An analysis of the inaugural address by g w bush in the u s president election 2004 from a perspective of discoure analysis

This inspiration has urged us toconduct a study on the inaugural speech made by the incumbent President of the U.S.A in the 2004 presidential election.. Scope of the study The linguistic

Ph¢n tÝch bµi ph¸t biÓu nhËm chøc cña G w Bush trong cuéc bÇu cö tæng

thèng mü n¨m 2004 theo quan ®iÓm ph©n tÝch diÔn ng«n

GRADUATION THESIS

Field: English Linguistics

VINH, 2007

VINH UNIVERSITY

DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

Nguyen Thi Huyen Le – Vinh Uni. 1

AN ANALYSIS OF THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS BY G.W BUSH IN THE U.S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2004 FROM A PERSPECTIVE OF DISCOURE ANALYSIS

Ph¢n tÝch bµi ph¸t biÓu nhËm chøc cña G w Bush trong cuéc bÇu cö tæng

thèng mü n¨m 2004 theo quan ®iÓm ph©n tÝch diÔn ng«n

GRADUATION THESIS

Field: English Linguistics

Student: Nguyễn Thị Huyền LêSupervisor: Dr Ng« §×nh Ph¬ng

vinh, 2007

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The thesis could not be completed without the great support from my lecturers,family, and friends.

First of all, I would like to express my deepest and special gratitude to mysupervisor, Dr Ngo Dinh Phuong for his readiness at all time to discuss the problems and

to give me useful advice and critical feedback for the thesis, without which the thesiswould have still remained uncompleted

I should also like to acknowledge my gratitude to Mrs Vu Thi Viet Huong (M.A)for reading my manuscript and giving me valuable suggestions

I am also indebted to Mr Tran Ba Tien (M.A) who has always been my source ofinspiration and encouragement

Then, my sincere thanks are due to all my lecturers from Department of ForeignLanguages, Vinh University for their valuable lectures which help me to orient the topic

Finally, I wish to thank my family and my friends for their timely support andencouragement they gave me while I was doing this thesis

Nguyen Huyen Le

Vinh, 2007

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iTABLE OF CONTENTS iiLIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES iv

Nguyen Thi Huyen Le – Vinh Uni. 3

1 Rationale 1

2 Significance of the study 2

3 Scope of the study 2

4 Aims of the study and research questions 2

5 Design of the study 3

DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL PRELIMINARIES AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION 5

1.1 Theoretical preliminaries 5

1.1.1 Text and discourse 5

1.1.2 Discourse analysis and text analysis 5

1.1.3 Discourse context 6

1.1.3.1 0n "context" 6

1.1.3.2 Context of situation 7

1.1.3.3 Features of context 8

1.1.4 Cohesion and coherence 8

1.1.5 Formality of language 9

1.1.6 Discourse structures 10

1.1.6.1 Theme and Rheme structures 10

1.1.6.2 Thematization 10

1.2 Background information 11

CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY AND ANALYSIS PROCEDURE 12

2 1 Data collection 12

2 2 Procedure 12

CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 14

3 1 Analysis of data 14

3.1.1 Lexical choice 14

3.1.2 Repetition of key words 18

3.1.3 Pronoun choice 20

3.1.4 Modality 22

3.1.5 Thematization 24

3 2 Interpretation and discussion 26

3.2.1 Lexical choice 26

3.2.2 Repetition of key words 27

3.2.3 Pronoun choice 27

3.2.4 Modality 27

3.2.5 Thematization 28

CONCLUSIONS 29

1 Summary 29

2 Conclusion 30

3 Implications for language teaching and learning 30

4 LimitationS of the sutdy 31

5 Suggestions for further studies 31

REFERENCES 32

APPENDIX… 33

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Nguyen Thi Huyen Le – Vinh Uni. 5

Figure 1.1: Theory of context of situation 6

Figure 1.2: Types of context 7

Table 1.1: Cohesion and coherence 9

Table 3.1: Lexical formality 13

Table 3.2: Euphemism 14

Table 3.3: List of 20 most frequently-used vocabulary 17

Table 3.4: Modality 22

Table 3.5: Summary of Theme Analysis 24

INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Many people, including many linguists, assume that the primary purpose of language is to communicate information Language, in fact, serves a great many

functions Linguists, over a good many years, have attempted to understand howlanguage works in a fully integrated way as simultaneously a mental, social, cultural,institutional and political phenomenon Language has been seen now as not only apractice but also reflection of reality People have also witnessed a rise in the awareness

of language and its power, especially how it helps people to gain power over the othersthrough ideology, which is underlying assumptions in the language

This is obviously the case of politics, where language is the tool of authorityholders to gain and to realize power Work on persuasive speeches in general, andpolitical speeches in particular suggests that speakers adopt a range of rhetorical devicesand strategies to appeal to their hearers

As we all know, presidential address is of paramount importance to both thePresident himself and his fellow citizens in almost any country like the U.S where thecitizens choose their own President, the Chief Executive American people,consequently, have high expectations towards their President

Expectations of the President include the personal behavior and the policyperformance which result in two criteria of the speech: the fellowship and theleadership That is, to be considered successful and popular, a presidential speech has toshow the leadership of the speech-maker while it can maintain the responsiveness of thepublic opinion These two features of the speech pose quite challenging job for thePresident Some scholars (Cronin, Rockman cited in Cohen, 1997) even refer to this as

“presidential contradictions, conflicts or paradoxes”

It could then be presumed that every presidential speech has to undergo a longprocess of revising and editing before it is officially publicized Therefore, the analysis

of the speeches promises to reveal interesting findings about the President, hisadministration and the political life of a country This inspiration has urged us toconduct a study on the inaugural speech made by the incumbent President of the U.S.A

in the 2004 presidential election

Given that politics is quite a new yet promisingly fascinating object in linguisticresearching, the study itself is both an opportunity and challenge for us Nonetheless, itfulfills our long-cherished hope of investigating the politics of the U.S, one of the mostpowerful nations in the world

Nguyen Thi Huyen Le – Vinh Uni. 7

2 Significance of the study

This study presents an attempt to unearth how power and ideology areembedded in language in particular and the relation between language and society ingeneral

It is also expected to be beneficial to English language learners, who usuallyfind authentic discourses difficult to comprehend fully This is because they fail tounderstand the author’s underlying assumptions (or to be more exact, the ideology thatdrives the discourse) The awareness of the ideological meanings of the discourse willhelp them understand more comprehensively the political discourses

3 Scope of the study

The linguistic features of the inaugural address made by President G.W Bush inthe U.S election 2004 will be the focus of this study

Of the two inaugural speeches the incumbent President of the U.S has made, wechose the second one with the assumption that major changes in social-political contextwill result in the representation of power and ideology as compared to this in the firstone made four years earlier

The authors have no intention of taking an insight into and to make judgments

on the political science The study is pure linguistic research, conducted with the aim todiscuss what and how linguistic strategies contribute to the success and popularity of thespeech

4 Aims of the study and research questions

Our aims and objectives in carrying out the study are:

- To discover the way socio-political context influences the President’s

representation of ideology

- To explore the way President Bush deals with the “conventional

paradoxes” in the political speeches to live up to the publicexpectations

- To give a vivid demonstration of how power is achieved and ideology

is realized via language

Specifically, the study is aimed to find answer to the following researchquestions:

+ What linguistic strategies does the speaker employ to deal with the

“conventional conflicts” in political speeches?

+ How are ideologies realized lexically and syntactically in the speech?

5 Design of the study

The study is structured into three parts and three chapters, which are organized

as follows:

Part 1: Introduction states the reasons of the study, its significance, its scope,

its aims and research questions

Part 2: Development consists of two chapters

Chapter 1: Theoretical preliminaries and Background information reviews

the theoretical frameworks of the study, including the theory of text and discourse,discourse contexts, lexical cohesion, pronouns, modality and thematization; and somebackground information believed to have influence on the data speech

Chapter 2: Methodology and analysis procedures describes the data

collection method and procedures of analyzing data

Chapter 3: Data analysis and discussion provides description of the data

analyzing process involving lexical choice, repetition of key words, pronoun choice,modality and thematization and interprets how the findings answer the researchquestions

Part 3: Conclusion summarizes the findings of the study, giving concluding

remarks, implications, limitations of the study and suggestions for further studies

This part is accompanied by list of References and Appendix

1.1 Theoretical preliminaries

1.1.1 Text and discourse

The border line between the two terms text and discourse is very complex.

During the developments of discourse analysis, these two terms are understood indifferent ways

Some linguists appear to use them interchangeably In 1995, Nunan states that: a

text, or a discourse, is a stretch of language that may be longer than a sentence while

Crystal (1992, p72) suggests: a text may be spoken or written, prose or verse, dialogue

or monologue It may be anything from a single proverb to a whole play, from a momentary cry for help to all day discussion in a committee

Our thesis supports the viewpoint of Brown and Yule (1983:6) who “use text as

a technical term to refer to the verbal record of a communicative act” and that of Crystal

(1992:25), defining discourse as “a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language

larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit, such as a sermon, argument,joke or narrative.”

1.1.2 Discourse analysis and text analysis

With the concept of text and discourse as mentioned above, text analysis is

defined as the studying of how a text exemplifies the operation of the language code

beyond the limit of sentence, while discourse analysis involves the search for what

gives discourse coherence It deals with language in use, which has been used to

communicate something and is felt to be coherent In other words, discourse analysis is

the investigation into the way sentences are put to communicative use in the performing

of social actions However, in order to gain a satisfactory result in the course ofstudying our target problems, the two views can be relevantly applied

1.1.3 Discourse context

1.1.3.1 On “context”

The importance of context towards discourse interpretation is apparentlyundeniable, as Cook (1989:10) asserts:

There are good arguments for limiting the field of study to make it manageable,

but it is also true to say that the answer to the question of what gives discourse its unity

may be impossible to give without considering the world at large: the context.”

Figure 1.1: Theory of context of situation

Cook, in the same study of language in and out of context, adds that when wereceive a linguistic message, we pay attention to many other factors apart from thelanguage itself, which he terms “paralinguistic features” In receiving messages, we are

also influenced by the situation we are in, “by our cultural and social relationship with

the participants, by what we know and what we assume the sender knows.

David Nunan (1995:7) suggests a concept and a classification of context as

follows: Context refers to the situation giving rise to the discourse, and within with the

discourse is embedded There are two different types of context

Nguyen Thi Huyen Le – Vinh Uni. 11

Linguistic context: the language that surrounds or

accompanies the piece of discourse under analysis

Non-linguistic context (experiential context): type of

communicative event, topic, purpose, setting, participants and relationships between them, background knowledge and assumptions underlying the event.

Context of culture

Context of

Figure 1.2: Types of context

The first of these is the linguistic context - the language that surrounds or

accompanies the piece of discourse under analysis The second is non-linguistic or

experiential context within with the discourse takes place Non-linguistic contexts

include: the type of communicative event, (for example, joke, story, lecture, greeting,conversation); the topic; the purpose of the event, the setting including location, time ofday, season of year and physical aspects of the situation (for example, size of room,arrangement of furniture); the participants and the relationships between them; and thebackground knowledge and assumptions underlying the communicative event

1.1.3.2 Context of situation

When responding to a passage or speech of writing, the reader or listener usesnot only linguistic clues, but also situational ones In 1976, Halliday and Hasan statethat:

Linguistically, he responds to specific features which bind the passage together,

the pattern of connection, independent of structure, that we are referring to as

cohesion Situationally, he takes into account all he knows of the environment: what is

going on, what part the language is playing, and who are involved.

Situation, which refers to all those extra-linguistic factors, by the same token,plays a very important role in the interpretation of sentences A sentence may have morethan one meaning if it is produced in different situations

For all the facts above, in our study, both linguistic and non-linguistic contextsare taken into account It is due to the fact that inaugural speech is obviously an actual

use of language but the interpretation of that use needs non-linguistic features of thediscourse.

1.1.3.3 Features of context

The best known overview of the context of situation is perhaps that of Hymes in

“Models of interaction of language and social setting” Following this view, Brown andYule categorize the features of context in terms of ten components which we maysummarize as:

(1) The addressor is a person who produces a piece of discourse (2) The

addressee is a person who is the recipient of the discourse, thus possibly including the

audience What being talked about is (3) the topic (4) The setting is information

including where the event is situated in place and time, and the physical relations of the

interactions with respect to the posture and gesture and facial expression (5) Channel shows the choice of speech, writing, signing, etc (6) Code is what language or dialect,

or style of language is being used (7) Message-form gives the style of the intended form of the message (8) Event is the nature of the communicative event (9) Key involves the evaluation And (10) purpose expresses the intention of participants in

communication

1.1.4 Cohesion and coherence

Cohesion and coherence are the two terms closely relating to each other They

both share the same Latin prefix “co” which means ‘together’, ‘with’, or ‘cohere’.

However, their relations to discourse are clearly different Halliday and Hasan insist that

cohesion is a semantic relation, and that cohesion occurs where the interpretation of

some elements in the discourse is dependent on that of another The one presupposes the other, in the sense that it can not be effectively decoded except by recourse to it.

Cohesion is therefore of great significance to the interpretation of discourse It expressesthe continuity existing between one part of the text and another which enables thereader/listener to supply all the missing pieces, all the components of the picture whichare not presented in the text but are necessary to its interpretation

Coherence, on the other hand, is more broadly understood According to Halliday and

Hasan [7; 23], a text is a passage of discourse which is coherent in two regards It iscoherent with respect to the context of situation, and therefore consistent in register Bythis way, coherence is different from cohesion and is a useful supplement to cohesion

Nguyen Thi Huyen Le – Vinh Uni. 13

Additionally, a text is coherent with respect to itself and therefore cohesive Thuscohesion is only a guide to coherence, and coherence is something created by the reader

in the act of reading a text Coherence is the feeling that a text hangs together, that itmakes sense, and is not just a jumble of sentences

- Is in the text

- Grammatical/lexical links

- Clues/ signals/ guide to coherence

- Is in the reader/listener’s mind

- The feeling that the text makes sense

- The reader has to create coherence

Table 1.1: Cohesion and coherence

1.1.5 Formality of language

Political speeches, apparently, are not just texts “written to be read” They arealso a channel for the speakers implicitly display their style of language using Stylevaries greatly, depending on the situation of the speech delivery Stylistic variationresults from the fact that different people express themselves in different ways, and thatthe same person may express the same idea quite differently when addressing differentaudiences, using different modalities, or tackling different tasks (cf Bell, 1984, 1997).The Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (Richards Platt 1997:144), cited in the joint-study by Francis Heylighen and Jean-Marc Dewaele defines

"formal speech" as follows: the type of speech used in situations when the speaker is

very careful about pronunciation and choice of words and sentence structure This type

of speech may be used, for example, at official functions, and in debates and ceremonies"

However, the degree of formality in each discourse may be very high or low,depending on the context and the speaker’s intention In the data speech in question, thespeaker is the President of the U.S, addressing to his fellow citizens and people on allover the world on his Inauguration Day

1.1.6 Discourse structures

1.1.6.1 Theme and Rheme structure

Theme and Rheme are firstly initiated by the Prague school of linguistics inwhich V Mathesius and Hallidday are the two famous pioneers In our thesis, theconcept of Theme – Rheme by Halliday will be adopted According to Halliday:

“Theme is the element which serves as the point of departure of the message, it

is that with which the clause is concerned”

And

“Rheme is the remainder of the message which consists of what the speaker

states about that point of departure”

The Theme is what the clause is going to be about and an element to which thespeaker/writer wishes to give prominence, so part of the meaning of any clause lies inwhich element is chosen as its Theme

A Theme can be marked or unmarked If the subject coincides with Theme, it is

called Unmarked Theme, (for example, William in William did not come.) If the Theme

is something other than the subject, it is called Marked Theme, like Surprisingly in

Surprisingly, William did not come.

1.1.6.2 Thematization

Thematization is the process of putting what the speaker/writer wishes the clause

to be about as Theme In general, thematization is thought of as a discoursal rather than

simply a sentential process According to Brown and Yule, what the speaker or writer

puts first will influence the interpretation of everything that follows Thus a title will influence the interpretation of the text which follows it The first sentence of the first paragraph will constrain the interpretation not only of the paragraph, but also of the rest of the text

1.2 Background information

Context, as integrated by knowledge, situation and text, is generally regarded as

a must in almost all discourse analyses It is consequently necessary to give some briefbackground information of the speech in question

Nguyen Thi Huyen Le – Vinh Uni. 15

The data speech was delivered by President G W Bush on the inauguration day

of his second presidency During his first four years in office, some unexpected eventshad happened to the country, threatening the domestic and international security Inwhat follows, I am reviewing some of these events

First, it was the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York and thePentagon in Washington on September 9 which killed nearly 3000 people and caused

the collapse of three skyscrapers In an attempt to hunt down the terrorist, the Bush

administration decided to go to war against nations which were supposed to have linkswith terrorism In October 2001, the U S troops (in coalition with some others)launched war against Afghanistan This brought victory to the U S and its coalition atthe expense of well over 200 deaths to the American side but the efforts to captureOsama bin Laden (the prime suspect behind the attacks) and many of his top aides were

in vain In March 2003, the U S-led coalition attacked Iraq reasoning that Iraq wasstoring weapons of mass destruction and maintaining the alleged link with Al Qaeda,the international network of terrorism Again, they won but bloodshed has beencontinuing and so far the war has claimed more than 2000 Americans

Second, the U S suffered an economic downturn and went into recession inalmost all sectors with the largest job losses in 21 years recorded in 2000 Until 2004,the U S remained in time of controversial war, and was recovering but had yetrecovered by the time the second presidency of G W Bush commenced

In short, President Bush’s eight years in office were in two periods of radicaldiscrepancy: one in peace and one in war Presumably, these are the prime factors thatwould create remarkable changes in the speech

CHAPTER II

METHODOLOGY AND ANALYSIS PROCEDURE

2.1 Data collection

Inaugural speech, the address made by the new President on the Inaugural Day

is a precious chance for the President It is where he announces his presidency,reflecting the state of the nation over the years in office and gaining popularity

Inaugural speech is undoubtedly of the most importance among dozen othersmade along election campaign as it draws attention of millions of people not only athome but also abroad, who have been expecting for the final outcome of the election

An inaugural speech is supposed to be the tone of the new administration

It is for these reasons that we choose the Inaugural speech that President G.W.Bush delivered on January 20, 2005 as the data for our analysis, basing on theassumption that country performance under President Bush’s administration and majorevents happening during his first four years in office greatly influence the tone of thespeech and thus provide promisingly interesting findings for the analysis

We also resort to a series of related articles and news analysis in English toensure an all-rounded analysis on the issue The websites we turn to are theInternational Herald Tribute, the CNN and the UK BBC

2.2 Procedure

The study is carried out, relying on the following procedure:

1 The data speech - President Bush’s Inaugural address in the U.S election

2004 and many other newspaper articles and news stories/ analysis are collected

2 General textual analysis and description of the speech is made, in terms ofdiscourse properties towards the finding of underlying assumptions in thespeech

3 All the interpretation and conclusion are drawn from description of data andgeneralization of the findings in the previous sections

Intonation, posture and all non-verbal aspects are excluded from the analysisprocedure though the author is fully aware that they do have some role in the success ofthe speech-maker

Nguyen Thi Huyen Le – Vinh Uni. 17

Apart from the formal salutation at the beginning and farewell at the end, thebody text is broken up into sentences and then numbered The speech is then analyzedunder major categories of: lexical choice, repetition of key words, pronoun choice,modality and thematization.

CHAPTER III

DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Analysis of data

3.1.1 Lexical choice

By referring to the lexical choice of the speech, we mean the values that thechosen vocabulary carries According to Fairclough (2001), selection of vocabulary isimportant As it is a two-way phenomenon: the choice of word depends on the socialrelationship between participants in the discourse; vice versa, once created it helpsproduce and moderate the interaction of those participants Therefore, an insight into theselection of vocabulary can tell us much about the attitude and ideology of theparticipants, particularly the speaker

In addition, the solemnity of the inaugural addresses certainly requires a highdegree of formality of vocabulary On the one hand, it gives values to the address; onthe other hand, it enlarges social distance between the speaker and the hearer; which is,

in this context, distance between the country-leader and his citizens

Formality, in turn, gives rise to the use of the so-called euphemism, which is

an expression intended by the speaker to be less offensive, disturbing, or troubling to the listener than the word or phrase it replaces.

(retrieved from: http://www.en.wikipedia org/ )

In other words, the author tends to use familiar and conventional words to avoidnegative effects It is the strategy of avoidance

With regard to the contradictions in presidential speeches - that is expectations

from the public which demand that the president stays in close touch with the publicwhile remaining a bold leader, the use of formality proves to be a must in presidentialspeeches

The 2004 inaugural address employs a rather good deal of words in theirformal form as a means of attaining solemnity as well as the leadership of the speaker.Here is an account of the most notable ones

FORMAL LEXICALIZATION LESS FORMAL LEXICALIZATION prescribed required

Nguyen Thi Huyen Le – Vinh Uni. 19

reach constant fast again set of character

of it, whose

Table 3.1: Lexical formality

While prescribed, proclaim are employed as a must in ceremonial address, others such as sabbatical, ultimate, eventual, persistent, anew are intentionally used by the speaker for emphatic purposes Most obvious is the case of anew, which stands out

in 2 paragraphs:

Today America speaks anew to the peoples of the world… (s.39)

Today I also speak anew to my fellow citizens… (s.52)

Although not too few words are used in their formal form, it is clear that thespeaker does not want or enlarge his social distance as formal lexicalization justaccounts for little proportion of the whole speech

Euphemism, on the other hand, seems to be preferably employed by the speaker

The list of euphemism in Table 3.2 suggests that euphemisms in the speech are mostly

used when the President mentions the consternating Tuesday 9/11/2001 in America’shistory when terror attacked and killed thousands of people

A day of fire (s.5)Vulnerability ( s.6)Its deepest source (s.6)Unwisely … test America’sresolve … found it firm (s.27)

Obligations that are difficult to

fulfill (s.54)Some have shown their devotion

…in deaths (s.60)The unwanted (s.81)The baggage of bigotry (s.82)

The terrorist attack on 9/11/2001Loss

Source of the terror attack

Attack by terror planes

The fight against terrorHave died in the war against terrorists

Losses of people and moneyBomb bag

Table 3.2: Euphemism

A day of fire refers to the terror day itself, while vulnerability denotes the great

loss of 3000 deaths In sentence 6, Mr Bush mentions the root of the evil as deepest

source without calling out the name of any terrorists or organizations Yet, one can

easily work out the name of who-everyone-knows: Osama bin Laden Most

interestingly, the president names the act of attacking the U.S the test of America’s

Here, Mr President intends to seek the understanding of his citizens byconfessing it is the hard task (difficult to fulfill) for the government to secure the

country He avoids identifying here what it means specifically by obligations (in plural

forms) Presumably, these tasks would include protecting the U.S citizens, the Iraqi (as

he stated at the beginning of the war), fighting against terrorists and so forth This hasbeen the issue that sharply divided the U.S and is still causing many controversies in thesociety as the fatality toll of the U.S has been multiplied in the months afterwards

What should be highlighted next is the euphemized wording in his reference tothe sacrifice of the soldiers, which is a very sensitive issue to be mentioned

Some have shown their devotion to our country in deaths that honored their whole lives - and we will always honor their names and their sacrifice (s.60)

This choice of wording proves to be considerably effective as he shifts the

spotlight to their devotion rather than their deaths, focal point from loss (to their family)

to the glorious dedication (to the nation) Mr Bush’s way of wording shows the respect

for the sacrifice of not only the dead people bit their loved ones This is hoped to behelpful in minimizing the sufferings and promoting the empathy of the audience

Another sensitive case is seen in sentence 81:

Americans, at our best, value the life we see in one another, and must always remember that even the unwanted have worth.

The President describes all the losses American have to bear and the expenses

the state budget has to cover as the unwanted If regarding the purpose of the war is to

hunt down the terrorists, then these losses have yet been compensated - because onlyseveral links of the terror network have been traced Therefore, many have reasons todoubt if the unwanted war at all worthwhile

It can be concluded that in the speech, the president makes reluctant reference tothe events and seeks avoidance strategies wherever possible The aim of this is to give

an abstract and blurred picture of the real situation This consolidates the assumptionthat by using euphemism, the author purports to conceal the catastrophic aftermaths,thus de-emphasize the negative consequences of the war