Performing positive politeness: political rhetoric in state dinner speeches by US-American presidents

1 Introduction

In formal state dinners, US-American presidents meet other heads of state on the highest level of international diplomacy, giving speeches that serve the function of strengthening the bilateral relations between nations. This type of presidential oratory abounds with verbal politeness, for it evokes partnership and expresses appreciation for the high-ranking addressee, embedded in the social ritual of eating together. Despite the political significance of dinner speeches, state dinners have so far been examined mainly from the perspective of cultural studies as an ingredient of White House social life (Chanley 2004: 101; Prud’homme 2023: xviii–xxvi). Thus, to promote the linguistic vantage point, the present paper aims to examine recurring positive politeness strategies in the genre of state dinner speeches by American presidents with regard to characteristic rhetorical moves.

Based on research into the concept of “face” by Erving Goffman (1967), Brown and Levinson’s (1987) seminal politeness theory distinguishes between negative and positive face. While the former is concerned with the wish for unimpeded actions and non-interference by others, the latter deals with the desire for approval and appreciation (Brown and Levinson 1987: 61). Politeness can thus be defined as behaviour that is influenced by the face wants of interlocutors (O’Driscoll 2017: 92), which means that it plays a highly significant role in the domain of political discourse, since here both social and individual relations are negotiated (Heimann and Kampf 2021: 25). Accordingly, facework in state dinner speeches strongly depends on the delicate balance between the identities of political leaders at the interpersonal and the interstate levels.

In the wide field of political rhetoric, state dinner speeches belong to the epideictic genre, celebrating the special occasion and honouring the respective high-ranking addressee (Reisigl 2008: 245). Although political communication often has an adversarial character and may comprise strategic rudeness (Tracy 2017: 743), US presidents can be expected to employ positive politeness strategies in dinner speeches to create a bilateral atmosphere of closeness and cooperation. From the perspective of move structure analysis (Swales 1990; Tardy and Swales 2014), state dinner speeches constitute a genre that is characterized by conventionalized rhetorical moves serving the macro-function of paying respects to the addressee. These moves are functional units which aim at consolidating and deepening international alliances and are in turn supported by appropriate politeness strategies that manifest themselves in salient linguistic devices.

For the investigation of positive politeness strategies, the present study adopts a qualitative approach that combines classical politeness research with move structure analysis, drawing from a dataset of 32 speeches. As far as the structure of the paper is concerned, state dinner speeches are initially described in the framework of move analysis (Section 2), followed by an overview of politeness in political rhetoric (Section 3). After an outline of the dataset and the methodology (Section 4), the central analytical part examines positive politeness supporting rhetorical moves in the speeches (Section 5). A concluding chapter summarizes the main findings concerning genre-dependent rhetorical moves, recurring strategies of positive politeness, as well as corresponding linguistic devices (Section 6). The article thus contributes to politeness research by examining positive politeness within rhetorical move analysis and by offering an in-depth linguistic account of political dinner speeches. Along these lines, the study connects the macro-analysis of an underresearched epideictic genre with the micro-analysis of a range of stylistic features that express closeness and solidarity.

2 The genre of state dinner speeches in the framework of move analysis

The state dinner speech is a written-to-be-spoken genre that is embedded in a highly formalized and ceremonial event serving political communication (Chanley 2004: 101). On the occasion of state dinners, US-American presidents encounter other dignitaries either in the White House or in the capital of the partner country, so that such meals constitute “a forum for politics and entertainment on the highest level” (Prud’homme 2023: xix). According to the official website of the White House Historical Association, state dinners have their origin in the late 19th century and can be characterized as follows:

It is part of an official state visit and provides the president and first lady the opportunity to honor the visiting head of state and his or her spouse. It is a courtesy, an expression of good will, and a way of extending hospitality. It brings to mind the tradition of breaking bread with friends to seal a friendship. It is an event that also showcases global power and influence. (Monkman, “The White House state dinner” <https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-white-house-state-dinner>)

With regard to the categorizations of classical rhetoric, the state dinner speech belongs to the genus demonstrativum, also known as the epideictic genre, as it constitutes largely consent-oriented oratory of praise in the presence of an assembled company (Reisigl 2008: 244–245), so that no disharmony or conflict is to be expected in this type of diplomatic discourse. The relevant field of political action is the organization of relations between cooperating states, culminating in a laudatory “after-dinner speech” (Reisigl 2008: 248) that is geared towards strengthening the ties between the participating nations by means of discursive bonding strategies (Adams et al. 2024: 54). In fact, the expression of special appreciation already starts with the verbal invitation to the state dinner, for “it sends a message to the world that the guest nation is to be reckoned with” (Prud’homme 2023: 363).

The explicit verbal expression of “friendship” between states, as emphasized in the above quote by Betty C. Monkman, may have positive diplomatic effects in several respects (Kampf et al. 2022: 657–658): The mere public assertion of companionship already discursively constructs a new reality in international relations, irrespective of whether the verbalized intention is actually genuine, because it results in a commitment to act accordingly in the future. Moreover, besides bilateral relations, the overt expression of friendship also sends a political message to third parties in the international diplomatic arena, so that other nations may subsequently reassess their own relationship with the interacting nations.

At the same time, the reference to “global power and influence” in the definition by Monkman indicates that the overt objective of celebrating and honouring a guest may be combined with a covert agenda of mild diplomatic persuasion. Thus, some degree of political control may be exercised, in line with the general function of “coercion” (Chilton 2004: 45–47; Chilton and Schäffner 2011: 311–312), which is a typical characteristic of political discourse. Accordingly, presidents may gently suggest desirable future activities in selected political areas within the overall strategy of positive politeness. Along these lines, a study of interviews with senior political leaders has demonstrated that friendliness in interpersonal relations between statespersons makes addressees more accessible and receptive for ideas, builds trust, and strengthens their personal commitment (Heimann and Kampf 2022: 6–11). A good personal rapport may in turn significantly support persuasive objectives at the communicative level of interstate relations. In particular, friendliness helps to mobilize political support, to overcome obstacles in negotiations, to get access to important information, and to mitigate potential tension (Heimann and Kampf 2022: 12–17).

A genre can fundamentally be defined as a “class of communicative events” (Swales 1990: 45) aiming at specific discursive objectives which are supported by salient rhetorical moves. Thus, state dinner speeches constitute a genre since they pursue the goal of improving bilateral relations and are marked by conventionalized discursive moves to meet diplomatic expectations. These moves, which are basically functional-pragmatic units with recurring meanings (Swales 2004: 229; Tardy and Swales 2014: 168), can be identified by examining and comparing individual texts from a given genre. The discursive functions operate in a hierarchical structure, for “[e]ach move not only has its own purpose but also contributes to the overall communicative purposes of the genre” (Biber et al. 2007: 23). While the length of a move is not clearly limited (Tardy and Swales 2014: 168), it needs to consist of a minimum of one proposition (Biber et al. 2007: 24).

As far as research on genre-typical moves is concerned, the seminal genre study by Swales (1990) investigates introductions to research articles, identifying the three moves of “establishing a territory”, “establishing a niche”, and “occupying the niche” (Swales 1990: 141). Based on this type of move analysis, subsequent publications studied other genres of manageable size, including fundraising letters and biochemistry research articles (Biber et al. 2007), bio-statements in academic publications (Tardy and Swales 2014), chairmen’s letters to shareholders (Bhatia 2017: 100–101), as well as closing statements in US primary election debates (Schubert 2021). A genre that is somewhat functionally related to state dinner speeches is the acknowledgement section in dissertations (Hyland 2004), for it similarly conveys positive politeness by expressing gratitude and appreciation, here realized in the form of three main moves (Hyland 2004: 308): (i) a “reflecting move”, in which the writers ponder about their personal experience during academic work; (ii) a “thanking move”, used to mention those who deserve gratitude and the reason for thanking them; and (iii) an “announcing move”, in which authors take responsibility for mistakes and dedicate the book to selected supporters. Since presidents likewise pay their respects to esteemed individuals in state dinner speeches, comparable moves may be expected. Like research articles and dissertation acknowledgements, state dinner speeches are relatively compact and ritualized, so that move structure analysis is a feasible and promising approach. Owing to the high conventionalization of the genre, political speakers need to meet a set of discursive expectations, which in turn facilitate the interpretation of politeness strategies by the addressees (Kádár and Haugh 2013: 7).

Approaching dinner rhetoric, the present study adopts a “genre perspective” (Biber and Conrad 2019: 16, emphasis original) since it considers the entire speeches and explores their rhetorical organization by identifying discursive features – such as moves – that occur only once in the texts. On this basis, the situational genre characteristics of dinner speeches can be explicated in more detail (Biber and Conrad 2019: 40): regarding the participation framework, the US presidents speak in their institutional role to strictly selected multiple addressees, including the international guests and their delegation, while the public is addressed only indirectly via journalists. Occasionally, a moderator is involved to announce the second speaker and to take care of the transition between the speeches by the heads of state. Although both political leaders give a speech on the festive occasion by way of “reciprocal face-maintenance” (O’Driscoll 2017: 93), the individual speeches are conceptually monological and carefully scripted according to diplomatic protocol. In terms of the setting, the ceremony hosted by the US administration takes place in the State Dining Room, which accommodates up to 120 participants. Concerning the wider communicative context, the state dinner is usually preceded by political discussions and negotiations during the day, while the dinner speech employs a benevolent and conciliatory style at a more general thematic level. These situational genre characteristics in combination with rhetorical move analysis provide a suitable foundation for examining the strategic use of positive politeness in state dinner speeches.

3 Politeness in political rhetoric

The fundamental concept of “face” is defined as the “public self-image” (Brown and Levinson 1987: 61) maintained by individuals interacting in a society. Thus, interlocutors in social contexts generally take into account their own as well as the respective addressees’ face, which means that linguistic politeness is a deliberate discursive choice and employs distinctive linguistic techniques that are adequate for given communicative goals (Brown and Levinson 1987: 68–71). While Brown and Levinson’s (1987) seminal study of linguistic politeness discusses pragmatic strategies largely without consideration of genre and context, political discourse takes place in an institutional setting that requires specific rhetorical techniques, as will be delineated in the following.

In contrast to negative face, which is the desire for freedom of action, positive face is particularly relevant to state dinner speeches, as it is conceptualized as “the positive consistent self-image or ‘personality’ (crucially including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by interactants” (Brown and Levinson 1987: 61). In order to improve and consolidate international relations in dinner speeches, presidents can be expected to take care of the hearers’ positive face, using complimentary speech acts that express a favourable and acclamatory attitude. Positive politeness is one of the eligible politeness superstrategies, depending on the three sociological parameters of relative power, social distance, and size of imposition (Brown and Levinson 1987: 74): In state dinner speeches, bilateral power relations between heads of state are principally symmetrical, although the USA as military and economic superpower has more influence and leverage than other countries. In spite of the fact that the social distance between leaders of different countries with diverse cultural backgrounds can be profound, the two politicians may have a good connection at the personal level, such as, for instance, American president Richard Nixon and Soviet Secretary General Leonid Brezhnev in the early 1970s (Heimann and Kampf 2022: 2). While state dinner speeches constitute an official performance in the political “frontstage” in the presence of spectators, personal conversations between presidents without an audience allow for more informal and confidential negotiations in the “backstage” (Wodak 2009: 10), which offers a fruitful and beneficial setting for the use of positive politeness. Finally, by rhetorically highlighting the mutual benefit of international cooperation, it is possible to tone down potential impositions.

According to Brown and Levinson (1987: 101), positive politeness as a face-saving strategy has the function of reducing potential face threats. However, such a view of a purely redressive purpose is too restricted, since not all use of politeness strategies is motivated by this intention of mitigation. It is thus more fruitful to assume a gradience between the two poles of “face aggravation” and “face enhancement” (Archer 2017: 393) in describing possible intentions behind speech acts. Hence, positive politeness strategies play a much wider role in interpersonal communication than mere redress, for “by attributing value to H, for example in offering, complimenting, or extending sympathy, S is primarily performing a face-enhancing act” (Leech 2014: 99). This assessment is particularly significant for epideictic genres such as state dinner speeches, in which positive politeness clearly boosts the addressees’ face without the necessary presence of a corresponding face threat. Since face is fundamentally “bestowed by others” (O’Driscoll 2017: 92), presidents are able to publicly pay their respects to the valued honourees. In addition, state dinner speeches may be directed not only at the addressees’ face but can also contain “self-face enhancing formulations” (Tracy 2017: 753), presenting the speakers themselves in a favourable light.

Another approach to face management that is relevant to the discussion of state dinner speeches is the sociopragmatic distinction between three different types of face based on “self as an individual (individual identity), self as a group member (group or collective identity) and self in relationship with others (relational identity)” (Spencer-Oatey 2008: 14). While the first category refers to personal attributes and character traits, the second concerns the speaker’s displayed social role, and the third covers relationships with others, such as being the employer or relative of someone (see also Leech 2014: 41). Thus, presidents address other heads of state chiefly in their social position as official leaders and government representatives, concerning their collective face, also labelled “social group face” (Tracy 2017: 741). In addition, the invited dignitaries are occasionally approached as individuals, especially if the politicians have previously met at a personal level, so that individual face likewise plays a role in performing positive politeness. Relational face may also be involved since fellow heads of state ultimately act as colleagues on the most prominent level in the political hierarchy.

As a result, facework considerably contributes to the discursive construction of political identities (Garcés-Conejos Blitvich and Sifianou 2017: 238; Wodak 2009: 12). By mutually bestowing value on each other, the presidential speakers and their visitors interactively constitute and consolidate their individual and social personas in the context of international alliances. However, it is particularly challenging for state leaders to establish amicable interpersonal relationships since interstate diplomacy is generally an impersonal environment chiefly governed by potentially antagonistic state interests. As has been shown on the basis of interviews with senior political practitioners (Heimann and Kampf 2021: 30–31), interpersonal rapport is possible only by convincing the political counterpart that the performed friendly relationship is genuine, which requires substantial competence in cross-cultural communication.

Political discourse is a domain in which not only politeness but also strategic impoliteness can be expected and even valued (Tracy 2017: 743). This is the case, in particular, in adversarial election debates (García-Pastor 2008; Schubert 2022) or the British Prime Minister’s Question Time (Harris 2001). Correspondingly, verbally attacking the political opponent can be a type of “politic behaviour” (Watts 2003: 19, emphasis original), as it is appropriate in the given social context. In state dinner speeches, however, politic behaviour excludes rudeness and manifests itself in positive politeness strategies that strengthen amicable international relations. A general survey of political genres studied from a politeness perspective is given by Tracy (2017: 746–747), showing that the focus is on parliamentary discourse, radio and television interviews, as well as election debates, while dinner speeches are conspicuously absent in this overview.

Zooming in on the communication of positive politeness, Brown and Levinson (1987: 102) differentiate between three broad strategies, which are in turn divided into a number of substrategies: (i) The goal to “[c]laim ‘common ground’” can be attained, in particular, by expressing strong interest or even admiration in the addressee, by conveying that both interlocutors are in-group members, and by asserting shared knowledge and attitudes. One particularly salient speech act in this category is the compliment (Leech 2014: 186–189), which attributes praise and merit to the addressee on grounds of a desirable quality or action carried out by the hearer. (ii) The aim to “[c]onvey that S and H are cooperators” (Brown and Levinson 1987: 125) can be achieved by the speaker showing concern for the addressee’s wants, by evoking reflexivity in the form of optimistic promises and offers, and by asserting reciprocity in the sense of mutual support. Central speech acts in this domain are, for example, congratulations and good wishes (Leech 2014: 208–214), which express empathy for the addressee with regard to favourable events in the past or future, respectively. (iii) The objective to “[f]ulfil H’s wants for some X” (Brown and Levinson 1987: 129) implies that the speaker gives material or immaterial gifts to the addressee. Although the expressive illocution of thanking is not explicitly mentioned by Brown and Levinson (1987) among the positive politeness strategies, it is to be located in this third category, as it conveys appreciation and gratitude (Leech 2014: 12 and 196). The main function of thanking is to “restore the equilibrium, the balance of comity between people, when one is indebted to the other” (Leech 2014: 197), after an imbalance was triggered by an action of the hearer in favour of the speaker. Generally, since positive and negative politeness do not exclude each other but can cooperate in achieving a discursive goal (Thomas 1995: 176), negative politeness may occasionally surface in dinner speeches as well if deference is given. However, while negative politeness techniques may exceptionally be used for honouring foreign dignitaries (see Section 5.5), the present paper concentrates on positive politeness, which clearly takes centre stage in the establishment of benevolent relations in dinner speech oratory.

From the perspective of speech act theory, amicable communication between states chiefly aims at expressing solidarity with the help of diverse illocutionary forces, as pointed out by a pragmatic study of official Israeli government statements, social media posts by political leaders, as well as news reports on foreign affairs (Kampf et al. 2019: 132). In a quantitative survey of illocutions, expressive speech acts account for almost half of the cases, comprising, for example, the discursive actions of thanking, supporting, welcoming, and condoling. A major role is also played by representatives asserting friendship and solidarity, while directives requesting cooperation and commissives envisaging peace and aid are comparatively infrequent (Kampf et al. 2019: 135–144).

While Brown and Levinson’s (1987) monograph deals with politeness strategies from a general communicative vantage point, a study of political politeness also needs to take into account how these pragmatic strategies are realized by concrete linguistic devices. Thus, since speakers in state dinners express high esteem for their guests, it is requisite to examine the linguistic verbalization of attitudinal stance, which refers to the communication of “personal feelings, attitudes, value judgments, or assessments” (Biber et al. 2021: 958). On the one hand, there is lexical stance marking, typically expressed by evaluative adjectives such as lovely and wonderful as well as by emotive verbs like love. On the other hand, stance can be conveyed by certain grammatical constructions including adverbials like fortunately or premodifying stance adverbs as in so/really happy (Biber et al. 2021: 960–967). Since dinner speeches place particular emphasis on the extraordinary relationship between the international partners, expressions of boosted politeness are also likely to play a role. Regarding semantic categories of adverbs, heightened emotional involvement may be expressed by “amplifiers/intensifiers” (Biber et al. 2021: 551) such as deeply, strongly, greatly, extremely, or completely, which “scale upwards from an assumed norm” (Quirk et al. 1985: 590). These degree adverbs provide suitable means of conveying heightened levels of affectivity in the political use of positive politeness.

In sum, these theoretical approaches to positive politeness, which comprise discursive strategies of enhancing identity-related types of face, constitute an adequate framework for investigating the ways in which politicians create a cooperative and benevolent relationship with international guests.

4 Dataset and methodology

The speeches in the dataset were retrieved from the website of the American Presidency Project (APP) (Woolley and Peters 1999), which is a non-partisan and independent online archive established by political scientists at the UC Santa Barbara. Since the archive addresses a wide public, potentially including journalists as well as political and discourse analysts, the speeches are transcribed in standard orthography, which is sufficient for the research objective of studying verbal politeness. The texts of the speeches are supplemented by italicized inserts that explicate paralinguistic communication, such as [Laughter] and [Applause], as well as ceremonial activities like [He offered a toast]. While the transcripts are usually prepared by the APP team, the texts are occasionally adopted from an official source, as pointed out, for example, by the note that the “transcript was released by the Office of the Press Secretary” in a comment on Donald Trump’s state dinner speech on 20 September 2019.

The dataset comprises 32 speeches given by six presidents over a time span of 32 years from 1992 to 2023 (see Table 1 in the Appendix), which allows for a representative sample and precludes a focus on the stylistic idiosyncrasies of individual presidents. The goal was not to study the diachronic development but to generally examine politeness in the genre of state dinner speeches at large. The length of the speeches ranges from 177 to 1,262 word tokens, resulting in a total of 18,404 words and an average size of 575 words. To ensure comparability, the dataset exclusively contains speeches directed at one international partner only, which means that if several guests were addressed, as in Obama’s speech to Scandinavian leaders on 13 May 2016, the subsequent speech provided by the APP was selected. While all of the available dinner speeches by Joe Biden and Donald Trump were adopted, their predecessors are each represented by the final six dinner speeches of their presidencies in order to avoid a biased selection. Of the 32 speeches, 18 were given at the White House in Washington, D.C., while the other 14 were delivered at the seat of government of another host country welcoming the US presidents. According to the protocol of state dinners, the local host speaks first, followed by the speech of the international guest. The analyses exclusively refer to the remarks of the American presidents, since the speeches of the foreign leaders, which are given in the respective language of the partner country, are not always translated and transcribed on the APP platform.

The methodological approach relied on a succession of several analytical steps combining tools of move structure analysis and politeness theory in a top-down procedure. (i) The 32 state dinner speeches were downloaded from the APP website and read extensively to get a general overview of the contents. (ii) In a semantic and functional analysis, recurring rhetorical moves were identified for a description of the genre in terms of its communicative objectives and thematic structure. (iii) Characteristic pragmatic strategies of positive politeness were investigated with regard to their contribution to the distinctive moves. (iv) The focus was then narrowed down to the identification of concrete linguistic devices that verbalize the politeness strategies. (v) Typical examples from diverse dinner speeches were selected to illustrate how positive politeness is employed in the presidential oratory (see Section 5). Figure 1 gives a graphic outline of the top-down approach underlying the present study, starting with the overall goal of examining positive politeness with respect to different types of face.

Figure 1:

The top-down approach to positive politeness in state dinner speeches.

5 Positive politeness supporting moves in state dinner speeches

The present analytical section is based on the premise that the genre of state dinner speeches aims at establishing benevolent international relations by means of adequate rhetorical moves. These moves are in turn supported by politeness strategies, which are ultimately expressed in the form of salient linguistic devices. Accordingly, the titles of the subsections are here named after the five central moves, while corresponding positive politeness techniques are discussed with the help of selected examples.

6 Conclusions

As the analyses have underlined, the central genre objective of creating a good rapport between nations is pursued with the help of recurring rhetorical moves, which are in turn supported by positive politeness strategies relying on appropriate linguistic devices. The rhetorical study of state dinner speeches has led to the identification of five genre-dependent moves:

1. recalling common historical and personal events with regard to both the societal and the individual levels

2. stressing continuously shared values which unite the partners on ethical grounds

3. highlighting current international cooperation and exchange concerning both government and society

4. projecting joint future activities that secure sustainability in the partnership

5. honouring the addressee with the help of appreciatory speech acts

While moves (i) to (iv) focus on the bilateral relationship, move (v) chiefly draws attention to the international partner. All five moves are very common in the texts and thus form constitutive building blocks of the genre, as they pertain to bilateral relations in a coherent perspective on past, present, and future. Move (v) is obligatory in every state dinner speech, comprising the ubiquitous speech acts of greeting and offering a toast. However, humour as a potential technique within move (v) does not occur in all texts since it strongly depends on the speaker’s personality and the gravity of the topics discussed. Owing to its narrative quality, move (i) typically requires most space in the speeches, while moves (ii), (iii), and (iv) can be outlined in the form of comparatively brief surveys. The individual speech acts in move (v), such as thanking, welcoming, and offering blessings, likewise appear in a rather concise form.

The five rhetorical moves, which aim at establishing common ground and conveying a cooperative spirit, are substantiated by several recurring strategies of positive politeness. To consolidate the bilateral relationship, presidents are inclined to frame the interlocutors as members of the same interest group, to display strong interest in the ally, to seek agreement regarding the future political agenda, to stress advantages of reciprocity, to promise enduring political support, and to convey optimism about the bilateral alliance. For the sake of honouring the international partner, presidents may express strong approval and appreciation for the allied nation, employ humour to establish familiarity, use the courteous speech acts of welcoming, thanking, and complimenting, and include the ceremonial techniques of offering good wishes, blessings, and toasts.

Since such positive politeness is to a great extent genre convention of the epideictic rhetoric in state dinner speeches, it primarily functions as a face-enhancing technique. These face boosts mainly apply to the respective addressee, while the presidential speakers’ positive face may likewise be enhanced since they present themselves as amiable and empathetic communicators. The facework additionally helps the orators to construct engaging political identities of the interactants, which may include both their social and individual personas, depending on the degree of familiarity between guest and host.

Ultimately, positive politeness strategies manifest themselves in characteristic linguistic devices. Common ground and cooperation are emphasized, in particular, by inclusive first-person plural pronouns stressing in-group membership, enumerations of ideological values in the form of emphatic lists, metaphors and allegories that illustrate international relations on a visual basis, positively connoted lexical stance markers, and quotations from famous foreign writers underlining the positive message of partnership. Appreciation for the international ally is typically expressed by familiar address terms, greetings in the partner’s first language, comparatives and superlatives highlighting the exceptional connection, as well as amplifiers and value-laden lexical items that convey an enthusiastic stance in a hyperbolic manner.

Although state dinner speeches may have an image of being somewhat bland and repetitive, they actually contain witty rhetoric and eloquent diplomacy, displaying an extraordinary wealth of positive politeness strategies. The present paper hopes to have granted some insights that may serve as the foundation for possible future research directions: First, it could be enlightening to delve deeper into the potential of solidarity metaphors for establishing positive politeness. Second, since both heads of state give a speech at state dinners, it would be worthwhile to investigate how the two addresses dialogically interact with each other in terms of politeness. Third, based on a larger corpus of speeches, it would be possible to compare politeness techniques of different presidents from both a qualitative and a quantitative vantage point. Fourth, the synchronic approach could be complemented by a diachronic study of genre-dependent politeness in dinner speeches since the mid-20th century. Finally, it would be revealing to juxtapose politeness in dinner speeches with other epideictic genres, such as funeral oratory or presidential farewell addresses, thus further promoting the interdisciplinary cooperation between politeness research and political discourse analysis.