REPRESENTING SOCIAL ACTORS IN KEIR STARMER'S RESIGNATION SPEECH: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Abstract

Political resignation speeches play a significant role in constructing leadership, accountability, and democratic continuity during periods of political transition. However, they have received comparatively little scholarly attention, particularly through Van Leeuwen's Social Actor Theory. This research investigates how Keir Starmer represents social actors in his resignation speech to construct political identity, responsibility, legitimacy, and collective action. Adopting McKee's (2003) textual analysis as the method of analysis and Van Leeuwen's (2008) Social Actor Theory as the theoretical framework, the analysis focuses on representational strategies including inclusion and exclusion, role allocation, personalization and impersonalization, assimilation and individualization, nomination and categorization, and genericization and specification. The findings reveal that Starmer strategically foregrounds himself, the Labour Party, democratic institutions, and the British public while backgrounding political opponents and internal critics. He further allocates agency to balance personal accountability with collective governance and employs representational choices that reinforce legitimacy, solidarity, and democratic continuity. The findings support existing Critical Discourse Analysis research by demonstrating that political discourse strategically constructs leadership and legitimacy through the representation of social actors. The research highlights the value of Van Leeuwen's Social Actor Theory for analyzing political resignation speeches and suggests that such speeches function as strategic discourses through which political leaders negotiate accountability, preserve institutional legitimacy, and maintain public confidence during leadership transitions.