A Pragmatic Study of Lying in Some American Political Speeches

Abstract

The present study aims to answer the following questions: What are the pragmatics of lying in American political contexts? What lying is? Pragmatics is a division of linguistics that studies how context contributes to meaning. This field of study clarifies "how human language is utilized in social interactions." Pragmatics includes speech act theory, speech acts, implicature, context, and behaviour.Lying is a pragmatic strategy, it is used to deceive or mislead someone. A person who practices lying is called a liar. Lying serves a variety of interpersonal purposes or psychological functions for the individuals who use them.  It represents a kind of speech act which plays an effective role in the study of language. In this regard, lying is an important aspect of a lot of strategic interactions, such as in online newspapers, election discourse, and politics. In this study lying will be discussed in detail. This paper aims to know what should be understood as lying and to make the listeners able to understand its methods.