Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Palackého Critical Discourse Analysis of George W. Bush’s speeches prior to the War in Iraq (Diploma Thesis) 2016 Bc. Dana Štěrbová Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky Kritická diskurzní analýza projevů George W. Bushe před započetím války v Iráku (Diplomová práce) Critical Discourse Analysis of George W. Bush’s speeches prior to the War in Iraq (Diploma Thesis) Autor: Bc. Dana Štěrbová, Angličtina se zaměřením na tlumočení a překlad Vedoucí práce: Mgr. Ondřej Molnár Olomouc 2016 Prohlašuji, že jsem tuto diplomovou práci vypracovala samostatně a uvedla plný seznam použité literatury. V Olomouci dne …………………………… Bc. Dana Štěrbová I would especially like to thank to Mgr. Ondřej Molnár for his valuable help and patience in supervising this thesis. I would also like to thank to my family for their unwavering support throughout my studies, and my dear friends, Keith Kaska, Aneta Leierová and Barbara de Matos for their help and understanding. List of abbreviations CDA – critical discourse analysis PDA – political discourse analysis U.N. – the United Nations U.S.A. – the United States of America WMD – weapons of mass destruction Contents LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .......................................................................... 5 CONTENTS ...................................................................................................... 6 LIST OF GRAPHS, FIGURES AND TABLES ............................................. 8 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 9 2 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY ....................... 12 2.1 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE ......................................................................... 12 2.2 SOURCE TEXTS .................................................................................... 12 2.3 CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS .......................................................... 15 3 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ....................................................... 18 3.1 HISTORICAL CONTEXT - UNITED STATES RELATIONSHIP WITH IRAQ ... 18 3.1.1 The early beginnings – 1920s –1979 .............................................. 18 3.1.2 Saddam Hussein in power – Iran-Iraq War 1980 -1988 ................ 20 3.1.3 The Gulf War 1990 – 1991 ............................................................. 20 3.1.4 The Policy of containment and the War in Iraq 1991 – 2011 ........ 23 3.2 DISCOURSE, TEXT, POWER AND IDEOLOGY AND THEIR INTERRELATION .............................................................................................. 26 3.2.1 Discourse and text .......................................................................... 27 3.2.2 Discourse and power ...................................................................... 28 3.2.3 Ideology .......................................................................................... 29 3.2.3.1 Ideology and discourse in Fairclough’s rendition ..................... 31 3.2.3.2 Ideology and discourse in van Dijk’s rendition .......................... 31 3.2.3.3 Ideology and discourse in Wodak’s rendition ............................ 33 3.2.3.4 US and THEM polarization ........................................................ 33 3.2.3.5 Clusivity ...................................................................................... 34 3.3. POLITICAL DISCOURSE ......................................................................... 36 3.4 RHETORIC, PERSUASION, AND LEGITIMATION ...................................... 38 3.4.1 Rhetoric .......................................................................................... 38 3.4.2 Persuasion ...................................................................................... 39 3.4.3 Ethos, logos, pathos ........................................................................ 42 3.4.4 Legitimation .................................................................................... 44 3.5 FOUNDATIONS OF AMERICAN IDEOLOGY ............................................ 46 3.5.1 American exceptionalism ................................................................ 46 3.5.2 Americanism ................................................................................... 47 3.5.3 The American’s Creed .................................................................... 48 3.5.4 “In God We Trust” ......................................................................... 49 3.5.5 The American Dream ..................................................................... 50 4 PRACTICAL PART ............................................................................... 53 4.1 METAPHORS ........................................................................................ 53 4.2 PERSONIFICATION ................................................................................ 57 4.3 EUPHEMISMS ....................................................................................... 70 4.4 NUMBER GAME .................................................................................... 76 4.5 CONTRAST ........................................................................................... 80 4.6 ENUMERATION .................................................................................... 85 5 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................ 93 6 SUMMARY IN CZECH ........................................................................... 98 7 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................. 104 8 APENDICES .......................................................................................... 112 8.1 ADDRESS TO THE NATION FROM ELLIS ISLAND, NEW YORK, OF THE TERRORIST ATTACK OF SEPTEMBER 11 ........................................................ 112 8.2 ADDRESS TO THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY IN NEW YORK CITY ................................................................................................... 114 8.3 ADDRESS TO THE NATION ON IRAQ FROM CINCINNATI, OHIO ........... 122 8.4 REMARKS ON SIGNING THE HOMELAND SECURITY ACT .................... 132 8.5 ADDRESS BEFORE A JOINT SESSION OF THE CONGRESS ON THE STATE OF THE UNION .............................................................................................. 137 8.6 REMARKS AT THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE DINNER ......... 153 8.7 ADDRESS TO THE NATION ON IRAQ (MARCH 17, 2003) ..................... 160 8.8 ADDRESS TO THE NATION ON IRAQ (MARCH 19, 2003) ..................... 165 9 ANNOTATION ...................................................................................... 167 List of graphs, figures and tables Graph 1 Decision to use military force in Iraq progress ................................... 42 Figure 1 Discourse as text, interaction and context .......................................... 28 Figure 2 Rhetorical means for persuasion in political communication ............ 43 Table 1 Metaphors related to the ourgroup ....................................................... 55 Table 2 Metaphors related to WMD ................................................................. 56 Table 3 Examples of the ingroup personification ............................................. 64 Table 4 Examples of the outgroup personification ........................................... 68 Table 5 Examples of euphemisms .................................................................... 75 Table 6 Examples of number game related to WMD ....................................... 78 Table 7 Examples of number game related to security measures ..................... 79 Table 8 Examples of number game related to time and legal documents ........ 80 Table 9 Examples of contrast of ingroup and outgroup characteristic ............. 84 Table 10 Examples of enumeration related to the outgroup ............................. 92 1 INTRODUCTION “I know words, I have the best words,”1 was a statement given by now President-elect Donald Trump while delivering a speech at the Hilton Head Island, South Carolina during the 2016 election campaign. If we consider the boldness of his sentence within the general scope of politics and political discourse, we can affirm that Trump summarized the core principles of successful political communication and policy-making. Successful policy-making cannot be achieved without successful persuasion, hence successful persuasion cannot be achieved without a meticulous choice of words that build a powerful speech – a speech that appeals to majority of audiences and is one that enables a politician to achieve his or her aims and intentions. The power of language is immense. Therefore, the thesis aims to demonstrate and analyze the power of language in discursive strategies that were used by the former president George W. Bush in his discourse on war on terror that focused on the legitimation of a military intervention in Iraq in 2003. The thesis is based on a critical analysis of language in use, which is conceived in the theory and methodology of critical discourse analysis. However, critical discourse analysis does not provide one single or specific theory and neither does it provide one specific methodology; it has been adopted by various disciplines of humanities (mainly by political sciences, sociology, linguistics, psychology, and anthropology) that tailor CDA according to their needs and scope of study, but they all draw on the notion of discourse as language in use and analyse it critically.2 Discipline overlaps