to the audience. Through analyzing the speeches of King Abdullah II, the creativity reflects the King’s policy in addressing the Middle eastern crisis. In 2021, King Abdullah II delivered a speech at the Brookings Institution Conference. He uses the following words to show his creativity.

Example 1: “But we have also learned that ongoing injustice in our region will continue to hold us all back. Prosperity in the Middle East and its positive dividends for the whole world cannot come to fruition without peace”.

The King here highlights the importance of solving the Middle Eastern crisis, Palestine. The lack of a solution for the Middle Eastern crises will deter the region’s development, impacting the world. The King urges the revival of the peace process for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The expression used here shows King Abdullah’s policy to highlight the importance of peace for developing the region and the whole world. Solving the Middle Eastern core crisis will dry the roots of violence, positively reflecting the region’s development.

This image creatively portrays King Abdullah’s vision to enhance peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis. This vision highlights that Palestinians and Israelis are all in the same boat of being in danger due to the lack of injustices. Moreover, the King creatively depicts life in the Middle East as “prosperity […] cannot come to fruition without peace” King refers to making peace process the key to prosperity and development in the region. Without peace, we will be exposed to dangers in our area and worldwide.

Example 2: “There is an opportunity to build on recent positive developments. We need to restore hope in the viability of peace and bring our youth closer to a future that, for so long, has been tantalizingly out of reach.”

In the same vein, the King uses a positive image of reviving the peace process in the region. He emphasizes restoring peace to the region’s development, positively reflecting the future generation. Moreover, King’s vision revolves around the importance of peace for the co-existence of future generations. The correlation of negative and positive images connects the social practices of Palestinians and Israelis who live in the same land that their status quo exposes them to dangers. The King here encourages the interaction between both parties to get across their disputes to avoid dangers. The negative reminds both parties that they are in danger, while the positive image highlights the fruits of peace in having a better future for the coming generations.

Example 3: “Jordan joined the United Nations a decade after its founding. We have embraced our role as an active member state, working towards global peace and sustainable development.”

King Abdullah II reiterates Jordan’s commitment as an active member of the United Nations to promote world peace and global sustainable development. The King here reminds the international community in a creative way of Jordan’s role in any peace talks concerning the Middle Eastern crises. He also highlights the role of Jordan in working with all international parties to promote sustainable development across the globe.

Example 4: “And we cannot resolve this conflict without working to preserve Jerusalem for all humanity, as a unifying city of peace. As Hashemite Custodian, I am bound by a special duty to safeguard Jerusalem’s Islamic and Christian holy sites, but the responsibility for the Holy City falls on us all.”

In example 3, the King reaffirms the role of Jordan in solving the Middle Eastern crises, particularly the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The King here uses the pronoun reference “we” to refer to the international community to indicate the impersonality of his speech regarding Jerusalem and his vision to persuade the global community of the importance of finding a peaceful solution Palestinian-Israeli crisis. The King creatively portrays Jerusalem as a unifying city for all three religions. Therefore, Jerusalem should be dealt with as the city of peace, not disputes. On the other hand, the King also reminds the world of Jordan’s custodianship of Jerusalem’s Islamic and Christian Holy Sites. He conveys that any solution for the Palestinian Israeli should be coordinated with Jordan since Jordan is the custodian of Jerusalem’s Islamic and Christian holy sites.

Example 5:

“In Jordan, the beautiful Saint Garabed Armenian Apostolic Church proudly stands in Bethany Beyond the Jordan—the Baptism Site of Jesus Christ, peace be upon him.”

The King refers to the religious history of Jordan. He shows that Apostolic Church is proudly part of long Jordan’s history. It is located at the baptism site of Jesus, peace be upon him, on the Jordan River. This reference indicates that co-existence is an integral part of Jordan’s history. Moreover, the King uses the Islamic greeting phrase “peace be upon him” to reflect what Muslims believe when they say or hear the name of Jesus, peace be upon him. This phrase also indicates that respect for Jesus and Christians is essential for our Islamic creed.

King Abdullah II portrays the word “peace” in a very creative way. This word implies that Jordan is concerned about peace, and Jordan’s role in reaching a peaceful solution for Middle Eastern Crises is essential. The King uses metaphors to highlight the importance of “peace” as shown in Table 2.

Table 2. The expressions stress King’s creativity and metaphors in his Speeches

N	Creative and Metaphoric expressions	The Speech	Type
1	Occupation and peace simply cannot coexist.	cannot coexist	negative
2	We need to restore hope in the viability of peace	viability of peace	positive
3	the whole world cannot come to fruition without peace.	It cannot come to fruition without peace.	negative
4	safeguarding Jerusalem as a unifying city of peace.	unifying city of peace	positive
5	their future rests on a fragile peace	fragile peace	negative
6	the durable peace that a secure future	durable peace	negative
7	His Majesty the late King Hussein, who loved peace	loved peace	positive
8	This conflict has been a global disrupter of peace and stability.	disrupter of peace	negative
9	recognizes the equal rights of the Palestinian people to a future of peace	a future of peace	positive
10	we need to safeguard the heritage and peace of Jerusalem	heritage and peace	positive
11	Peace and prosperity demand constant	Peace and prosperity	positive
12	Jerusalem is the key to peace and harmony.	peace and harmony	positive
13	the undermining of the foundations of peace and stability	the undermining of the foundations of peace	negative
14	Israel has to embrace peace	embrace peace	negative
15	create peace and build an inclusive society.	create peace	positive
16	It threatens a pillar of world peace	pillar of world peace	Negative
17	Islam for Peace and Civilization	Islam for Peace	positive
18	Islam was teaching peaceful co-existence	peaceful co-existence	positive

The above table shows that creativity is an overall strategy in King Abdullah’s speeches. Indeed, he utilizes such expressions to shed light on the ideas that he aims to deliver. For example, the metaphorical image in “their future rests on a fragile peace” is very expressive and essential to providing the vision of King Abdullah II’s speeches. Everyone knows that fragile refers to easily broken objects. Yet, the King here uses fragile to indicate that the region’s future is hazy due to the lack of solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The King warns all parties that fragile peace will impact the world and pay its price. This image presents a creative viewpoint to encourage the international community to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Furthermore, the King also uses another image “Israel has to embrace peace.” Here, King presents a creative image to highlight his vision of peace for the Palestinian -Israel crisis. This image illustrates the international community’s efforts to solve the crisis. Therefore, Israel must accept the peaceful initiatives, leading to establishing a Palestinian state on the borders of 1967 with Eastern Jerusalem as its capital.

4.2.2. Intertextuality

Intertextuality refers to the relation between a text and other texts for interpreting the text (Meriam-Webester, 2022). It involves borrowing from other texts to enhance the strength of the text. It is one of the essential strategic tools politicians use in their speeches. It is one of the persuasive strategies proposed by (Obeng, 1997) to get the audience’s attention to believe in the speaker’s words. Political leaders link their speech with other texts to support cultural, social, religious, and historical contexts. Therefore, intertextuality plays a significant role in delivering the communicative message of the speaker (Kitaeva & Ozerova, 2019).

Intertextuality is used in King Abdullah’s speeches. He uses this persuasive strategy to serve his vision of peace as needed (See Table 3).

Table 3. The intertextuality strategy used in the selected speeches

Text	Speaker
His Majesty the late King Hussein, who loved peace, stood in this very chamber, and decried the occupation and attempts, in his words, “to eradicate from the world’s memory centuries of history and tradition and of spiritual, moral, and cultural ideals.”	the late King Hussein of Jordan
The Prophet Mohammad, peace and blessings are upon him, said: “None of you has faith until you love your neighbor what you love for yourself.”	The Prophet Mohammad of Islam
“A decent respect for the rights and dignity of all nations, large and small”	32nd U.S. President
As Roosevelt also said, “the justice of morality must and will win in the end.”	32nd U.S. President
Indonesia’s national motto, “Unity in Diversity,” applies to us all.	Indonesia’s national motto

In 2019, the speech of the King at the United Nations Assembly quoted the address of the late King of Jordan in his speech at the United nation in condemning the occupation acts in changing the historical, cultural, and spiritual status of Jerusalem. This quote reinforces King’s standpoint in rejecting all acts of the occupation authorities in changing the status quo in Jerusalem. Furthermore, the King here rings the alarms for the international community to force Israel to accept peaceful solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Example 6:

“To eradicate from the world’s memory centuries of history and tradition and spiritual, moral, and cultural ideals.”

King Abdullah II of Jordan uses the late King Hussein’s speech to support His vision of peace for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The King borrows the speech of the late King, and the international community much respects sayings. King here warns that the international community of Israel’s policy of erasing all Palestinian heritage, history, and culture from Jerusalem is unacceptable and complicates the situation in occupied Palestine. Such an approach will impact and deter making peace for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Example 7:

“A decent respect for the rights and dignity of all nations, large and small.”

The King borrows the speech of U.S. President Roosevelt. The choice of this extract supports King’s vision of peace for the Middle Eastern Crises. The listener and the reader of King’s speech will deduce the determination of King Abdullah II to encourage the USA to take part in making peace for the Middle East’s major crisis, the Palestinian crisis. The encouragement for the USA entails enforcing Israel to accept the peace initiative to solve the crisis. This quote serves King Abdullah II’s vision to persuade U.S. policymakers and Americans of the importance of reaching a peaceful solution for the Palestinian cause. This is affirmed by a speech by Roosevelt in respecting the rights of all nations, large or small. Furthermore, the King also uses another extract in his speeches by U.S. President Roosevelt.

Example 8:

“the justice of morality must and will win in the end.”

The King borrows another extract from U.S. president Roosevelt to serve his vision of finding a peaceful solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In example 7, there is a direct encouragement for U.S. policymakers and Americans to believe in the viability of peace between Palestinians and Israelis. This quote indicates that moral justice should be applied in the current conflict, and Palestinians will get their right to live in a peaceful land.

4.2.3. Circumlocution

Circumlocution is the indirect way of saying something unpleasant. Politicians use Circumlocution regularly to avoid obvious to save their faces. They also use Circumlocution to defend their views against their opponents. More importantly, Circumlocution may be used with politeness to enable the politicians to achieve their goals (Obeng, 1997). Politicians also use Circumlocution to add (ir) relevant additions to serve their agendas and spread terrible stories about their opponents (Van Dijk, 2011). In this regard, politicians utilize hyperbole and exaggeration as the main strategies to disseminate hurtful information on their agendas.

King Abdullah II delivered his speeches at different international meetings and summits. However, the King has main issues to accentuate in all speeches. The main issues that the King tackles revolve around the main issues in the middle east.

1. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict

2. The international community’s role is to stand for the rights of Palestinians.

3. America’s balanced voice in reviving the peace process

4. The call for the international community to work together against the dangers.

5. The key to peace in the region

6. Jordan’s role in the peace process.

The above Table 4 shows the most frequent words in the speeches of King Abdullah II in the word “must” with 96 times See figure 5, followed by the word “Palestinian” with 73 times, followed by the word “Jerusalem” with 60 mentions, followed by the phrase “The Middle East” with 29 times, followed by the word “Palestinian-Israeli” with 19 mentions, followed by the word “should” with 15 times, followed by the word “America” with seven mentions. The King here uses the verb “must” to support his vision of finding a peaceful solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The following graph illustrates the frequency of the word “Must” in the speech of King Abdullah II.

Figure 5. The word occurrence “Must” in the speeches of King Abdullah II.

Table 4. The highly frequent words in the seven speeches

N	Word	Part of speech	Frequency
1	Must	verb	96
2	Palestinian	Noun	73
3	Jerusalem	Noun	60
4.	Middle East	Noun	29
5.	Palestinian-Israeli	Noun	19
6.	Should	verb	15
7.	America	Noun	7

The King uses “I must” three times in his speeches. This expression is significant because it indicates the primary purpose of the speech.

Example 9:

“And today, I must say frankly that the dangers have grown—violence continues; settlement building continues; disregard for international law continues.”

The King believes that the international community should work together to revive the peace process between Palestinian and Israeli to avoid escalation, impacting the region’s stability and the whole world. As a result, finding a peaceful solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is necessary. Therefore, what is important to tell from the word “must” is that the King wants the international community to reach a comprehensive peace process between Palestinians and Israelis. On the other hand, the word “should” calls for further actions to solve the Middle East crises process between the relevant parties. The usage of “must and should” relates to the aim of the King to persuade the audience of his vision. The underlying use of such terms relates to the interpretation stage (Fairclough, 1992).

4.2.4. References

(Van Dijk, 1993) indicates that political pronouns are utilized to reveal agency, identity, and self-reference. For instance, the two objective pronouns “us” and “them” refer to the polarization of groups in and out. King Abdullah II used pronouns meticulously to highlight the vision he wanted to deliver. King Abdullah II tends to use first and second personal pronouns more than the third person pronouns. The first and second pronouns allow the speaker to direct his point to the audience and make it easy to understand. This balance enables King Abdullah II to gain the audience’s attention to understand the message he wants to deliver. This balance refers to the social practice dimension proposed by (Fairclough, 1992). It also indicates that the discourse here is a social practice rather than linguistic practice. The below table lists the subject pronoun used and their frequencies in the speeches of King Abdullah II.

The above table shows the use of subject pronouns in the speeches of King Abdullah II. It is shown that the pronoun “we” is the most frequent in the speeches of King Abdullah II 358 times. This frequency is important because it establishes the relation between the speaker and the audience. The pronoun “we” establishes the credibility of the speech and shows the balance between all speech parties. The second most frequent noun is “I,” with 125 mentions, followed by the pronoun “you” with 124 times, respectively. The use of personal pronouns in the speech indicates establishing trust and understanding for the audience See Table 5.

Example 10:

“Jordan joined the United Nations a decade after its founding. We have embraced our role as an active member state, working towards global peace and sustainable development.”

King Abdullah reaffirmed Jordan’s commitment to working with all international parties to establish global peace. He used the pronoun, we to show that he represents all Jordanians. The King here uses us to create the image of the group he belongs to positively.

Table 5. The subject pronoun used in the speeches of King Abdullah II

N.	Pronoun	Frequency
1.	We	358
2.	I	125
3.	You	124

On the other hand, the King uses possessive pronouns in his speeches, as shown in Table 6.

Table 6. Possessive pronouns used in the speeches of King Abdullah

N.	Possessive pronouns	Frequency
1.	Our	481
2.	your	18
3.	my	15

Table 6 correlates with the previous findings that the most frequent personal pronoun is “we” to balance the King and his audience. On the other hand, the King does not use objective pronouns to avoid being passive in his speech to persuade the public of his vision of peace in the middle east.

“So we, who are gathered here, have two things in common. First is our responsibility to these millions—the people who have entrusted us with their hopes and fears.”

King Abdullah II addressed the European parliament using the personal pronoun we and the possessive pronoun our. He refers to both the speaker, King, and the European parliament members. Instead of saying we to create a group membership, he uses our instead of reminding them of his authority. King uses the pronoun our to remind them that Jordan and European countries have the responsibility to help instill hope and remove fears from the minds of the refugees. He created a sense of shared responsibility to help refugees and the hosted countries.

5. Conclusion

CDA is an interdisciplinary subject that relies on models and approaches to study political speeches and their social functions. The study examines the utilization of the word “peace in seven speeches of King Abdullah II at international, regional, and local summits from 2007 to 2022. The study concludes that creativity is used frequently to highlight the ideas he wants to convey. Moreover, King Abdullah uses intertextuality to persuade the audience of his vision. The study reveals that King Abdullah II reiterates Jordan’s role in solving global crises and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. On the other hand, the King utilizes neutral references (We, our, your, you) in his Speeches to avoid Impersonalistion. The study concludes that the King uses persuasive strategies to highlight the status quo and the solution for the Middle Eastern core cause, Palestine.

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Additional information

Funding

The authors received no direct funding for this research.

Notes on contributors

Zakaryia Almahasees

Zakariya Almahasees is an assistant professor in the English Language and Translation Department at the Applied Science Private University, Amman, Jordan. He received his Ph.D. in Translation from the University of Western Australia, Australia. His main area of research focuses on Translation Studies, Machine Translation, Computational Linguistics, and Discourse Analysis.

Sameh Mahmoud is an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Translation at the College of Languages & Translation at Najran University, Saudi Arabia. In addition, he worked as a Language instructor at the Languages & Translation Center at the Faculty of Arts, Sohag University, Egypt. His main research interests are Linguistics & Translation Studies.