Résumé:
This study aims to analyse the different rhetorical, linguistic, and argumentative strategies
used in one of the speeches delivered by the previous British Prime Minister (PM) Theresa
May in January, 17th 2017 concerning Brexit issue to persuade Irish people of her plan. The
objectives behind this analytical study are to emphasize the importance of Toulmin's Model of
Argumentation (TMA) in political discourse analysis, and to examine PM Theresa May use of
linguistic strategies along with the argumentative structure of Toulmin‟s model and
Aristotle‟s rhetorical strategies. The research main question is that did Theresa May apply the
rhetorical strategies and argumentative structure in her Brexit speech. The sub questions
which are: what is the structure of May‟s Brexit speech using Toulmin‟s Model? How are
Aristotle rhetorical strategies used and applied in her speech? What are the linguistic
argumentative strategies used in the speech? What the functions of the linguistic strategies in
the speech? This study is conducted qualitatively and it is composed of two chapters. The first
chapter is the theoretical part about argumentative strategies and political discourse. The
second chapter is the field work that includes the methodology and the methods of analysis,
the sample, the analysis ,and the discussion of findings, The methods used in the analysis
which are TMA, rhetorical analysis of Aristotelian strategies along with the linguistic features
of political speech. The speech was chosen because it was introduced to its public for the
purpose of persuasion so that it is full of arguments and reasons. The findings reveal that
Theresa used logos and ethos as rhetoric strategies. The TMA elements were found, and the
linguistic features used were first plural personal pronoun and first singular personal pronoun.
