An executive order in a modern English presidential discourse
Abstract
The major objectives of this study are to investigate and analyze Donald
Trump’s forty-four executive orders signed in 2019 from the point of structure
and functions of institutional documents in American political discourse, in
which we can grasp the effective and dominant principles of directives of the
president of the United States which are issued in the exercise of president’s
powers in the executive branch of the government. The most comprehensive
categorization of presidential documents was found in the archive of the
Jacob Burns Law Library since each type of documents is distinguished as
a separate unit: executive agreements, messages to Congress, statements of
administration policy, executive orders, proclamations, state of the Union
Address, determinations, reorganization plans, directives, speeches, signing
statements, letters, presidential commission reports and memoranda.
Critical Discourse Analysis frameworks based on a structural and pragmatic
approaches are used to depict a rigid structure of executive orders and their
purpose to provide guidelines for different agencies of the executive branch of
the US government, on the one hand, and to interpret various policies aimed
at a larger audience. The results represent that there are obligatory sections
in the executive orders (date of their issue, title, introduction, sections with
their purpose and policy, main body sections, general provisions section, the
president’s signature, indication “The White House”, one more reference to
the date of their issue and a billing code), though minor variations are possible
to indicate responsible authorities, ways of establishment or functions of
newly-formed commissions, termination and revocation of previously-issued
executive orders. Executive orders have distinct functions. They are generally
aimed at guiding the government and agencies of the USA. The study shows,
they do not affect the interests of private individuals. Although executive orders
are addressed to the federal government, they can regulate a wide range of
debatable issues of public interest, such as the implementation of international
treaties, public procurement, access to the state information, issues of war
and peace, sanctions for trade with individual countries or the constitutional
foundations of an American society.