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ConclusionWar messages differ from other political discourse as their “purpose is not necessarily to persuade, or deliberate, or to inform, but primarily to intone the words required in a democratic society faced with the necessity of waging war.” (Benjamin, p. 73) In order to accomplish this intoning, politicians use whatever means available to make the speech well received while strengthening their credibility. This thesis demonstrates that while certain language features can be traced and trends determined, a large portion of the discourse remains unpredictable, “as yet we have no standard method to analyze ideological discourse in general.” (Van Dijk, xvii) The personality of the speaker, his party affiliation or personal beliefs combined with political, historical and socio-cultural elements of the time pose an obstacle in drawing conclusions or making generalizations about a given political discourse. In addition, hidden political agendas may further impede the analysis as “people whose decision determines the policies and actions of nations do not respond to the ‘objective’ facts of the situation, whatever they may mean, but to their ‘image’ of the situation.” (Ivie, p. 337) Thus, war discourse is subjective, abstract and challenging to analyze. That said, this thesis used a method of discourse topicalization, yielding consistent data, which confirmed that speakers, starting with Lincoln, have used less negative discourse (as defined in chapter 9) and more positive discourse over time, to presumably bring about contented feelings in the audience, while at the same time creating appeal and seeking approval. Further, appeal to American values has been increasing steadily, suggesting not only intensification of patriotic and nationalistic influences on the audience but also the audience’s increased responsiveness to this feature. This ideological symbiosis between the audience and the speaker is positively complimented by the media as “recent developments in the postwar period (such as television and increased usage of direct primaries) have fostered a heightened reverence of the opinion, judgment, and rhetoric of the common man.” (Lim, p. 333) Indeed, war discourse is not only getting simpler in terms of syntax, with sentences being shorter and less complex, but also more friendly and approachable, proven by the increased use of audience involvement strategies. As a side effect, starting with Truman, presidents have also been increasingly employing simplistic language bordering on primitive (in case of Truman and Bush), in form of sound bites, vocatives and colloquial expressions. In combination with the powerful use of binary conceptualizations, frames and conceptual metaphors, also on the rise since Truman, speeches are no longer a medium for communication but a tool of political manipulation fringing on propaganda. The more successful the message, the harder to distinguish the hidden from the exposed or the explicit from the implicit. Indeed, juxtaposition has been effectively applied since Kennedy, to intensify and polarize the speech, usually mirroring the speaker’s style. While Kennedy was traditional, Bush was poignant and so were their juxtapositions, respectively. While there was a frequent explicitness in the emotive segments of the speeches, implicitness was common in the factual parts of the speeches. Therefore ambiguity is not only present in terms of emotional topics but also in relation to clear or unclear statements of facts. Ultimately, what is not being communicated is perhaps as valuable, if not more so, as what is being communicated. Undoubtedly, there is an extensive area available for further research pertaining to “form of expression (sounds, visuals, words, phrases, etc), meaning and action” as well as “superstructures of conversations, news reports or scholarly articles,” which can shed more light on possible correlations or relationships in these unexplored areas of discourse. (Van Dijk, xvii) Finally, to attempt to judge a political discourse objectively, it is vital for the analyst to set biases aside and to approach this task with an open mind, sharp eye and an ample dose of patience, bearing in mind that the complete and truthful intention of the message might only be known to the speaker himself, while never being revealed even by the best of analyses.
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