How to justify a war: critical discourse analysis of the speeches given by Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama and Donald Trump
DOI
https://doi.org/10.25267/Pragmalinguistica.2023.i31.11Info
Authors
- Alicia Mariscal Ríos (ES) Universidad de Cádiz https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5622-4199
Abstract
In this paper we analyse, within the framework of Pragmatics and Critical Discourse Analysis, Vladimir Putin’s speech on February 24, 2022, where he announced the war between Russia and Ukraine, euphemistically called “special military operation”. His declaration of war will be compared with those made by Barack Obama and Donald Trump at the start of the military conflict of the United States against Libya and Syria, respectively. According to our hypothesis, the principles of “just” wars (Just War Theory) will be present in the three speeches, in order to legitimise their decision before the audience, and convince them of its inevitability. To identify this, the qualitative analysis of each corpus is complemented with data provided by Sketch Engine. The results show similarities among the three speeches, with only some minor differences regarding the reason for the attack and the threat they pose to their enemy.
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Copyright (c) 2023 Alicia Mariscal Ríos
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