Speech Acts in Securitization: Strategies British Government Communication the COVID-19 Pandemic: 4

What speech act patterns can be identified in Boris Johnson’s communication regarding COVID-19? ‒ A systematic, pragmatic account of securitization acts. While processes of securitization have been widely examined, the speech acts that realise securitizing moves remain underexplored. Regina Holze analyses the speech act repertoire of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing on a pragmatically annotated corpus of official press statements. Using CADS methods, her study identifies a prototypical pattern in which assertive, declarative, expressive and directive acts interact to structure the progression of crisis communication. The findings provide a foundation for a systematic, pragmatic account of the securitizing act.