George W. Bush Versus Saddam Hussein A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

As a science of language, the study of linguistics involves the study of different types of discourse including the discourse of law, science, drama, medicine, etc. Each discourse has its own characteristic features and linguistic tools. I present this study on critical discourse analysis with an emphasis on President George W. Bush's and Saddam Hussein's speeches before, during, and after the Iraqi war 2003.

Ι. Aim of the research

The aim of this thesis is to apply a selected linguistic framework for the analysis of the political discourse of Presidents George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein before, during and after the Iraqi war 2003. A primary goal of this study is to give evidence of how language can be used by political speakers in order to impose their own ideologies and beliefs on their listeners through the use of some selected strategies which are then linguistically realized. The study will focus on the linguistic description of the political language through the analysis of the linguistic tools used by both presidents. These linguistic tools are not used independently of concepts such as power and ideology.

ΙΙ. Reasons for choosing Bush's and Saddam's speeches

This study attempts to examine Bush's and Saddam's political discourse during the Iraqi war 2003. This study is limited in its scope to the period from February 2003, when President Bush started his campaign against terrorism, until April of the same year which marked the fall of Baghdad and hence the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime.

The Iraqi war was short however it changed the future of Iraq and the Arab region. Therefore, this period was chosen for analysis as it turned much of the world into a global community against what is classified as terror states according to Bush's discourse.

George W. Bush's discourse was chosen for analysis as it was successful and persuasive discourse. He defined the issues of struggle against global terrorism, the target and the enemy. President Bush succeeded to form a universal support for the intervention in Iraq to get rid of Saddam's regime and overcome the Americans' fear for sending troops to hot points in the world.

Another reason that motivated the choice of the subject as the analytical corpus for this research was that Bush changed the style of his discourse during his campaign against Saddam from defensive to defensive/offensive according to the political and military situations on land. Therefore, he used many linguistic tools. His political discourse was rich in analogy, definitions, use of passivization, metaphors, use of deixis as well as other linguistic devices.

On the other hand, the political discourse of the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was also chosen as it represents the counterpart discourse targeted against the discourse of President Bush. Saddam Hussein's political discourse was intended to reverse the effect of Bush's discourse where Saddam tried to blacken Bush in order to convince his listeners of the malicious intentions of Bush and the allies and thus persuade them to face these troops. Saddam's discourse was characterized by the excessive reference to religious issues in order to stir the enthusiasm of his people to defend their past glory. Consequently, most of this discourse was defensive in nature. However, that does not contradict the fact that Saddam's discourse also witnessed some shifts towards being offensive in nature.