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266935

The “Us vs. Them” Dichotomy in President Bush’s West Point Speech (2002) and the Discursive Construction of Iraqi Threat: Serious Implications for International law

Article

Last updated: 04 Jan 2025

Subjects

-

Tags

Studies in Linguistics

Abstract

This article utilizes Norman Fairclough's three-dimensional framework of Critical Discourse Analysis to unveil how President Bush in his West Point speech (June 2002) drew upon the “us vs. them" dichotomy to stigmatize, repudiate, securitize and ultimately distance and demonize Iraqi regime and its nuclear ambitions. By deploying these linguistic structures, infused with ideological messages, President Bush managed to portray the alleged threat posed by Iraqi regime as being the incarnation of absolute evil for the purpose of justifying and even naturalizing recourse to extreme and unorthodox measures to curb it. The results of the critical analysis of the linguistic structures of the speech point to how President Bush manipulated pronominal choices to advance his political and security undertakings against Iraqi regime in total defiance to hard evidence that contradicted his claims and in utter contravention of international legality. The core findings of this study center on the demonstration of how the pronominal choices operated by President Bush in the speech under scrutiny were instrumental in rationalizing, normalizing and even legitimizing unorthodox and unprecedented modi operandi in US political and security policies mainly towards states like Iraq.

DOI

10.21608/tjhss.2022.266935

Keywords

CDA, “us vs. them” dichotomy, G.W. Bush’s administration, Iraqi regime, international law

Authors

First Name

Naime

Last Name

Benmerabet

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Department of English, Faculty of Letters, Social and Human Sciences, University of Badji Mokhtar-Annaba, Algeria

Email

nbenmerabet_75@yahoo.fr

City

Annaba

Orcid

0000-0001-6073-774X

Volume

3

Article Issue

4

Related Issue

37311

Issue Date

2022-10-01

Receive Date

2021-12-24

Publish Date

2022-10-01

Page Start

45

Page End

62

Print ISSN

2636-4239

Online ISSN

2636-4247

Link

https://tjhss.journals.ekb.eg/article_266935.html

Detail API

https://tjhss.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=266935

Order

266,935

Type

Original Article

Type Code

1,087

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Transcultural Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Publication Link

https://tjhss.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

The “Us vs. Them” Dichotomy in President Bush’s West Point Speech (2002) and the Discursive Construction of Iraqi Threat: Serious Implications for International law

Details

Type

Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023