Irony in Electoral Political Speeches

This book explains how the art of politics, in terms of electoral political speeches, uses irony as a pragmatically manifested strategy to convince voters to vote for the politician who uses irony, as an ostensible speech acts, against other nominees. Through irony, politicians can win the audience's opinion and achieve all their desires. After explaining types and pragmatic functions of irony, a model to analyze irony in political discourse is developed and applied to a considerable number of electoral political speeches of presidential and/or prime-ministerial candidates. The model is of vital importance to political analysts and pragmaticians; it sheds light on intricate utterances that cannot be easily analyzed by other means than pragmatic strategies. Thus, irony is pragmatically studied in American presidential and British prime-ministerial electoral speeches. The book concludes that irony is a an ostensible speech act strategy employed by American more than British candidates to change the public opinion.

Baism Jubair Kadhim, October 28th, 1984- Najaf-Iraq. Holds a B.A. in English Language and Literature 2011, University of Kufa, College of Arts, Iraq; and a M.A. in English Language and Linguistics 2014, University of Babylon, College of Education, Iraq. He worked as a translator in many institutions. He lectured at several Colleges.