Masaryk university faculty of education
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- 39. Final comparison
- Analysis
38. Reagan versus ObamaThese two speeches share perhaps the most similarities, as both presidents faced the exact same enemy, the Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi. Both announced the intervention in Libya to the American public after air strikes had taken place. That said, Reagan was answering Gaddafi’s terrorist attacks in Europe, while Obama was addressing human rights violations in the Libyan Civil War. Though the circumstances of both attacks were virtually identical, the speeches are nothing but different. As demonstrated in chart 9.5, while both speakers place similar emphasis on the appeal to American values and they are good themes, Obama towers over Reagan in using over 25% of his speech on justification compared to Reagan’s less than 10%. Interestingly, though Reagan spent over 5% of his speech talking about steps that failed, Obama never mentioned any, never even referencing Reagan and his earlier, presumably unsuccessful, attack on Libya, which could have served as ammunition for his actions. Chart 9.5 Perhaps the most striking difference though is the length of the speech, with Reagan using less than 1,000 words as opposed to Obama, using more than 3,000. Reagan also did not talk about topics unrelated to Libya, while Obama used his speech to reiterate America’s policy on foreign intervention and also to disassociate himself from Bush’s military history. As a result, Reagan’s speech appears more confident and clear, a fact only confirmed by his ample use of deictic pointing here. Chart 9.51
A comparison of styles highlights Reagan’s more down to earth, simple expressions, presumably epitomizing his Midwestern upbringing, compared to Obama’s more sophisticated and polished Ivy League lawyer vocabulary.
That said, both men are in agreement on several instances, communicating similar ideas, having even the same presumptions about the timeline of the change. Interestingly, each president offers a different spelling for the name of the Libyan dictator, using Gaddafi or Qadhafi, though referring to the same exact person. As for vocabulary choices referring to the enemy, Reagan uses the word terrorism or terrorists fourteen times, while Obama refrains from it entirely, always using only Gaddafi’s name. Ultimately, two very similar events were handled by two different men in two very different ways, corresponding with their political and personal beliefs, and their audience, which above all, governed the overall style and content of their messages. 39. Final comparisonBased on the detailed comparison of speech in pairs, it can be concluded that while two speeches may share similarities in terms of political, historical and social circumstances, they may or may not be similar in terms of syntax, vocabulary or other linguistic features. Also, rather than similarities, differences are more likely. Out of five pairs of speeches, circumstances of the crises are shared by three of them. Only one pair, however, Truman versus Nixon, confirmed also discourse similarities. The other two pairs, Obama versus Bush and Wilson versus Roosevelt, showed rather vast differences in several categories. As “presidential war message may serve multiple functions,” communicating a war message, placing blame or promoting a new doctrine, there can be many discourse analysis results. (Benjamin, p. 81)
While there were no substantial results found indicating convincing similarities or differences based on pair comparison, the following analysis will look at possible patterns and trends, using the entire data gathered during the individual analyses. Based on the results, two major discursive groups have materialized, positive discourse and negative discourse, often used in binary conceptualizations and juxtapositions. Considering topicalization using nine groups of topics, it is apparent that three of these groups, we are good, appeal to American values and the future, use predominantly optimistic expressions and positively charged vocabulary directed towards inspiration, hope, bravery, success or destiny. To the contrary, other three groups, they are bad, justification and steps that failed, are focused on pessimistic expressions using negatively charged vocabulary to communicate distress, failure, crime or despair. The last three groups, declaration, plans and issue, tend to be neutral in terms of emotional strength. The percentages of the individual six topics were added together, creating two groups: negative discourse and positive discourse (table 10), to show whether a trend, favoring the use of negatively or positively charged language, can be found in war messages. The possible trend in either direction is not automatically expected, as there are still three other topics, being neutral and thus not being included in the analysis. In other words, just because the positive discourse might grow, the negative does not necessarily need to decrease. It can stagnate, making the three neutral categories move instead. Table 10
Chart 10.1 shows a decreasing tendency in negative discourse, with only a slight deviation in Nixon’s and Obama’s speeches, still demonstrating over a 40% decrease over time. Chart 10.1 Chart 10.2 shows the opposite statistic of positive discourse, showing an increased tendency, with an even greater spread of 45%. Chart 10.2 Together, these charts expose a diachronic change, which suggests that with time, speakers increasingly opted for positive rhetoric and distanced themselves from negative rhetoric. Moving forward in the analysis, chart 10.3 confirms that the attention paid to justification varied from 5% to 33%, without pattern, leaving behind the nature of the conflict, political affiliation or historical precedent. It can be suggested that the current political situation and the personality of the speaker possibly played a major role in determining the significance of justification of war. Chart 10.3 A positive development is seen in chart 10.4 showing the use of audience involvement strategies, specifically 1st person plural, rhetorical questions and let’s/let, proving a 40% increase over time. Chart 10.4 The appeal to American values is illustrated in chart 10.5, showing perhaps the most significant and unanimous trend. From Lincoln to Obama, there has been a steady increase of appeal to American values, with the exception of Truman, who used our 49 times and appears as an anomaly in the chart, but still in the right direction. Chart 10.5 This statistic further suggests that presidents have increasingly employed the appeal to American values, as one of the tools to get their war message across to the audience. This can possibly indicate that the audience itself is becoming increasingly responsive to such appeals, revealing a heightened sense of nationalism and patriotism.
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