A dicourse analysis of president g w bushs speech on the importance of freedom in the middle east = phân tích diễn ngôn bài phát biểu của tổng thống g w bush về tầm quan trọng của tự do ở trung đông

VINH UNIVERSITY
FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT
**********

đặng thị hải chung

A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF PRESIDENT G.W.BUSH’S SPEECH
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF FREEDOM IN THE MIDDLE EAST

(PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGƠN BÀI PHÁT BIỂU CỦA TỔNG THỐNG
G.W.BUSH VỀ TẦM QUAN TRỌNG CỦA TỰ DO Ở TRUNG ĐÔNG)

GRADUATION THESIS
FIELD: Discourse Analysis

VINH 2008


VINH UNIVERSITY
FOREIGN LANGUAGE DEPARTMENT
**********

A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF PRESIDENT G.W.BUSH’S SPEECH
ON THE IMPORTANCE OF FREEDOM IN THE MIDDLE EAST
(PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGÔN BÀI PHÁT BIỂU CỦA TỔNG THỐNG
G.W.BUSH VỀ TẦM QUAN TRỌNG CỦA TỰ DO Ở TRUNG ĐÔNG)

GRADUATION THESIS
FIELD: Discourse Analysis

Student

: Đặng Thị Hải Chung, 45A1

Supervisor: Phan Thị Hương, M. A.

VINH 2008


Acknowledgement

First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my
supervisor, M.A. Phan Thị Hương, for her whole-hearted assistance,
excellent advice, valuable materials and detailed comments, without which
I would not have completed my thesis.
Second, I wish to thank to Mr. Trần Bá Tiến, M.A for his useful
suggestions and materials.I am also grateful to all my teachers in the
Faculty of Foreign Language for their great help.

Finally, my sincere thanks are due to my beloved family and my
close friends whose love and care have encouraged me to finish my thesis
completely.

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Table of content
Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................... i
Table of content.............................................................................................. ii
Part A: Introduction ..................................................................................... 1

1. Rationale of the study.................................................................................. 1
2. Aims of the study ........................................................................................ 1
3. Scope of the study ....................................................................................... 2
4. Methods of the study ................................................................................... 2
5. Design of the study...................................................................................... 2
Part B: Development ..................................................................................... 4
Chapter 1: Theoretical back ground ................................................................ 4
1.1. Discourse and Discourse Analysis .......................................................... 4
1.1.1. Discourse ............................................................................................... 4
1.1.2. Discourse versus Text .......................................................................... 4
1.1.3. Types of Discourse ............................................................................... 5
1.1.4. Discourse Analysis ................................................................................ 6
1.2. Spoken language versus written language .............................................. 7
1.3. Context .................................................................................................... 8
1.3.1. What is context? .................................................................................... 8
1.3.2. Context versus co-text ........................................................................... 9
1.4 Cohesion and coherence.......................................................................... 10
1.5. Modality ................................................................................................. 11
Chapter 2: Data analysis and Discussion ..................................................... 13
2.1 Background of the speech ....................................................................... 13
2.2. Data Analysis ........................................................................................ 13
2.2.1. Pronoun choice .................................................................................... 13
2.2.1.1. First person pronouns ....................................................................... 15
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2.2.1.2. Second person pronoun .................................................................... 18
2.2.1.3. Third person pronouns ..................................................................... 20

2.2.2. Lexicalization ...................................................................................... 21
2.2.2.1. Lexical repetition ............................................................................ 21
2.2.2.2. Negative lexicalization ..................................................................... 25
2.2.3. Naming referents ................................................................................. 26
2.2.4 Modality ............................................................................................... 28
2.2.4.1 Modal verbs ....................................................................................... 28
2.2.4.2 Other verbs and adverbs .................................................................... 29
2.3 Interpretation and discussion ................................................................. 30
2.3.1 Pronoun choice .................................................................................... 30
2.3.2 Lexicalization ....................................................................................... 31
2.3.3 Naming ................................................................................................. 32
2.3.4 Modality ............................................................................................... 32
Chapter 3: Application for learning and teaching ......................................... 33
3.1. The importance of authentic material .................................................... 33
3.2. Application ............................................................................................. 33
Part C: Conclusion ...................................................................................... 37
1. Review of major findings .......................................................................... 37
2. Suggestions for further works ................................................................... 37
REFERENCES
APPENDIX

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Part A: Introduction
1. Rationale.
First of all, discourse analysis is a compulsory subject in my

syllabus. It analyses what language is used for and how powerful language
is in communication. Through the analysis of language in use, we can
know how real people use real language and for what purposes. Therefore,
I find it interesting to carry out a study on one topic in discourse analysis
field so as to enlarge my knowledge about discourse analysis as well as its
related issues.
In addition, analyzing political discourse is of my interest. Among
those speeches, G.W.Bush's one on the importance of freedom in the
Middle East released on January 13, 2008 strongly catches my attention. I
can apply related theories of discourse analysis in examining this discourse
to see how Mr. Bush uses linguistic means to achieve his communicative
purposes.
More importantly, the speech is made by a native speaker and
discusses the burning issues that the world concerns. Thus, it is an
authentic material which can be used for language learning and teaching. It
is helpful for language learners in terms of learning language and getting to
know about the world.
For all the above-mentioned reasons, the author decides to conduct a
discourse analysis of President G.W.Bush's speech on the importance of
freedom in the Middle East.
2. Aims of the study
The aims of the study are:
- To investigate how the President's ideology are manifested through
linguistic means.
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- To define the effect of the socio-political context on the
representation of the President Bush's ideology.
- To suggest some practical implications in teaching and learning
authentic
materials.
3. Scope of the study
First, within the scope of this thesis, we wish to touch upon some
prominent features of a political speech to explore what linguistic strategies
Mr. Bush employs as well as how his ideologies are realized in the speech.
Second, during President G.W.Bush's tour of the Middle East from 8
to 16 January 2008, Mr. Bush visited 6 countries and made a number of
speeches. However, we only focus on the linguistic features of the speech
made by the President G.W.Bush on January 13, 2008 in the United Arab
Emirates.
Finally, we adopt the framework to analyze a political speech
including personal pronouns and lexicalization provided by Hilary Hillier
(2004) and two additional features: modality, naming referents in the study.
4. Methods of the study
- Reviewing related theories
- Quantifying and classifying materials
- Analyzing the selected data.
- Reaching some conclusions on the subject-matter under
investigation and accordingly giving necessary comments.
5. Design of the study
There are three main parts in this paper:
Part A: Introduction
This part presents the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the
thesis.

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Part B: Development
This part demonstrates three chapters:
Chapter1: Theoretical back ground
Chapter 2: Data analysis and Discussion
Chapter 3: Application for learning and teaching
Part C: Conclusion
The part summaries the major findings and provides some practical
applications as well as some suggestions for further researches. This part is
accompanied by a list of reference.

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Part B: Development
Chapter 1: Theoretical background

1.1. Discourse and Discourse Analysis
1.1.1. Discourse
The term "discourse" has been defined in different ways. According
to David Nunan (1995), a discourse "is stretch of language that may be
longer than one sentence". Barbara Johnstone (2002, p.2) asserts that
"discourse usually means actual instances of communication in the medium

of language". Moreover, Brown and Yule (1983, p.1) state very clearly".
Discourse …is language in use..."
In 1989, Guy Cook claims that there is one kind of language " which
has been used to communicate something and is felt to be coherent".This
kind of language - language in use, for communication is called "discourse
". Cook (1995, p.198) sees discourse as ''stretches of language perceived to
be meaningful, unified and purposive'' which seems to be widely
acceptable. In this thesis, the notion seems to be the best to adopt.
1.1.2. Discourse versus Text
The distinction between two terms text and discourse are rather
confusing .There is disagreement about the meaning of two terms.
For some writers, the terms seem to be used almost interchangeably.
Nunan (1995) claims that a text, or a discourse, is a stretch of language that
may be longer than one sentence while Crystal(1992, p.72) states that: a
text may be spoken or written, prose or verse, dialogue or monologue. It
may be any thing from a single proverb to a whole play from a momentary
cry for help to all day discussion in a committee.
Whereas, some other linguists see the two terms in different ways:
Brow and Yule (1983, p.6) who "use text as a technical term to refer to the
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verbal record of a communicative act''. Moreover, Crystal (1992, p.25)
defines discourse as " a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language
larger that a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit, such as a sermon,
argument, joke or narrative " and text as "a piece of naturally occurring
spoken, written or signed discourse identified for purposes of analysis. It is

often a language unit with a definable function, such as a conversation, a
poster."
From the above points of view, discourse can be perceived as a
whole communicative process, whereas text should be understood as the
verbal record or the linguistic product of that communicative process.
In brief, discourse and text are different but interrelated. We
advocate the claim of Widdowson (1984, p.100) suggesting that "Discourse
is a communicative process by means of interaction. Its situational outcome
is a change in a state of affairs: information is conveyed, intentions made
clear, its linguistic product is Text. "
1.1.3 Types of Discourse
In David Nunan (1995, p.16), discourse types can be classified in
terms of '' the communicative job they are doing''. We can divide the text in
to those that are basically transactional in nature, and those that are
basically

interpersonal.

Transactional

language

occurs

when

the

participants are concerned with the exchange of goods and services.
Whereas, interpersonal language occurs when the speakers are less

concerned with the exchange of goods and services and more with
socializing.
The first of these is transactional language. It is no doubt that
language is used to convey information from person to person. It is also
used to get business done.
For example, when a doctor tells a patient how to take medicine,
transactional language is used. Other cases would include a teacher
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lecturing his students on a subject, or a neighbor telling how he lost his car,
or someone giving direction "you should go straight a few blocks and turn
right, you can not miss it".
The second type is interpersonal. Obviously, humans use language
not only to transmit information but also to establish rapport, personal
relations or simply to maintain relations. That means language is used for
the purpose of establishing roles and relationships, consolidating
relationships, expressing solidarity. A simple example is someone at a busstop says to another person standing by: It's nice, isn't it? That would make
no sense to think that he actually gives the information that "it is nice".
Rather it is primarily to indicate his wish to start a talk with the other
person.
This distinction between language which is used to get goods and
services, and language which is used to fulfill a social purpose is a common
one in the literature (see, for example, Brown and Yule, 1983). This does
not mean that a text will only exhibit one or other of these functions. Many
interactions that are essentially transactional will also exhibit social
functions, while essentially social interactions can contain transactional

elements. Both transactional and interpersonal functions of language are
taken into account in this study.
1.1.4. Discourse Analysis
Michael McCarthy (1991) states that discourse analysis is concerned
with the study of the relationship between language and the contexts in
which it is used. It means that it involves the study of language in use:
written texts of all kinds, and spoken data, from conversations to highly
institutionalized forms of talk. It deals with language in use, used to
communicate something and felt to be coherent. In other words, discourse
analysis investigates the way sentences are put to serve communicative use
in performing social actions.
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Therefore, discourse analysis can be considered to be the study of
how and for what purpose language is used in a certain context of situation,
and the linguistic means to implement these purposes.
1.2. Spoken language versus written language
Spoken language and written language are seen to have common
features as well as different ones. Some linguists see common points
between these two forms of language. David Nunan (1995) claims that they
both perform an equivalent range of broad functions. It means that they
both are employed to get things done, to provide information and to
entertain. Approvingly, Michael McCarthy (1991, p.150) claims that "both
spoken and written discourses are dependent on their immediate contexts to
a greater or lesser degree", and "implicitness and explicitness [of the
language being used] will depend on what is being communicated to

whom, rather than merely on whether the discourse is spoken or written".
On the other hand, it has been widely agreed by linguists that there
are differences between written and spoken language. In 1985, Halliday
states that writing emerged in society as a result of cultural changes which
met new communicative needs that could not be satisfied by the spoken
language. Brown and Yule (1983) additionally propose the differences
between written and spoken language are considered in terms of forms.
In short, although spoken and written language are two different
forms of language, there are common things between them and the
differences are not absolute. Moreover, the features that we tend to
associate with written language can sometimes occur in spoken language
and vice versa. This means that some spoken texts will be more like written
texts than others, when some written texts will be more like spoken texts
than others. Since the speech under investigation is written to be spoken
and features of both written and spoken language can be found in the data.

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1.3. Context
1.3.1. What is context?
The concept of context of situation (or context in short) has been
well defined by many linguists. It has been widely agreed that context plays
an important part in interpreting a discourse.
According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), when responding to a
passage or speech of writing, the listener or reader uses both linguistic
clues and situational ones: linguistically, he responds to specific features

which bind the passage together, the pattern of connection, structures 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, who is involved.
Approvingly, David Nunan (1995) suggests a concept and a
classification of context as follows:
Context refers to the situation giving rise to the discourse, and within
which the discourse is embedded. There are two different 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 nonlinguistic or experiential context within which 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 event, the setting including location, time of day, season of year and
physical aspects of the situation (for example, size of the room,
arrangement of furniture); the participants and the relationships between
them; and the background knowledge and assumptions underlying the
communicative event.
And the importance of context towards discourse interpretation is
apparently undeniable, as Cook (1989) asserts:

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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

Cook, in the same study of language in and out of context, adds that
when we receive a linguistic message, we pay attention to many other
factors apart from the language itself, which he terms "paralinguistic
features". In receiving messages, we are also influenced by the situation we
are in, "by our cultural and social relationships with the participants, by
what we know and what we assume the sender knows.
For all the facts above, both linguistic and non-linguistic contexts are
taken into account in this study. It is because of the fact that the speech, as
an actual use of language, is obviously concerned with linguistic factors but
the interpretation of that use greatly relies on non- linguistic features of
discourse as well.
1.3.2. Context versus co-text
Both context and co-text are important in discourse interpretation but
obviously they are different from one another. Context is concerned with
non- linguistic (external) elements whereas co-text with linguistic (internal)
ones.
David Nunan (1995) holds that co-text is considered the linguistic
element and context the non-linguistic one. In specific, Brown and Yule
(1983) state that "any sentence other than the first in a fragment of
discourse will have the whole of its interpretation forcibly constrained by
the proceeding text" and "the words occur in discourse are constrained by
their co-text." Halliday, additionally, proposes that co-text is the stretch of
language that occurs before or after the utterance which needs to be
interpreted.

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1.4. Cohesion
1.4.1. Cohesion and coherence
Cohesion and coherence are two major issues in theories of discourse
analysis. They are tightly related to each other. However, their relations to
discourse analysis are clearly different.
The important thing is that cohesion and coherence are interrelated.
Halliday and Hasan prove 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. Therefore,
cohesion is of great significance to the interpretation of discourse or
coherence.
Cohesion is seen as one of the ways of creating coherence but it is a
mistake to identify it with coherence, and to assume that there is one-to-one
correspondence between them. Coherence sometimes can be realized
without any recourse to cohesion. Let us have a look at the simple
following example:
A: My car's broken down
B: There's a garage down the road
The mini- exchange shows that although cohesion is missing here,
the utterances of A and B still tick and the text has overall coherence.
"There's a garage down the road" is connected with the fact that a garage is
where people have their broken cars fixed.
Furthermore, many linguists widely approve of Nunan's separation
(1993) between cohesion and coherence. He states "coherence is the extent
to which discourse is perceived to hang together rather than a set of
unrelated sentences or utterances" and cohesion is "formal links showing
the relationships among clauses and among sentences in discourse". It is

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therefore safe to state that cohesion is of linguistic means while coherence
is perceived by language interpreters.
Additionally, Halliday and Hasan [7; 23], a text is a passage of
discourse which is coherent in two regards. It is coherent with respect to
the context of situation, and therefore consistent in register. Moreover, a
text is coherent with regard to itself and therefore cohesive. Hence,
cohesion is only a guide to coherence and coherence is something created
by the reader in the act of reading a text.
Cohesion

Coherence

- Is in the text

- Is in the reader / listener 's mind

- Grammatical / lexical links

-The feeling that the text makes

- Clues / signals / guide to coherence sense
- The reader has to create coherence
Table 1.1 Cohesion and coherence

In short, Cohesion plays a greatly important part in creating
coherence but does not guarantee coherence, which is best considered as
the feeling that the discourse hangs together and that it makes sense.
1.5. Modality
* Concept of modality
Discourse analysts have demonstrated that modality is fundamental
in the creation of discourse. Palmer (1986) suggests a concept of modality
as follows: "Modality in language is concerned with utterances of nonfactual kinds and with subjective characteristics of an utterance and that
subjectivity is of the greatest importance for the understanding of
modality".
The view point of Palmer is much similar to that of Downing and
Locke (1985) who claim that modality is defined as the semantic category
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by which the speakers express their attitude towards the event contained in
the proposition as possibility, probability, and necessity.
* Modal meanings
As Holmes (1983) and Hermeren (1978) assert, modal meanings are
degrees of certainty, possibility, probability, volition, permission, and
obligation.
Michael McCarthy (1991) additionally claims that important
information about the stance and the attitude of the sender to the message
can be carried by all the words. They are concerned with interpersonal
meaning, assertion, tentativeness, commitment, etc.
* Ways of marking modality
According to Michael McCarthy (1991), modality is often thought of

as the province of the closed class of modal verbs(must, may, can, will,
etc.) and treated as part of grammar of English, but a large number of
"lexical" words (nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs) carry the same or
similar meanings to the modal verbs.
In addition, both Holmes's and Hermeren's data show that vocabulary
of modality includes verbs such as appear, assume, doubt, guess, look as
if, suggest, think, adverbs such as actually, certainly, inevitably, obviously
and related nouns and adjectives. It is noticeable that verbs and adverbs are
more frequently used to convey modality than nouns and adjectives.
In short, the all-pervasiveness of modality in spoken and written
language is undeniable. Hence, it is necessary to take account of modality
when interpreting the speech.

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Chapter 2: Data analysis and Discussion

2.1 Background of the speech
Generally speaking, context plays an important part in analysing and
interpreting a discourse. It is consequently necessary to give some brief
information about the context of the speech.
Mr. Bush is considered to be the most powerful leader of America
which is one of the most powerful nations in the world. He went to the
Middle East when he had exactly a year left in office. A lot of unfinished
work needs to be done before the moment of time.
It is noticing that the Middle East has been known to be place that

has suffered so much from stagnancy. It is believed that the cause of this
situation is the lack of freedom as the President Bush (2003) claims" this
freedom deficit undermines human development and is one of the most
painful manifestations of lagging political development".
During the trip, Mr. Bush has been to six countries to solve sensitive
issues: the fight against violent extremists, freedom and justice in the
Middle East, Iran's ambition and Reconciliation in the Holy land. And on
January 13, 2008 in the United Arab Emirates, he made this speech. This is
his usual speech about "Freedom and Democracy" but this time he has
seemed more nuanced in his statements on this trip than he perhaps had in
the past. He also seemed to have a firm grip of the issues as he saw them.
2.2 Data analysis
2.2.1 Pronoun choice
According to Fairclough (2000), identified use of personal pronouns
is considered to be significant in discourse analysis. Therefore, a detailed
examination of all personal pronoun choices is likely to be a fruitful area of
enquiry, in assessing how personal reference (including speaker and
addressees) is manifested and what that might imply about the way the
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relationship between speaker and audience is perceived. In this part, we
will take account of how Mr. President uses personal pronouns, especially
first person pronouns "I", "we", and second person pronoun "you".
Moreover, how it tells us about his ideologies will also be under
consideration.
It is necessary to note that the analysis includes the designation

"personal pronouns" all of the pronouns which Crystal (1996, p.148) and
Quirk (1985, p346) categorize as the "central pronouns", that is the
personal, possessive and reflexive pronouns. And they have distinctions of
persons: the first person refers to the speaker (I), or to the speaker and one
or more others (we); the second person refers to the person (s) addressed
(you); the third person refers to the one or more other persons or things
(he/she/it, they). Interpretation of possible meanings in each case would be
considered at the stage of analysis.
The personal pronouns are set out in Table 2.1 below
Person

First

Personal

Possessive

Reflexive

Singular

Plural

Singular

Plural

Singular

Plural

I, me

we, us

my,

our, ours

myself

ourselves

your,

your,

yourself

yourselves

yours

yours
themselves

mine
Second

Third

you

you

he, him,

they,

his, her,

their,

him-/

she, her,

them

hers, its

theirs

her-

it

/itself
Table 2.1 Personal pronouns

In specific, we wish to present our findings about the different
pronouns that Bush chooses. Results have been calculated according to
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Bush's choice in each case and as a proportion of total pronouns used
overall.
The choices for all persons are therefore examined in some detail in
the following subsections.
total

First person

271

Second person

Third person

Number

%

Number

%

Number

%

69

25.4

90

33.2

112

41.4

Table 2.2 Personal Pronouns (including possessive and reflexive):
in proportions to total pronouns used.
This table shows that Mr. President selects a great number of
different pronouns. However, the noticeable thing is that his choices for
second person and third person pronouns make up a great proportion.
2.2.1.1. First person pronouns
The table 2.3 shows the number of first person pronouns used,
further differentiating between singular and plural pronouns. It illustrates
that total first person pronouns make up 25.4 % of total pronouns. It is
notable that Bush uses a far higher proportion of first person plural pronoun
than first person singular one. His use of "we" and its variants is more than
six times as often as "I": 22.1 % of all first person plural pronouns
compared with only 3.3 % of singular ones. The different choices and their
meanings are examined below.

Total

Total first person

First person

First person

pronouns

pronouns

singular

plural

271

Number

%

Number

%

Number

%

69

25.4

9

3.3

60

22.1

Table 2.3 First person pronouns - singular and plural:
numbers and proportions of total pronouns used.
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* The use of first person singular pronoun
It should be noted that the speaker, Mr. Bush, is considered to be one
of the world's most powerful leaders. Additionally, this is an inter-nation
speech in which the speaker is the guest and the audience is the hosts.
Thus, diplomatic strategies are used to make a rapport with the audience.
At the beginning of the speech, Mr. .Bush utilizes the pronoun "I" to
refer to him as an individual. He constructs an impression that he brings
with him a spirit of understanding, appreciation and hope.
Doctor Aida, thank you very much for the kind introduction (1).
Ministers, members of the diplomatic corps, and distinguished guests: I am

honored by the opportunity to stand on Arab soil and speak to the people of
this nation and this region (2)… I'm proud to stand in a nation where the
people have an opportunity to build a better future for themselves and their
families (18).
In addition, he uses "I" to reinforce the image of his own
competency. It may result in a feeling that Mr. Bush is exerting his
personal authority and control on other people or nations. His stance is
personal and unique:
So today I would like to speak directly to the people of the Middle
East (142).
* The use of first person plural pronoun
As mentioned above, "we" represents the speaker together with some
other person(s), among the addressee(s) may or may not included. And
"addressee " is used in preference to hearer or listener in order to suggest
the meaning" person designed by the speaker as recipient of the
communication". Hence, the first person plural pronoun ''we'' (with its
variants) is, of course, ambiguous in terms of potential meaning, because it
can mean either inclusion or exclusion of addressee/s.

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It would seem that there are two potential referents for ''we'': an
inclusive ''we'' - the speaker and audience and possibly other people
contrasting with an exclusive ''we'', excluding the audience.
In the first case, ''we'' is inclusive of addressee. It is important to see
that the relevant addressee can be extended to include the people of Arab in

general.
As Suleiman and O'Connell (2007, p.77) claims, "The use of
pronouns and address terms reveals the speaker's perspective by forging
closeness or distance with other groups". Thus, we can see obviously that
the use of inclusive "we/ our" takes an important role in representing the
common ground between the speaker and the addressee in the speech.
Talking about the fight against extremism, Bush uses lots of
inclusive" we" as follows:
The fight against the forces of extremism is the great ideological
struggle of our time (52). And in this fight, our nations have a weapon
more powerful than bombs or bullets (53). It is the desire for freedom and
justice written into our hearts by Almighty God -- and no terrorist or tyrant
can take that away (54)... And together we'll defeat our common enemies
(158).
The repetition of inclusive "we" implies the fact that these nations
have the same ideologies and fight against extremism. It consequently
makes the audience believe that "we" is different from "them" and the fight
against extremists requires cooperation among nations. Thus, they must
have a real stake in the common fight for the common desire. This strategy
is helpful in the solidarity enhancement between the speaker and the
audience.
In the second instance, the ''we'' is exclusive of addressee: that is,
"we" refers to the Americans (including the speaker). It is considered to

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bear some close relevance to the addressees known as the Arab people
(called "you")
In his usual speeches about international issues, President Bush
imposes power on the other countries. He is assumed to have the right to
speak to the entire nations by using exclusive "we". In this speech, he
additionally shows the support of the Americans (called "we") to the Arab
people in the fight against terrorists or extremists and then in the process of
reconciliation for the region. The repetition of "we" helps bring about a
feeling that the United States of America is consequently said to be the best
friend of the Arabs.
The United States joins you in your commitment to the freedom and
security of this region -- and we will not abandon you to terrorists or
extremists (51)…. And we will support you as you work to ensure the
security of your people -- and bring peace and reconciliation to the Holy
Land (151).
2.2.1.2. Second person pronoun
The table 2.4 indicates the number of second person pronouns that
Mr. Bush employs in proportion to his total pronoun usage. Second person
pronouns represent a rather large proportion of total pronoun used- 90 uses
holding 33.2 %. Mr. Bush, therefore, makes frequent explicit reference to
an addressee or group of addressees who are separate from the speaker.
Total pronouns
271

Total second
person
90

%
33.2

Table 2.4 Second person pronouns: numbers and proportions
of total pronoun used
By using second person pronoun, Mr. Bush portrays the audience
positively and thereby establishing a good rapport with them. With eight
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repetitions of "you/your", the positive image of the audience is directly
addressed and accentuated. Through the appreciation of economics'
achievements, holding election, and freedom for women, Mr. Bush implies
that he understands the people here.
Beginning with the revered father of this country -- Sheikh Zayed -you have succeeded in building a prosperous society out of the desert (13).
You have opened your doors to the world economy (14). You have
encouraged women to contribute to the development of your nation -- and
they have occupied some of your highest ministerial posts (15). You have
held historic elections for the Federal National Council (16). You have
shown the world a model of a Muslim state that is tolerant toward people
of other faiths (17).
Added to that, Fortanet (2005) states that "you" are frequently used
to express an exhortation to the audience. And in this speech, Mr. Bush
strengthens the rapport with particular audience by making frequent
reference to group of addressees. It can be found in these paragraphs
below:
To the people of Israel: You know that peace and reconciliation
with your neighbors is the best path to long-term security (148)… To the
people of Iraq: You have made your choice for democracy, and you have

stood firm in face of terrible acts of murder (152)… To the people of Iran:
You are rich in culture and talent (158)…
However, it is noteworthy that the use of "you" in some certain cases
allows a degree of ambiguity when "you" is employed to refer to Arab
people in general, as a claim of solidarity with them.
And finally, to the people of the Middle East: We hear your cries for
justice (170). We share your desire for a free and prosperous future (171).
And as you struggle to find your voice and make your way in this world,
the United States will stand with you (172).
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2.2.1.3. Third person pronouns
Table 2.5 compares the use of third person pronouns, differentiating
between the singular and plural pronouns. It shows that over two-fifth of
Bush's pronouns is in the third person, seizing 41.4 %. It is obvious that he
prefers the plural form to the singular one.
Total

Total third person

Third person

Third person

pronouns

pronouns

singular

plural

271

Number

%

Number

%

Number

%

112

41.4

42

15.5

70

25.9

Table 2.5 Third person pronouns - singular and plural:
numbers and proportions of total pronouns used

The most distinctive feature of his using third person pronouns is
drawing a negative portrayal for "them". By repeating "they "and its
variants twelve times, he straightly addresses and underscores their passive
image. This may result in the reader's mind a dark picture of violent
extremists.
These extremists have hijacked the noble religion of Islam, and seek
to impose their totalitarian ideology on millions (28). They hate freedom
and they hate democracy -- because it fosters religious tolerance and
allows people to chart their own future (29). They hate your government
because it does not share their dark vision (30). They hate the United
States because they know we stand with you in opposition to their brutal
ambitions (31). And everywhere they go, they use murder and fear to
foment instability to advance their aims (32)…
Moreover, the use of the singular form of the third person pronoun
seem to be remarkable, especially when it is employed to describe" the
world's leading state sponsor of terror today", Iran.
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