Title:
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A Critical Discourse Analysis of Arabic and English Political Speechs Delivered During the War
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Studies in Critical Discourse Analysis are concerned with current political and social
issues. Because of its interdisciplinarity, Critical Discourse analysts were
investigating issues like 'racisim' and 'legitimization' in discourse. However, most of
these studies have analyzed western discourse, and even those which analyzed Arabic
data were in most cases analyzing the translation and not the Arabic text. This study
can be seen as an additional contribution to this field, as it investigates the words of
four major speakers (George Bush, Tony Blair, Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin
Ladin), related to the War in Iraq between 2002 and 2006.
In this study we highlight some of the major discursive and formal strategies used by
these four speakers, in addition to the local and global meanings and the structure and
argumentation used in their speeches. Through this analysis, we investigate the
speaker's methods of persuading, manipulating, and reassuring their audience, and the
shifts in their discourses which accompany their political position at the time. We also
study the nature of these speeches when delivered to audiences in the West and the
Middle East.
The study highlights the exercise of power and the effect of the speakers' ideologies
in their discourse. It compares these speakers, who come from four different cultural
backgrounds and traditions. We concentrate on the power markers used by the
speakers, and two ideological aspects of their speeches: the ideology of religion and
the ideology of the 'state' and the way these are implemented through the speeches.
This comparative study concludes that despite the different rhetorical traditions of
these fours speakers, none of them hesitates during an international conflict to depart
from their tradition in order to achieve a greater effect on the audience.
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