The Language of Leadership: Analyzing Public Speeches of Presidents (Literature Review)

The present review is an investigation of the ways in which public addresses of outstanding country leaders are analyzed by modern Russian and English-speaking linguists. Our analysis covers the time period between 2012 and 2017 and includes the review of scientific publications from peer-reviewed linguistic journals which have public speeches of presidents as their core subject of study. For our search we use such widely acknowledged online databases as Google Scholar, Web of Science, and e-library. An attempt is made to identify the major trends and key issues in these latest publications, followed by proposing suggestions for further international comparative research in this field. As we demonstrate in this review, political discourse and, specifically, the language of public addresses of American and Russian presidents have been thoroughly analyzed on multiple levels and according to different criteria over the last half-decade, but further analysis in this field still remains extremely relevant. Our paper contributes to the body of knowledge on this topic in two ways. Firstly, the literature is reviewed in order to provide an overview of the key characteristics in the public addresses of outstanding world politicians that scholars choose to analyze, as well as the levels of analysis (we divide all publications into four major streams). Secondly, possible future directions of research are identified in order to stimulate progress in this important area of study.