The discourse prosody of ‘deeply’ in G. W. Bush’s Presidential speeches

The adverb of degree 'deeply' participates in expressing speakers’ opinions about the entities or propositions being discussed. As a marker of speaker stance it may signal persuasive attempts to involve hearers in the construction of discourse from the speaker’s point of view. This is particularly true in political speeches where the orator’s ability to manufacture consent plays a fundamental role. This paper studies the frequent contextual associations of deeply at the lexico-grammatical, semantic and discourse levels in G. W. Bush’s speeches (2001-2002). It thus shows how this adverb participates in semantic units with clearly identifiable pragmatic functions aimed at persuasive effects.