FACE THREATENING ACTS (FTAS) IN AIPAC POLITICAL ANNUAL SPEECHES BETWEEN 2006 AND 2012

Face Threatening Acts are politeness forms which have been struggled over in the past and now as they are pragmatically deemed relevant in identifying centripetal and centrifugal movements exerted by political actors on their interlocutors. The findings on approaching political discourse from politeness perspective have been controversial and ranged from being confined to the interactional level to negotiating implicit power relations. This present study offers a politeness theoretical framework to examine AIPAC political annual speeches between 2006 and 2012. The target of this research is to understand which politeness strategies political actors deploy when addressing the audience and how these political speakers please the other and fulfill political ends. The results display an over-reliance on Face Threatening Acts on record with redressive action at the expense of Face Threatening Acts on record without redressive action and Face Threatening Acts off record. Positive politeness, notably expressive speech acts, play an inclusive role, gain the audience sympathy and reshape public opinion. The study fills the gap in the study of the impact of positive politeness on political discourse and calls for the consideration of expressive speech acts as means of power negotiation rather than mere interaction.


Introduction
The surge in politeness studies over the last two decades has had direct effects on the study of political discourse. But before highlighting this interconnectedness between politeness studies and political discourse, we need to minutely define both approaches. The latter is viewed as the analysis which "deals especially with the reproduction of political power, power abuse or domination through political discourse, including the various forms of resistance or counter -power against such forms of discursive dominance" (Van Dijk, 1997: 11). The study of political discourse, henceforth, is deemed relevant in order to set the boundaries between language and communication (Wodak & Meyer, 2009) and to identify the type of this language use (Chilton, 2004). In his attempt to display the link between language and politics, Kampf (2013) assumes that political discourse is either defined as "talk and text produced in regard to concrete political issues (language in politics) or the actual use of institutional political actors (language of politicians)" (Kampf, 2013). Watts (2003), from another side, unveils that the term 'politeness' is controversial since it ranges from "socially 'correct' or 'appropriate' behavior, through cultivated behavior, considerateness displayed to others, self-effacing behavior, to negative attributions such as standoffishness, haughtiness, insincerity, etc.." (Watts, 2003). While revisiting Brown and Levinson's politeness theory (1987), Locher and Watts (2005) sets a cleavage between politeness as a 'discursive concept' and the mitigation of Face Threatening Acts (FTAs) in general. Locher and Watts (2005) argue that what is polite or impolite cannot be predicted by discourse analysts because "researchers should focus on the discursive struggle in which interactants engage" (Locher and Watts, 2005). Culpeper (2011) sides with Locher and Watts (2005) and considers "classic politeness theories are built on classic Speech Act theory (Austin 1962;Searle 1969) and Gricean Implicature (Grice 1975), which, separately or together, do not offer an adequate account of communication, or of politeness in particular" (Culpeper, 2011).
However, Brown and Levinson's model remains valid since it puts "sociopragmatic concerns at the forefront of pragmatic research and the affective aspects of communication firmly on the pragmatic map" (O' Driscoll, 2007). In so doing, they offer a model that helps find about how "discursive patterns displayed by political actors with their peers are not solely adversarial, but also characterized by communicative cooperation strategies" (Chilton, 2004).
The paper, henceforth, endorses Brown and Levinson's model to display how political speakers highly deploy Face Threatening Acts, on record, with redressive action at the expense of Face Threatening Acts, on record, without redressive action and Face Threatening Acts, off record. It also merges the Brown and Levinson's model with Lakoff's (2005) since the latter builds her model on two fundamental principle: 'Be clear' and 'Be polite' (Lakoff and Ide, 2005:4). Lakoff puts it clear that politeness "involves both 'consideration for others', that is, adherence to the rules, whether a culture frames them in terms of face and FTA-avoidance…and the adherence to the conventional standards, i.e, the expectations that the rule will be followed" (ibid).
The paucity of such research is highlighted by Kampf and Danziger (2019) who focused on the art of complimenting and praising in political discourse and argued that "communicating admiration and appreciation in public discourse are two important tasks for political actors who wish to secure relationships and advance models for civic behavior" (Kampf & Danziger, 2019). The present study also tries to fill this research gap and extends its scope of attention to all types of politeness with a major emphasis on positive and negative ones because "confrontational modes of political language use have been studied extensively [whereas] the ways in which politicians and public figures apply cooperative and solidarity-oriented modes of communication remain on the margins of political discourse studies" (Kampf, 2015). AIPAC is defined as "a lobbying group that advocates pro-Israel policies to the Congress and Executive Branch of the United States" (www.aipac.org). Wilson (2004) elicits that AIPAC is "founded in 1951, has a staff of 150, an annual budget of 15 million $, and fifty-five thousand members. It operates out of offices one block away from Capitol Hill as well as in other major cities" (Wilson, 2004:130). AIPAC official websites displays that the annual conference is one of the largest gatherings of America's pro-Israel movement and the targeted audience are thousands of pro-Israel Americans for all 50 states and online participants as well. AIPAC discourse has undergone various studies from multifaceted perspectives namely historical (Findley 2003, Felton 2010, political (Mearsheimer & Walt 2007, Sniegoski 2008, Hart 2010), religious (Weber & Jones 1994, Are 1994, cultural (Wilson 2004), sociological (Elazar 1976, Mac Donald 2007 and socio-political (Raimondo 2003 andPetras 2008). The paper seeks to approach AIPAC political discourse from a pragmatic angle by zooming in on politeness strategies.
Drawing on politeness theory, we find various studies (Abudayeh & Dubbati 2010;Hamno 2020;Ardila 2019;Kadar & Zhang 2019;Kampf & Danziger 2019;Livnat & Lewin 2016) which delved into setting the boundaries between Face Threatening Acts and political discourse. Abudayeh and Dubbati (2010) focused on unveiling the different politeness strategies used when translating Donald Trump's offensive language into Arabic and they concluded that "translating Donald Trump's ethos as an abrasive speaker who uses insults as a rhetorical weapon outweighs the need to protect the positive face of Arab audiences" (Abudayeh & Dubbati, 2010). Livnat and Lewin (2016) selected Benjamin Netanyahu's speeches and "examined strategies that foster dialogic interaction with the audience, by directly addressing them, or otherwise acknowledging their presence" (ibid). This examination by Livnat and Lewin (2016) as well as Abudayeh and Dubbati (2010) is critically viewed by recent studies (Kuntarto, Siswoyo and Kusmana, 2019) as an examination which does not transcend the interactional level. Rather, "language is used as a political tool, and not as a means of interaction as defined in the theory of politeness".
Based on Brown and Levinson's analytical tool (1987) and Lakoff's (2005), this paper endeavors to prove how politicians resort to Face Threatening Acts to mould public opinion and to, consequently, refute the claim which says that politeness theory is just geared towards establishing interaction between participants. This research comes in line with Hamno's (2020) view which displays "the use of strategies in performing impolite, intentionally targeted language output" (Hamno, 2020). It also reinforces Ardila's findings (2019) who provided "a list of impoliteness phenomena deployed strategically in political discourse" (Ardila, 2019). Ardila studied impoliteness strategy in Spain's politics and show cased "the extent to which marked impoliteness is nowadays being deployed in the Spanish parliament as a powerful rhetoric strategy" (Ardila, 2019). The Chinese political discourse does not depart much from the Spanish one since it implicitly triggers "alignment with the public in the wake of national social crises" (Kadar & Zhang, 2019). Kadar and Zhang also revealed that "such forms of politeness deserve special attention in language and politics because they are not interpersonal and their use correlates with implicit communication" (Kadar & Zhang, 2019).
Based on this brief scholarship on politeness theory, this article tries to answer the following two research questions: 1. What are the different politeness forms that are strategically deployed by political actors when addressing their interlocutors? 2. How do political actors promote political sociability and gain public sympathy by way of using Face Threatening Acts?

Method
This paper focuses on AIPAC annual speeches delivered between 2006 and 2012 and this time span is justified by the growing animosity between the United States, with its Israeli ally, and their foreign enemies, namely Iran with its military branch Hezbolah. The threat of Iran after gaining the nukes and the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese war and its aftermath are most of the speeches' content. The speeches are delivered during AIPAC annual conferences by the executive director Howard Kohr, AIPAC president Howard Friedman and the American president Barack Obama. All the speeches are to be qualitatively analyzed relying on Brown and Levinson's model (1987) and Lakoff's model (2005). Samples on Face Threatening Acts (FTAs) on record and off record are to be tabulated and analyzed. Therefore, tables will deal with positive politeness, negative politeness and imperatives. Samples on tautology, understatement, metaphors and rhetorical questions are also lumped in other explicative tables.

Findings and Discussion
Detection of FTAs, on record, with redressive action proceeds, as mentioned above, by going throughout the whole corpus and compiling them in explicative tables followed by analytic notes. The major samples manually detected run as follows:

POSITIVE POLITENESS
 "We must convince our leaders"  "all of us assembled, take a solemn pledge"  "We pledge that we will not be part of a generation that will wish it could call back yesterday"  "There is us -you and me"  "we express our profound appreciation to President Bush"  "But my friends, we can change what will yet be"  "This is our time -our moment"  "We must use the strength we have built to change the course of events"  "And you and I must play a central role in shaping tomorrow"  "You and I have a direct role in shaping this national debate"  "What we seek, what our country needs, and what our world demands are leaders"  "Each of us must be willing to share our concerns"  "We know how to shape the future"  "we will gather with my family and friends, and the shadow of our past will inspire and guide us once more as we remember the Exodus from Egypt"  "And when asked, we must have the commitment to answer as did our ancestors in every generation -Heneini -Here I am"  "My friends, at this Conference in this year we celebrate the 60 th anniversary of that land of hope"  "We need to make our voices heard on a series of critical issues"  "We must educate everyone"  "The progress we have made"  "We know we can make a difference"  "That is our mission and this is our momentto make the commitment to this cause"  "as we look forward to a future where Israel is free"  "let us be certain our voices are heard in defense of the ties that bind America and Israel"  "We need to recognize that this campaign is about more than mere rhetoric"  "Here is why we must tell that truth and why we must prevail"  "Our country should aim at and aspire to"  "In this battle we are the firewall, the last rampart"  "let us reassert our faith"  "we must stand firm against the Tehran regime's nuclear pursuit"  "the future is beyond our vision but let us meet it with confidence and resolve"  "In these times, we come together as friends of Israel to share our apprehensions and our hopes, to share our predictions, our insights, our analysis, to discuss and debate, to do the work that is the heart of democracy and the secret of democracy's success"  "Here are the facts we all must confront"  "I hope we do not give up on that vision of peace"  "That is why we must bring even more pressure to bear"  "All of these accomplishments by our leaders have led to important progress" The table above invokes that the speakers in AIPAC speeches use the strategy of positive politeness to show their closeness to the hearers. A feeling of intimacy is created between the speakers and the audience in order to build a unified vision, for instance, to combat dangers coming from Iran "in this battle we are the firewall, the last rampart".
The use of inclusive 'we' and 'let's' is frequent as a sign that the mission is one and all the efforts should be gathered to achieve its success. When the speaker says "let us reassert our faith" he employs a centripetal movement via which he brings the hearer to his own scope of interest. This fusion of the first person singular 'I' and the second person plural 'you' yields the first person plural "we" which is inclusively implemented to avoid clash between speakers and listeners. The speakers avoid threatening the positive face of the hearers all along the speeches via the use of various lubricants as "my friends", "that is our mission", "each of us" and "you and I". Feeling that the scourge could take place at any time, speakers are careful about using comity when addressing their audience to guarantee oneness "in these times we come together as friends of Israel to share our apprehensions and hopes".
Considering the audience as "friends" has a boasting effect on the recipient. Hearers are enticed through these techniques of containment to hide any bridge that may exist between speakers and audience. Positive face, which is related to our desire to be admired and thanked, is saved throughout the speeches as the above table shows. The speaker minimizes his presence and maximizes the audience's as in "you and I" where the second personal pronoun is forwarded over the first personal pronoun. It is not a glamorized 'I' that speaks along the speeches. The paper even notices that there are hardly instances where the speaker utilizes 'I' in a direct way to give orders to listeners.
The speeches, therefore, seem to be wellprepared beforehand and the speakers are conscious about their messages. Speakers mitigate their address through redressive action since they try to appease the audience.
Negative politeness is also detected in the speeches since there are expressions that refer to neither the speaker nor the hearer as the table below displays:

NEGATIVE POLITENESS
 "Sanctions could target three groupsthe regime, the wealthy, and the unelected mullahs"  "Ahmadinejad must never be allowed to address the United Nations General Assembly as he did just a few months ago"  "These actions will help dry up the resources necessary for Iran to invest in weapons of mass destruction"  "In every age individuals have been called to step forward and take action"  "Actions not words will be necessary to build the trust on which true peace rests"  "This is the battle for the hearts and minds of the world"  "Abraham was told only this, 'Get up , leave your country, your people, and your father's house and go to the land I will show you"  "We have seen the bravery of a young generation risking its life for universal freedoms"  "what is certain, what is lasting, what is true stand out all the more brightly"  "No one has a greater stake in the outcome of events that are folding today than your generation, and it's inspiring to see you devote your time and energy to help shape that future"  "there is still time to stop Iran without the use of force"  "Israel can never let that nightmare come" The instances above are clear evidence that the speaker thaws his impact on the target and avoids interference with the addressee's freedom of action. This fact leads to negative politeness where the speaker relinquishes direct orders to targets and attempts to refer to an exterior reference as the use of 'individuals' in the following example "in every age individuals have been called to step forward and take action". The avoidance of saying to the target 'step forward and take action' crystallizes the speaker's care to save the negative face of the addressee.
The reference to 'Abraham' while addressing the audience stands for motivating them indirectly. What has been ordered to Abraham is tacitly meant to sympathizers of Israel around the world to "get up, leave your country, your people" and come for the salvation of Israel. Employing religious reference accentuates the speaker's restraint in his interaction with the target. He, therefore, relies on the target's intelligence in responding without being directly guided. Similarly, he refers to a whole entity 'Israel' when calling for urgent reaction against any nightmarish scenario that may take place. He makes his call overgeneralized for fear of making a certain imposition on the addressee.
Passivisation is also another technique adopted by speakers in AIPAC speeches "Ahmadinejad must never be allowed" through which they omit overt directions to addressees to lessen their personal impact. In so doing, they succeed in preserving the targets' independence and freedom of action. They also present thriving prototypes "we have seen the bravery of a young generation" for the sake of boosting the target's morale and implicitly guiding him to follow this good example. The speakers' address overcomes the people attending the conference to land on policy makers watching the whole scene far beyond the closed AIPAC policy conference room. Despite their absence, the speakers save their negative face mainly when dealing with imposition of sanctions on Iran "sanctions could target three groups". Instead of giving a direct order for them, the speaker talks about the positive ramifications of sanctions. He highlights the bright side of an action instead of giving explicit command that may be rejected from the receiver.
Formality and self -effacement are grasped in the speakers' way of delivering orders to audience. Endeavoring to respect the target's negative face is also discernible since the speaker obscures the fact of being totally imperative. Rather, speakers in many cases utilize general references as 'individuals' or 'generations' while addressing the audience. These instances may display that the target is somehow intractable to be persuaded.
Doing FTAs off record is also highlighted in the speakers' speeches where they resort to metaphors, understatements, tautologies and rhetorical questions. Some instances of this indirect strategy are compiled in the following table: -"evil men and their regimes" -"we are asked to speak truth to power" -"Eyes turned from the smoke and suffering" -"land of hope" -"bed rock relationshi ps" -"our hearts go out to the people of Sderot" -"see light emerge from such darkness" -"this is the battle for the hearts and minds of the world"

UNDERSTATEM ENTS
-"One of the great sorrows of life is this simple fact" -"Iran is not a superpower" -"But Iran is vulnerable"

OVERSTATEM ENTS
-"with that great goal in mind" -"I saw something I thought I would never see in my lifetime" -"It was America that gave freedom to hope" -"few of the many on a very long list, but they are more than a list" -"They are preparing us for a world in which Israel stands alone, isolated and at risk" -"when Israel's enemies mount their war of words they aim at the absolute foundation" -"They wanted to lead the most powerful country on earth" -"it will safeguard the An overall view of the table above shows that there is much focus on the use of tautologies by the speakers in the various AIPAC speeches. Effectively, whenever there is reference to foes "now is the time to stop Iran" or to the self "Israel, Israel", the speaker expresses the same idea more than once. He tries to accentuate the other's threat and the urgent need to halt it. The repetitive description of the other is meant to be echoed throughout the speech to be stuck in the reader's or listener's mind. Similarly, tautology serves to induce the target to acquire a given piece of information and challengingly works for its mongering "think of the Israel we know". Redundancy of certain words is targeted to be memorized and activated by the receiver. This strategy has an emotional effect on the audience since it blatantly calls the other to respond and figure out the dire situation existing "but the campaign doesn't stop here". This play on the receiver's emotions is also flagrant when the speaker declares "what a miracle it was to see Israel born". Repeating the word "miracle" is minutely selected to glamorize the status quo of Israel. In so doing, the speaker indirectly recommends the target to advocate his love for Israel through acting out whatever and however the means will be. Strategically done, the speaker contains the target by his tautologies and renders him more lenient towards his commands.
Coupled with tautologies, the speaker saves the positive and negative faces of the target through metaphors. For instance, the fact of seeing "light emerge from darkness" presupposes that the target has to combat for this rosy picture. It is referenced to the audience, as symbols of light, who have to drastically struggle to make this light ubiquitous. He even depicts the audience as "the hearts and minds of the world" pushing them, implicitly, to make this picture true. The speaker, via metaphors, saves the target's face as this figurative language dispels any threat to the target in breaching his personal desire to be free and independent.
Appeasing the other is also touched in overstatements where the speaker refers to Israel as the sole country which "will safeguard the holy places of all religions". Hyperbole lies in the fact that Israel cares for "all religions" as if it was the most powerful country in the world which serves to be the overarching care taker of all people's religions. The speaker through exaggeration is sending a reassuring message to his addressees that Israel's paramount goal is the following and your intrinsic contribution is surely welcomed.
Simultaneously, overstatements are sometimes meant to threaten the listener as "they are preparing us for a world in which Israel stands alone". In other words, if you do not react and try to change the existing shortcomings, you will definitely be subdued and distorted.
Exhorting the listeners indirectly through overstatements will absolutely guarantee the fulfillment of "that great goal in mind". The speaker depicts this goal as such to magnify the benefit and persuades the target to spontaneously enter the course of events. Accordingly, the speaker makes his message replete with rhetorical questions as "what will you do then?" to make the picture complete. The questions do not wait for the listener's justification, rather, they smoothly push him to act. Most of the rhetorical questions are employed at the closing of the speeches to maintain the aforementioned arguments uttered by the speaker. This strategic use is meant to entice the listeners and make them believe that their action is compulsory.
Since all the speeches are built on the duality of Israel and its foes, the speakers do not rely much on understatements. Apart from few samples, the speakers negotiate an open, direct and concise speech with their interlocutors. It may be viewed that the speakers do not waste their time in being sarcastic to an approaching enemy. Instead, they boast the enemy through hyperbole and tautology to gain as much support from the audience as they could. Belittling the other does not fit well, in this case, the speakers' goals.
Since the speakers magnify the danger, they sometimes resort to imperatives forgetting about the targets' negative face as the following instances unveil:

IMPERATIVES
 "consider the effect if"  "listen to what the charter states"  "Look at the nature of the campaigns already"  "Ask them to match your membership contribution to AIPAC"  "Look at the Israeli city of Sderot"  "Think of the Israel we know" The first two imperatives are baldly uttered by the speaker to catch the listener's attention to what is going to be said. They herald that what will be said is psychologically salient in the speaker's mind and needs to be negotiated with the receiver. The speaker staves off comity and straight forward addresses the target bringing the latter to one common ground that includes both the speaker and the listener. The speaker foregrounds the coming event and intimately invokes the listener to be an active participant. Therefore, he avoids mitigation and lets his speech direct.
The remaining four imperatives are nearly conducted in a similar way since they are presented by the speaker as urgent acts that do not need procrastination. They all revolve around the well -being of Israel that's why they are considered as friendly invitations rather than harsh orders. The speaker relies on stative verbs "look, think" to make his imperatives more insightful. It is a call for cooperation and hard work to mark a deep positive change in Israel's struggle for viability. Even though the speaker forgets about saving the negative face of the addressee, he considers his imperatives as an obligation for every truthful sympathizer with Israel case. The stative verbs evidence that the speaker calls for critical thinking on the controversy of Israel. He is prodding the listeners more than ordering them since the benefits will be higher.
All through the formerly construed data of face and politeness, the deliverers of the speeches are proved to heavily rely on positive politeness. They do not resort to duress or reprimand while addressing the audience in order to gain the utmost sympathy with Israel's case. Paradoxically, imperatives, as shown above, are not actuated a lot since they threaten the listener's positive and negative faces. The speaker avoids any doubtful element that may let the listener believe that the speaker is assailing him. Doing FTAs off record is also implemented by speakers to lessen the impact on the target and make him more independent in taking future decisions. The focus, ultimately, is on a centripetal movement where the speaker yields an unimpeded way for the target. The latter feels commended, welcomed and praised. Positive politeness is at the center surrounded by negative politeness which is often mitigated through figures of speech.
This paper selects AIPAC political annual speeches as a case study and displays that political actors resort to a variety of FTAs types with a special focus on positive politeness. Face Threatening Acts on record with redressive action have been heavily deployed by AIPAC politicians. The latter managed to save the positive and the negative face of the audience and there is a dearth of Face Threatening Acts on record without redressive action. Imperatives are nearly avoided and implicitly replaced by Face Threatening Acts off record. The political actors refrained from threatening the negative face of their interlocutors and, rather, made use of metaphors, overstatements and rhetorical questions. They also reinforced their strategic use of positive politeness by the reliance on tautologies where they opted for increasing the audience's sympathy and gaining their trust and approval.
Complimenting, praising and acclaiming are, therefore, core strategies in AIPAC politicians' speeches since these speakers seek to cultivate friendly relationships with their interlocutors. The reliance on these expressive speech acts (complimenting and praising) proved by the present paper goes in line with the major findings of Kampf and Danziger (2019). Both expressive speech acts are transpired in AIPAC speeches and they prove "how political actors signal their desire to please addressees and advance political sociability by way of manifesting the positive judgment towards others" (Kampf & Danziger, 2019). The rule of 'be clear, be polite' (Lakoff 2005) has been deployed throughout the discourse to set a short-cut fulfillment of the speakers' intended goals: promoting US-Israel strategic relations and saving the national security of Israel.
The international context between 2006 and 2012 regarding American-Israeli foreign policies is taken into consideration by AIPAC speakers. The latter engage in a centripetal movement where an inclusive "we" is deemed relevant to maximize the benefit and minimize the loss. These expressive speech acts (praising, complimenting and acclamation) which "have been under-studied thus far in public contexts" (Kampf and Danziger, 2019) are proved by the present study to be effective tools in identifying how political actors promote political understanding with addressees. This empathetic relation between the political speakers and the audience transcends the interactional level (Livnat & Lewin, 2016) and seeks to engage the addressees into action. Gaining the others' sympathy and 'recruiting' them are signs of how a political actor tries to "uphold his post-truth, populist ideology" (Ardila, 2019) and "to demonstrate the role of solidarity oriented actions in cultivating friendly relationships and models of behavior" (Kampf & Danziger, 2019). The "implicit communication" (Kadar & Zhang, 2019) that political actors try to perpetuate is unveiled through this pragmatic analysis of politeness strategies.
As any scientific research is restricted by a number of limitations, this study is not an exception. This paper confined its analysis to seven political speeches in which five are delivered by the same political actor. The corpus, thus, could have been more enlarged and could have encompassed various political actors from multiple political belongings to more effectively test the validity of the interconnectedness between politeness strategies and political discourse. The time span, where tension is at its zenith between the American-Israeli alliance and their foes (Iran, Hezbolah and Hamas), may justify the over-reliance of political actors on Face Threatening Acts on record with redressive action. Therefore, the study could have mixed up peace and war speeches for more efficient results.
However, the major findings of this paper could not have been appreciated in the sense that they fill in the scholarship gap in the study of politeness theories and political discourse namely when it comes to the deployment of positive politeness. Expressive speech acts denote their usefulness in deconstructing implicit political intentions and ways of political leaders in gaining addressees' sympathy. The under-study of complimenting and praise (Kampf & Danziger, 2019) is partially fulfilled through this study and the proof that an urgent need for more scrutiny is also denoted. These expressive speech acts transcend the role of greeting and interacting and turn to be rhetorical strategies that exert power and dominance over the audience to finally reshape public opinion. Methodologically speaking, the study offers a renewed model for the study of politeness strategies by merging Brown and Levinson's model (1987) with Lakoff's (2005).

Conclusion
This study chooses AIPAC annual speeches between 2006 and 2012 to be approached from politeness angle. The major findings displayed the importance of such studies in marking the inter-relation between politeness theories and political discourse and how political actors resort to positive and negative politeness in their due course to realize their ends. These forms of politeness (notably positive politeness), henceforth, deserve much attention while going through political texts and talks because they go beyond the interactional level to more implicit communicative goals. Political speakers in the present study moved from expressing warmth, praise and acclamation to calls for solidarity, engagement and action.