Legitimating Discourse: An Analysis of Legitimation Strategies in U.S. Official Discourse on Cyprus

Abstract

This article is about a concrete example on the discursive aspects of political legitimation. It studies the press briefings and press conferences that are delivered by U.S. officials roughly through the second-term period of former U.S. president Bill Clinton. After a theoretical analysis of legitimation, this article aims to examine what a legitimating discourse says and how it says these things. In order to study the legitimation process of U.S. official political discourse on Cyprus, of the vast number of discourse structures and strategies it only concentrates on semantic macrostructures.