The pragmatics of communicating threat and constructing the future in the discourse of the Iranian Supreme Leader

Abstract The paper aims at studying how the discourse of the Iranian Supreme Leader communicates threat and how it presents the reality of Iran’s future in light of policy options. Our data comes from 50 speeches of the Iranian Supreme Leader, delivered between 2005–2020. Adopting the Proximisation Theory, we indicate that spatial and axiological threats are conceptualised in the SL ’s discourse as encroaching upon the present and future to impact the Islamic Republic of Iran. But, at the same time, the SL ’s discourse depicts the impact consequences as relatively remote from Iran’s present and possible to materialise in the future space provided that certain preliminary circumstances are fulfilled. In this regard, aiming to neutralise the construed threats, the SL ’s discourse depicts the privileged vision of the future space involving hortatory preemptive policies. We indicate that the SL ’s discourse employs the construal of threats to necessitate and justify taking up future-building preemptive policies.