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Part of
Let's talk politics: New essays on deliberative rhetoric
Edited by Hilde Van Belle, Kris Rutten, Paul Gillaerts, Dorien Van De Mieroop and Baldwin Van Gorp
[Argumentation in Context 6] 2014
► pp. 149–169

US National Security Strategy

Different presidencies, different rhetoric?

The paper analyzes strategic maneuvering in National Security Strategy reports, crucial documents within the repertoire of US presidential discourse, whereby the Administration’s plans for security are laid out before the Congress and the world. Building on the pragma-dialectical approach, and drawing at the same time on the linguistic-oriented discourse analytic frame, the study contributes to testing the viability of putting the quantitative tools of corpus linguistics to use for the analysis of argumentation. Findings show that while maintaining substantial generic integrity, and sharing to a certain extent a common set of values, NSS reports produced by different administrations differ greatly in terms of topical selection, adaptation to the audience and presentational devices.
Published online: 30 April 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/aic.6.09deg
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