Persuasive Strategies in English and Arabic Covid-19 Vaccine Discourse

Abstract

This contrastive study investigated the persuasive strategies used in a number of English and Arabic speeches of some health ministers about COVID-19 vaccination. The English sample included six speeches by the American and British health ministers, and the Arabic sample featured six speeches by the Omani and Jordanian health ministers. The study aimed at analyzing the persuasive strategies used by health ministers as well as showing the similarities and differences between the utilized strategies. The data were analyzed using Beebe and Beebe's (2013) theory of persuasive strategies. The results revealed that competence is the most used strategy in the speeches of health ministers about COVID-19 vaccines. Moreover, the results showed that the health ministers differ in the frequency of using some strategies and also in using evidence to tell a story and reverence strategies, which exist only in English speeches. However, all health ministers use competence and metaphor strategies with similar frequency.