engleski

Newspeak Revisited - Euphemisms by George W. Bush and Barack Obama

There have always been topics difficult or embarrassing to talk about, or simply those speakers (or writers) want to avoid (mostly for the reasons of own face saving). Politicians, particularly presidents of the USA, regularly find themselves in situations where they have to talk about topics they would rather not address, for example, in the times of war. As Orwell stated half a century ago, political discourse is a fertile soil for euphemisms, thus being deceptive” language. The paper will try to answer the question of euphemism frequency in war related speeches regarding the topics and compare the number of speeches on war and the number of euphemisms of both recent presidents of the USA – George W. Bush and Barack Obama, as well as uncover the differences or similarities in the topics of euphemisation. Furthermore, it will attempt to present euphemisms in a different light, not merely as rhetorical figures (which has been most commonly the practice), but as complex linguistic expressions originating in cognitive mechanisms. Euphemisms were extracted from the speeches topically related to war by both presidents, and grouped by the topic of euphemisation, i.e. by the word or expression not directly uttered. They were then, within the topic of euphemisation, subdivided according to the cognitive mechanism they rely on – conceptual metaphor or metonymy. The results are expected to illuminate the differences in topics of euphemisation between the two presidents, since they belong to different political ideologies – conservative and progressive, and, therefore also different cognitive mechanisms euphemisms are based on. Following Lakoff’s work on conceptual frames in politics, it will also be attempted to reveal deep and surface conceptual frames these two politicians are trying to create in the minds of their listeners when it comes to euphemized topics. Individual conceptual frames of the listeners are important for the presidents who need support, but they also reveal a lot about the motives for not using certain words or expressions, in other words, for using euphemisms.

euphemism frequency, political discourse, topics of euphemisation, conceptual frames

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