A Critical Discourse Analysis of Hassan Rouhani's Speech at the 2018 UN General Assembly

The purpose of this study is to understand the internal logic and semantic structure of Hassan Rouhani's speech at the UN General Assembly in 2018. The question is, influenced by the changing context of Iran's foreign policy following the unilateral withdrawal of the USA from JCPOA, in this speech, what political goals, how and in what framework, behind what speech acts and under what semantic structure is expressed. With a practical understanding of Fairclough's method, the text is described in vocabulary order, then its strategies are interpreted, and finally its conceptual, value, and directive structures are extracted. The results show that the text is based on the perception that the world of international politics is a civil society in which international law and organizations are the most original values and key institutions, so to protect of the IRI as a committed member, decisive and united confrontation to USA as the outlaw member with other members is necessary. In accordance with the Context, the semantic structure of the text can be explained in order to direct the great powers against USA unilateralism around the JCPOA axis and with the aim of taking advantage of the capacities available in this directive action.