Mood Analysis of Ex Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Speech at UNGA in 2021

Abstract

The aim of the present research is to determine the predominant mood formations in the speech delivered by Imran Khan at the UNGA 2021 meeting and also examine how these mood pattern can be used to deliver a message and create an interpersonal meaning. Political speeches can be seen as a great tool that can create national identity and convince the whole world. The diplomatic policy of the Pakistani government expressed in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) speech of Ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan shows the country and its moral image based on its word choice. This study embraces a clause-by-clause mood analysis of official language transcript in English as a system that follows Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as a framework. Clauses were divided into the declarative; interrogative and imperative moods and their occurrence and rhetorical purposes were qualitatively analysed. Results indicate that declarative clauses predominate in the speech, they are projected and project an authority and factual reasoning, whereas interrogatives engage the moral reasoning and imperatives stimulate a collaborative appeal. The analysis shows that mood choice serves as a strategic way to build power, empathy, and achieving persuasion and turns grammar into a weapon of diplomatic rhetoric and representing oneself and the world. The study recommends to carry out an in-depth mood analysis of the speeches of the world leaders to dig out their strategies to tackle the upcoming global challenges. It also recommends to carry out on a bigger data stance evaluation to analyze rhetorical strategies of used in speeches and briefings.