The Use of Macro and Micro Structures in Pakistani Prime Minister’s Speech at UNGA: A Critical Discourse Analysis Approach

Political speeches delivered by state heads or politicians may stir controversies sometimes, especially, when speakers give arguments for or against some issues. To investigate so-called political discourses, critical discourse studies are conducted in different contexts. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), for instance, explores connection between different uses of discourse structures and socio-political contexts in which these structures occur. It also highlights issues such as power, dominance, ideology, and manipulation. The current study investigated Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s maiden speech to the 74^th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on September 27, 2019 – watched by over four million viewers on YouTube. This study used van Dijk’s (1980) framework to analyze macro and micro structures in the speech and the underlying agenda behind employing such discourse structures. The qualitative data consisted of speech transcript, delivered in English, which contained about 2577 words. Findings reveal that macro propositions in the speech summarized global, regional, and national issues such as climate change, money laundering, corruption, Islamophobia, Pakistan’s war on terror, the Kashmir conflict, and Pakistan’s relations with India. The use of microstructural elements (pronouns, rhetorical question, references, number game, presupposition, modality, lexis and conjunctions) enabled the speaker to voice his ideological and political beliefs on aforementioned issues.