Religious conflict and the depiction of othering in george W. bush speeches post 9/11
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Date
2021
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Publisher
Université Oum El Bouaghi
Abstract
The USA hegemony enabled it to play the role of the world's policeman who is responsible on preserving universal peace and in the meantime providing its successive governments with the exclusive privilege of declaring wars as they saw fit. In this respect, this dissertation is an attempt to find out the means used by the USA to justify the use of force as revealed by American presidential speeches. Accordingly, it tackles four selected speeches of President Bush to be analyzed relying on Van Dijk's socio-cognitive approach to reveal its hidden ideology and understand the role played by religion and othering in constructing enemies and legalizing policies toward the Middle East in general. It also sheds light on the importance of discourse and its effects particularly in leading nations and influencing political leaders. The results reveal that indeed Bush used the notion of religious superiority and defending freedom to create disparities and construct war against targeted enemies. More, the claims that the USA is defending the world's freedom and peace are just excuses to legalize invasions and proceed with the strategy of creating adversaries in order to legitimize launching wars for the ultimate aim that is preserving America's hegemony.
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Keywords
Critical discourse analysis, Ideology, Van dijk