Politeness Strategies in Jacinda Ardern's 2020 Victory Speech: Constructing Political Leadership during Crisis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24071/joll.v26i2.1885Keywords:
political discourse, politeness strategies, political leadership, pragmaticsAbstract
Political leaders employ language not only to convey political messages but also to establish public trust, reinforce collective identity, and legitimize leadership, particularly during periods of national crisis. This study examines the politeness strategies and their communicative functions employed in Jacinda Ardern's victory speech following the 2020 New Zealand general election by using Brown and Levinson's (1987) politeness theory to explain how politeness serves as a communicative resource for constructing political leadership and fostering public trust during the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to identify the types of politeness strategies used by Ardern regarding the revelation of the communication goals in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, the study examined 46 utterances using a qualitative descriptive design within the framework of pragmatic discourse analysis, with frequency counts and percentages serving as descriptive support for interpreting the distribution of identified strategies rather than for statistical inference or hypothesis testing. According to the findings, the most common strategy is positive politeness (50%), which is followed by bald-on-record (30.4%), off-record (17.4%), and negative politeness (2.2%). The predominance of positive politeness indicates that Ardern strategically constructs solidarity, strengthens collective identity, and cultivates public trust while addressing citizens during the period of national uncertainty. Bald-on-record strategies, on the other hand, were mainly employed to explicitly state a political commitment; off-record strategies used metaphorical phrases to express hope and resilience; and negative politeness demonstrated respect and humility. These results imply that politeness serves as a means of communication for political leadership in times of crisis in addition to being an interpersonal language strategyReferences
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Copyright (c) 2026 Christina Atika Yulina, Felix Stefani Sisvinda, Christian Leonardo, Krismalita Sekar Diasti (Author)
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