MEDIA CONTROL THROUGH DIRECTIVE SPEECH: A SPEECH ACT ANALYSIS OF THE DONALD TRUMP–JIM ACOSTA PRESS CONFERENCE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21009/ishel.v2i1.70908Keywords:
critical discourse analysis, directive speech acts, media control, political press conference, speech act theoryAbstract
Democracies depend on the assumption that those in power can be questioned by the press, yet press conferences often become sites where this assumption is contested through language. This study examines how President Donald Trump used directive speech acts to control media participation during the November 7, 2018, White House press conference exchange with CNN correspondent Jim Acosta. Employing a qualitative descriptive method integrated with Searle's (1976) speech act theory and Fairclough's (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis, the study analyzed seven directive utterances drawn from a transcript triangulated across The Washington Times, TIME, and Bloomberg. The findings reveal four directive subtypes: command, prohibition, turn allocation, and delegitimizing indirect directives, with delegitimizing indirect directives constituting the largest category. These directives function cumulatively through a three-stage progression procedural termination, professional delegitimization, and categorical delegitimization, that narrows Acosta's participation from an interrupted journalist to a delegitimized threat. The study demonstrates that media control is accomplished not through any single utterance but through the sequential combination of directive speech acts. These findings extend speech act theory toward power relations, contribute a pragmatic-analytic model for examining political discourse, and offer teachable linguistic mechanisms for critical media literacy.
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