The Presidential Tongue: Commissive Speech Acts in Nana Addo’s 2017 State of the Nation Address

Political discourse aims at persuading or making people believe what has been said. It occupies a central place in the organization and management of a society. Political speakers are most concerned with the performance of speech acts they demonstrate in their speeches. These acts according to Searle (1969) convey the intentions of the speakers in a political discourse. This study examines the use of commissive speech acts (promises, pledges and threats) in Ghana’s President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo’s 2017 state of the nation address. It analyses the frequency of the commissive acts, reasons for the choice of the act with the highest frequency and presents an in-depth analysis of the utterances selected. The study is largely qualitative and supported by some descriptive quantification. Data were collected by downloading the speech from the internet and the analysis based on Searle’s (1969) classification of speech acts. It was found that commissive speech acts were mostly manifested through pledges (45%), promises (40%) and threats (15%).