War legitimation discourse: Representing ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ in four US presidential addresses  

Oleh:

Oddo, John

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Discourse and Society (Full Text) vol. 22 no. 3 (May 2011), page 287-314.
Topik: Bush; intertextuality; Iraq War; legitimation; manipulation; membership categorization; polarization; proximization; rhetoric; Roosevelt; temporality; thematic formation; World War II
Fulltext: Oddo_John, vol. 22 issue 3 May 2011. p. 287-314.pdf (362.04KB)

Isi artikel

This article presents an intertextual analysis of legitimation in four ‘call-to-arms’ speeches by Franklin D. Roosevelt and George W. Bush. Drawing on Thibault’s (1991) account of critical intertextual analysis, I identify key legitimation strategies and thematic formations that underlie the rhetoric of both speakers. In addition, I (re)situate the speeches in their wider social and historical context to demonstrate how both presidents manipulated the public. In the analysis, I first examine how both speakers use polarizing lexical resources to constitute ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ as superordinate thematic categories that covertly legitimate war. Next, I analyze how representations of the past and future also function to legitimate violence across the four speeches. Finally, I examine how both presidents demarcate group membership to discredit opponents of war at home, and legitimate violence against non-aggressors abroad. I conclude that, in spite of popular mythology, Bush is not an aberrant American president; he is one of many to have misled the public into war.

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