Exploring Speech Act Patterns in Anthropological Pragmatics

The purpose of this paper is to look into discourse patterns of President Joe Biden from an anthropological pragmatics perspective, and the theory of speech acts, in particular. I will argue that speech acts are double-edged tools in human communication that have the power to create objective facts accepted and maintained by human agreement on the one hand but are also determined by fluctuating socio-cultural context. In exploring the topic of the American presidency from an anthropological pragmatics perspective, this article addresses theoretical and methodological issues which further our understanding of linguistic structure of social reality determined by socially constrained functions that underlie culture. Thus, this paper argues for a broadened research path to advance the theory of speech acts in political discourse. An analysis of President Joe Biden’s language practices uncovers the rhetorical concept of ethos and its criterion of credibility that is indicative of his presidential status.