Masaryk university faculty of education
George W. Bush, War on Terror, September 20, 2001
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- 23.Barack Obama, Civil War in Libya, 2011
- Speech Analyses
22.George W. Bush, War on Terror, September 20, 2001Bush’s first speech to the nation immediately following the attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon was given on the day of the attacks, September 11, 2001. Though it would be interesting to analyze this speech as the first official response to the attacks, due to the nature of the situation, that speech was very short and had very little political significance. For this reason it is Bush’s first speech to Congress, nine days after the attacks, which is being analyzed. It was not only the audience of the United States that was listening to Bush’s every word, it was the entire world, and particularly the Muslim world. As this was Bush’s first speech in Congress after the attack, “forming and negotiating a representation of what had happened was thus crucial.” (Chilton, p. 54) The use of correct contextual and historical knowledge and relevance was crucial not only for the success of the speech but also for mending the fragile or perhaps broken relationships between people, nations and religions. There are countless papers or articles condemning Bush for not just butchering the English language on many occasions (including this one), but also for creating, with the help of the media, the politics of fear; using the war on terror for the advancement of his military actions in Iraq and others. Many of these notions will be noticeable in his speech analyzed in this thesis. 23.Barack Obama, Civil War in Libya, 2011Bombing of Libya occurred two years into Obama’s presidency and was his first armed conflict. It was also the first war conflict to be followed by the Internet social networks Twitter and Facebook. Interestingly, Obama was basically repeating the same military attack carried out by Reagan fifteen years prior, only Obama’s speech is over 3 times longer than that of Reagan’s. Obama wanted little to do with the Civil War in Libya but was pressured into action by European Allies, angered at the human rights violations being perpetuated by the Quadafi regime. Ultimately, as part of a NATO action, the U.S. provided weaponry, intelligence and air support, but no ‘boots on the ground.’ Even so, Obama had to convince an American public, already weary over involvement in two wars and suffering in the midst of a global economic crisis, that involvement in a Libyan internal conflict was the right thing to do. This pressure is well visible linguistically, as Obama spends a large portion of his speech on justification of the war. According to CNN polling director Keating, Obama’s approval ratings after the speech remained the same, at 50 percent, indicating an ambivalent reaction by the public. "On the other hand, President Obama has not taken on the trappings of a commander-in-chief as previous presidents have done when launching military action," adds Keating, commenting on his reluctant approach. (CNN Political Unit) Practical Part The theoretical part explained what will be examined and why it matters. The practical part will present actual results of analysis. Firstly, each speech will be described thoroughly and all applicable sections of the theoretical part will be discussed. For example, the first analysis is dedicated to Lincoln’s speech, where step by step, syntax, semantics and pragmatics will be discussed, including all applicable subsections, followed by McKinley’s speech and so on, chronologically. Once all speeches have been discussed individually, a compare and contrast section will follow, showing differences or similarities between selected speeches. At last, a final section with overall data will be presented, supported by graphs and charts. In evaluating the corpus, the following nine topics have materialized as being present in practically all speeches. This topicalization will be tracked by counting the words in each speech, to determine the level of importance in percents that each speaker decided to dedicate to each topic.
The criteria for dividing the text into the nine topics are as follows: the issue and its impact will cover all text dedicated to description and details regarding the crisis itself; steps that fail will encompass all preventative actions that did not succeed. We are good will include all positive talk about the United States with the exception of topics covered under the appeal to American values. We are bad will be dedicated to negative statements about the adversary, excluding direct cases of justification. As for our plan, the text has to refer to plans and goals pertaining to solving the issue. Justification will cover specific reasons for declaring a war or an ultimatum. Appeal to American values will track concrete mention of American exceptionalism, valiant leader, city upon a hill. The future as well as actual declaration and ultimatum are self explanatory.
24.Lincoln’s Speech
Lincoln’s speech is 6,282 words long, making it the longest speech of the corpus, contains 217 sentences, with an average sentence length of 29 words. Without a doubt, syntax is the most powerful tool in Lincoln’s speech, making it eloquent and admirable but also thorough and difficult to grasp for a modern day audience. Starting with verb tenses, Lincoln is the master of passive voice, using it 72 times, mainly in sections focused on the issue, steps that failed and justification. Here is Lincoln’s first sentence, setting the tone for the rest of the speech, which is dominated by passive voice, finite clauses, frequent inversion and formal vocabulary. Having been convened on an extraordinary occasion, as authorized by the Constitution, your attention is not called to any ordinary subject of legislation. Chart 8.1 Another important part of syntactic analysis is topicalization, noted in chart 8.1. Based on the data, Lincoln focused heavily on topics of justification (32%), they are bad (22%) and steps that failed (16%), leaving behind all other categories. Furthermore it was in these sections that Lincoln chose to use passive voice the most.
The semantic analysis yielded the data in table 8.2, depicting the top ten nouns used and their count. There are no surprising findings, considering the length and the general theme of the speech. There are also many archaic expressions, as is expected from a speech 150 years old, such as garrison, avowedly, promulgated or ere. Table 8.2
As for emotive expressions, these are difficult to determine from today’s standpoint. In this example: In this act, discarding all else, they have forced upon the country the distinct issue, ‘immediate dissolution or blood.’ He uses powerful words such as discarding, forced, dissolution or blood, certainly evoking powerful imagery. That said, his entire discourse is very powerful as a whole and it is therefore problematic to determine what expressions were considered emotive above others. Lincoln’s speech is clearly divided into paragraphs and each paragraph is dedicated to a specific topic, as seen in chart 8.1. Though each paragraph has either positive, negative or neutral charge, according to its topic, there are very few instances, altogether three, where a binary conceptualization would be directly juxtaposed within a single paragraph or even a sentence (in bold).
This quote describes Lincoln’s happiness at first, but soon turns into a condemnatory message, presumably addressed to General Lee, whom Lincoln had asked to lead the Union forces and who declined, only to later become the commanding officer of the Army of Northern Virginia. Lincoln’s use of parallelism is minimal, and instead of re-iterating the issue for the audience in a different way, he focuses on a step-by-step explanation of all issues. Closely tied to this lack of parallelism is the minimal use of presupposition. Lincoln does not leave the audience to infer at all, instead, he describes all main ideas, in immense detail, leaving nothing to interpretation. As an extreme example, he could simply use the following argument: Without the Union, there are no States. But instead of employing seven words and giving the audience the basic idea, he spends two paragraphs and 677 words explaining his ideas behind that simple phrase. Clearly, this makes his speech very long and also very explicit. Though the text appears to be vivid and industrious, metaphors in Lincoln’s speech are surprisingly rare. Under closer examination, the reader will discover that Lincoln’s language simply consists of carefully selected expressions, so skillful, they look like metaphors. Consider the following excerpt, which is perhaps the most central thought of Lincoln’s argument: It presents the question whether discontented individuals, too few in numbers to control administration, according to organic law, in any case, can always, upon the pretenses made in this case, or on any other pretenses, or arbitrarily without any pretense, break up their Government and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask: "Is there, in all republics, this inherent and fatal weakness?" "Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?" There is no apparent metaphor, except for the personification of government, and yet the text leaves the reader puzzled and overwhelmed, much like reading a metaphor too difficult to grasp. Again, this effect is due to syntax and lexical choices, rather than semantics.
When examining chart 8.3 it can be asserted that Lincoln’s use of pronouns does not follow much of the standards for audience involvement strategies. Chart 8.3 He focuses highly on 3rd person plural, particularly on they (53 instances) and their (43 instances). His use of 1st and 2nd person singular is minimal and the pronouns we, our, ours and us, make up only 20% of all the pronouns. The final combination of these findings, including the use of let and let us, (only one instance), and the number of rhetorical questions (15), will later be compared with other speeches. Deictic pointers in table 8.4 suggest, that Lincoln was placing as much emphasis on pointing away, as staying within his time and place, by using this 64 times and now 21 times. Though he does not use here at all, graph 8.4 indicates an almost equal number of deictic pointers for here (this, now, I) as for away (that, then, there, you). It should be noted that only instances of that and then used as a pronoun and not a conjunction were counted. Also, Lincoln uses a unique deictic pointer, by referring to himself in 3rd person singular, as the Executive, he, his or, himself in altogether 25 instances. Clearly the speech has a much formal tone, and though it probably was not his intention, Lincoln is shying away from his responsibilities by removing himself as person from the argument and instead using the Executive, someone appointed, to make this difficult decision. It is known just how much Lincoln was struggling over the declaration of war, and this statistic clearly confirms it. Table and chart 8.4
Repetition is not very frequent, only appearing a few instances, often using pronouns: it was not believed that, is it just that, they knew. Further, only one obvious three part statement is present towards the end: …to elevate the condition of men -- to lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life. As for the influence of the media, it is known for a fact that Lincoln wrote the speech himself and was aware that his speech would be printed in the newspapers in the North as well as the South. While he does not resort to any overly intentional audience involvement strategies or sound bites, he does appeal, though briefly, directly to the soldiers of the Union, saying:
At first Lincoln praises the loyalty and patriotism of men, following with an appeal towards ordinary men, using the pronoun they, continuing with his last sentence using too plain of English to belong in this speech, saying “they understand,…that the destroying the Government …means no good to them.” Particularly, the no good to them part, feels much unlike Lincoln and it can be assumed that he attempted to abandon his usual formal, elevated style and speak to folks with folk language. Lincoln speech is, in today’s standards, overwhelmingly elaborate, too long to concentrate on and too difficult to follow. That said, it is also linguistically and historically inspiring and challenging, since where does a reader of today come across expressions like the most sanguine expectation or ingenious sophism. The audience involvement strategies are not employed, and neither is the appeal to American values or media strategies such as sound bites. The speech is rock solid on evidence and justification, leaving no space for misinterpretation, employing sophisticated language to be decoded by the audience.
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