A Discourse Historical Analysis of Selected Ministers&#039; Resignations over Brexit Withdrawal Agreement Draft

سرحان, بسمة ماهر محمد ابراهيم; رزق, شاكر; يونس, نجوى; سلام, شيماء

doi:10.21608/jfask.2025.369185.1217

	A Discourse Historical Analysis of Selected Ministers' Resignations over Brexit Withdrawal Agreement Draft
مجلة کلية الأداب - جامعة السويس
Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript, Available Online from 12 April 2025
Document Type: المقالة الأصلية
DOI: 10.21608/jfask.2025.369185.1217
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Authors
بسمة ماهر محمد ابراهيم سرحان ¹; شاكر رزق²; نجوى يونس³; شيماء سلام ⁴
¹باحثة دكتوراة،قسم اللغة الإنجليزية، كلية الآداب، جامعة السويس
²جامعة السويس-کلية الآداب-قسم اللغة الإنجليزية
³قسم اللغة الإنجليزية، كلية التربية، جامعة عين شمس
⁴قسم اللغة الإنجليزية، كلية الآداب، جامعة السويس
Abstract
This paper examined two official resignation letters from Theresa May’s second government tendered by Rt. Hon. David Davis and Rt. Hon. Boris Johnson. Rt. Hon. David Davis served as the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union while Rt. Hon. Boris Johnson served as the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. The two ministers resigned from their government positions over Brexit Withdrawal Agreement Draft scheduled for voting in the House of Commons on 15th January 2019. The selected resignations were examined using the argumentation strategy from the Discourse Historical Approach (Reisigl & Wodak, 2001). The study mainly sought to investigate the means the resigning ministers used to argue for their opposing stances in addition to justifying their resignations. The study revealed that both ministers are pro-Brexit, but the rejection is directed mainly towards the proposed terms of the departure’s deal. Further, it showed the minister’s use of topoi as the fundamental argumentation strategy to logically compose and justify their resignations ensuring their plausibility and the validity of their opposing stances.
Keywords
Key words: Brexit Discourse; Opposition discourse; Ministers’ resignations; the Discourse Historical Approach; Argumentation strategies


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