A Metapragmatic Analysis of Iraqi and American Political Legal Discourse

Metapragmatics is a relatively new field of study that attracts the attention of many scholars in linguistics; it refers to the use of language about language use. In trials of political figures, such as Saddam Hussein and William Clinton, Iraqi and American legal discourses have not been addressed that much, if ever, metapragmatically; thus, the study aims to analyze these discourses metapragmatically. This paper attempts to answer central questions about identifying the metapragmatic expressions, explaining their functions, and describing the layers of metapragmatic monitoring of the detected metapragmatic expressions in the Iraqi and American legal discourse. Accordingly, the objectives are to identify the metapragmatic expressions detected by specific indicators and investigate their functions and role in monitoring the Iraqi and American broadcast political court discourses. Some extracts of the two figures mentioned above are analyzed according to a developed model encompassing Caffi’s (2016) model, Hubler and Bublitz’s (2007) metapragmatic parameters, and Culpuper and Haugh’s (2014) metapragmatic awareness indicators, and forms. The current study is hoped to be helpful for those researchers interested in the fields of pragmatics, politics, and applied linguistics. Since metapragmatics deals with the pragmatic meaning of language, this study highlights the importance of metapragmatic expressions in promoting productive interaction and organizing communication within the court, regardless of the language used. Further investigation of metapragmatics is recommended while analyzing political, literary, religious, social, and media discourse to understand the functions of the metapragmatic utterances used in different settings.