The Evaluation of Arab Political Leaders’ Speeches during the Arab Spring in Terms of Semantics

The texts of political speeches are purposeful and linguistic products which aim at the fundamental targets like influence and guidance. In this study, Arabic political leaders’ public-directed statements in these speeches during the Arab Spring, which was sparked with the society and the society played an active role in, have been evaluated in terms of semantics. In this context, the texts of speeches were examined in terms of semantics at word, sentence and text levels. The sample of research consists of three speeches of the Arab Spring’s ousted leaders: Zeyne-l Âbidîn, Hosni Mubarak, Muammar Gaddafi. As a result of research it has been concluded that the speeches examined contain semantic features which aim realizing political discourse targets like exerting influence and guidance. Furthermore, it has been observed that the non-text elements such as leaders’ political situation and their images affected the speeches.