Referential Strategies in the Speeches of President George W. Bush after 9/11 Attacks

Abstract

The present study aims at exploring the referential strategies employed by President George W. Bush to represent the elements of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation (van Dijk, 2006) in his speeches after the calamity of 9/11 and to find out the motives behind using these strategies. The analysis has been conducted using van Dijk’s (2006) macro strategies of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation as the main conceptual framework of this study. It was found out that Bush used his discursive power to persuade the people of America for the upcoming global war on terror by naming the possible enemies in various ways. The main motive was to present American people as a united and glorious nation (‘Us’) and, in this way, to convince them for launching the global war on terror against the perpetrators of terrorism (‘others’) in America. For this purpose, he frequently used the strategies of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation during his speeches. The study suggests that similar analysis of the speeches of world renowned leaders may be conducted to find out the motives and us-others’ divide hidden in their speeches.