Masaryk university faculty of education
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32.Bush’s speech
Bush’s speech has 2,995 words, 187 sentences with 16 words average per sentence. In comparison with the previous speeches in the corpus, Bush’s speech is poignant and bold. His syntax is simple, with coordinated sentence structure, active voice and lacking complex grammatical features. The majority of sentences follow a traditional word order, starting with a subject, often expressed by a pronoun, following with a verb, object and complement or adverbial. In case of complex sentences, the structure is either coordinated or subordinated with simple conjunctions such as but, yet, so or as and an occasional non-finite clause. Our war on terror begins with Al Qaida, but it does not end there. As for topicalization, Bush completely skips steps that failed, focusing on our plan with 24%, we are good with 21%, they are bad with 18% and appeal to American values with 19%. He uses ultimatum as well as declaration of war, though not on a specific country but on terror in general. Chart 8.32 Bush does not organize his speech chronologically but rather emotively. First, he focuses on all the good things that have happened since the attack, then he thanks all parties involved in the response. Then he states the issue, accuses the guilty party, the Taliban and gives a detailed account of their actions. An ultimatum follows, interestingly not only to the terrorists, but to the entire world. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. That is an unprecedented step, declared in a very explicit way, leaving no room for misinterpretation. That said, there are other parts of the speech, where the text is nothing but implicit. Indeed, the speech is full of oppositions, which will be discussed in the following sections.
From the previous section of the analysis, it is clear that syntax was not the strength of Bush’s speech; it is semantics. The speech is loaded with carefully crafted and powerful expressions, set in a very simple sentence structure. Consider the text describing the terrorists. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism and Nazism and totalitarianism. Bush works effectively with frames (in bold) to create an intense imagery of a horrid person or group of people, however otherwise undefined, theoretically fitting anyone and everyone. Though he is explicit in some ways, he is incredibly implicit in other ways, creating mixed impressions. Other juxtapositions and binary conceptualizations occur throughout the speech. They hate our freedoms - our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other. They want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. They want to drive Israel out of the Middle East. They want to drive Christians and Jews out of vast regions of Asia and Africa. In this example, Bush uses pronouns, repetition in combination with juxtaposition and presupposition. Considering there is little known of these terrorists, Bush makes a surprising number of assumptions about them, stating them as facts. The audience is forced to infer much about the political situation in all the countries and regions mentioned. But rather than a factual statement, this excerpt is meant as an appeal to all the citizens of the above mentioned countries, soliciting their support. Table 8.33
As for top ten nouns, America / America’s / Americans come at the top with 37 instances, followed by terrorist(s), world and other expected words. Of interest are also words in table 8.33, spoken perhaps only once, but of religious, political and geographical importance, targeted towards the members and citizens of these groups, countries or beliefs, in hope of soliciting their support or attention (table 8.33). It is apparent that Bush’s speech targets the entire world, all nations and all religions. As for metaphors, they are infrequent, but dramatic, often describing the terrorists and their ways: heirs of all the murderous ideologies, in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies. More important are conceptual metaphors. Bush declares his infamous (our) war on terror and later adds the entire world and American values into the equation as well, as per the following excerpt.
Once he makes terrorism a world issue, he creates another powerful conceptual metaphor when he states that “Freedom and fear are at war”. Further, he solicits God’s approval as well, when he states that “Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.”
As already stated, Bush makes great use of all pronouns, mainly 1st person plural, as shown in chart 8.34. He also uses directives, “Be ready!” and rhetorical questions “And you know what?”, altogether five times, making an excellent use of audience involvement strategies. Chart 8.34 Bush also uses repetition, a three part statement, the rule of three and other pragmatic features, making the speech easy to follow while captivating.
Unlike Kennedy or Nixon, heavily referencing previous presidents, politicians or Winthrop, Bush does not make a single reference to a person, he does however allude to Kennedy’s writing style by using inversion with negation and repetition, Kennedy’s favorite syntactic tool, Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done. But this country will define our times, not be defined by them. As for deictic pointers, Bush is clearly operating within current time and place, as shown in chart 8.35, making a good use of pronouns and adverbials as in the following sentence “We have seen their kind before.” Deictic pointing occurs frequently and on purpose to not only emphasize each point but also to play an emotional role. But this country will define our times, not be defined by them. As long as the United States of America is determined and strong, this will not be an age of terror; this will be an age of liberty, here and across the world. In the above paragraph, Bush uses pronouns our and them, the determiner this and the adverbial here, creating an actual deictic frame, which does not function as a mere complement to the text but as its dominant feature. Chart 8.35 The influence of the mass media is noticeable not only in the selection of simple syntax and powerful vocabulary but also in the message itself. Similar to Nixon and his hidden agenda in his speech, Bush announces, as part of the plan topic, the course of the war on terror, using concrete situations (in bold) particularly suitable for media broadcast. Further, he adds an aura of secrecy and drama, making it more appealing when stating it will be unlike any other we have ever seen. Americans should not expect one battle but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. Overall, Bush’s speech is daring and strong, appealing to the audience with all powerful strategies like pronouns, short sentences, repetition but also simplistic language, ultimately exchanging the sophistication of the message for its power. Download 0.63 Mb. Share with your friends:
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