Constructing the “self” and the “other” in Bush’s political discourse before and after the Iraq war (2002–2008)
The article investigates the construction of the “self” and the “other” in George W. Bush’s political discourse before and after the Iraq war. Van Dijk’s ideological square theory is used to examine the group polarization of Us versus Them dichotomy. Halliday’s systemic functional grammar is utilised to analyse the speeches and to designate the strategies that Bush utilises to differentiate between the protagonist (America) and the antagonist (Iraq). Furthermore, the diachrony in Bush’s discourse regarding Iraq’s WMDs and Saddam Hussein is also examined. The results of the study indicated that before the invasion, Iraq was an active entity in upgrading its WMDs’ program and supporting terrorism. However, after the invasion, Iraq is now perceived as a beacon of hope in the Middle East, thus, justifying America’s illegitimate act of invading Iraq.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)
- 3.Van Dijk’s Ideological Square Theory
- 4.Analytical framework
- 5.Methodology
- 6.Discussion of findings
- 7.Conclusion
-
References
References (28)
References
Baker, Paul, and Ellece, Sibonile. 2011. Key Terms in Discourse Analysis. USA: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Cap, Piotr. 2015. “Follow-ups in the US anti-terrorist discourse: Proposal for a macro-discursive approach to monologic follow-up sequences.” Discourse & Society, in print. 

Carter, Ralph. 1998. “Congress and Post-Cold War U.S. Foreign Policy”. In After the End: Making U.S. Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War World, ed. by Scott, J. M, 108–137. Durham: Duke University Press. 

Chilton, Paul. 2004. Analysing political discourse: theory and practice. London: Routledge. 

‘Dicator’. 2006. Oxford Wordpower. UK: Oxford University Press.
Engel, Dominik. 2004. Modelling Self and Other: A Hybrid Approach to the Analysis of Images of Self and Other in the Radio Addresses Delivered by the American President Before and After 9/11. Master thesis: University of Salzburg.
Fairclough, Norman. 1989. Language and Power. London: Longman.
Fairclough, Norman. 2001. Language and Power, 2nd edition. London: Longman.
Graham, Phil., Keenan, Thomas., and Dowd, Anne-Maree. 2004. “A call to arms at the end of history: A discourse-historical analysis of George W. Bush’s declaration of war on terror.” Discourse & Society 15(2): 199–221. 

Halliday, Michael., and Christian Matthiessen. 2004. An introduction to functional grammar, 3rd edition. London: Arnold.
Hodge, Robert Ian V., and Kress Gunther R. 1993. Language as ideology. London: Routledge.
Kandil, Magdi A. 2009. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict in American, Arab, and British media: Corpus-based critical discourse analysis. Master thesis: Georgia State University.
Kull, Steven, Clay Ramsay., Stefan Subias., and Evan Lewis. 2004. US public beliefs on Iraq and the presidential election. Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) and Knowledge Networks. Available at [URL] (Accessed: January 6 2012).
Lazar, Annita., and Michelle M. Lazar. 2004. “The discourse of the new world order: ‘Out-casting’ the double face of threat.” Discourse & Society 15(2): 223–242. 

Oddo, John. 2011. “War legitimation discourse: Representing ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ in four US presidential addresses.” Discourse & Society 22(3): 287–314. 

‘Regime’. 2006. Oxford Wordpower. UK: Oxford University Press.
Simpson, Paul, and Andrea Mayr. 2009. Language and Power: A Resource Book for Students. UK: Routledge. 

Sowińska, Agnieszka. 2013. “A critical discourse approach to the analysis of values in political discourse: The example of freedom in President Bush’s State of the Union addresses (2001–2008).” Discourse & Society 24(6): 792–809. 

Thompson, Geoff. 2004. Introducing functional grammar. UK: Arnold.
Van Dijk, Teun A. 1998. “Opinions and ideologies in the Press.” In Approaches to Media Discourse, ed. by Allan, Bell., and P. Garrett, 21–63. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Van Dijk, Teun A. 2000. “Widening information gaps and policies of prevention.” In Digital democracy: Issues of theory and practice, ed. by Hacker, Kenneth L., and Teun A., Van Dijk, 166–183. London: Sage Publications. 

Van Dijk, Teun A. 2006. “Politics, ideology, and discourse.” In Encyclopedia of language and linguistics, ed. by Keith, Brown, 728–740. UK: Elsevier. 

Van Leeuwen, Theo. 1993. “Genre and field in critical discourse analysis: a synopsis.” Discourse and Society 4(2): 193–223. 

Weintraub, Megan. 2007. “The formative power of wartime rhetoric: A critical discursive analysis of presidential speeches.” Gnovis Journal 8(1): 48–63.
Williams, Michael. 2011. The good war: NATO and the liberal conscience in Afghanistan. UK: Palgrave Macmillan. 

Wodak, Ruth. 2001. “The Discourse-Historical Approach.” In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, ed. by Wodak, Ruth, and Michael Meyer, 63–94. London: Sage.
Wodak, Ruth, and Michael Meyer. 2001. “What CDA is about – a summary of its history, important concepts and its developments. In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, ed. by Wodak, Ruth, and Michael Meyer, 1–13. London: Sage.
Cited by (3)
Cited by three other publications
Zhao, Xin
2023.
Constructing the ‘us’ and ‘them’ dichotomy through the notion of responsibility: An integrated framework.
Global Media and Communication 19:1
► pp. 119 ff.

Wang, Xi
2021.
Construing Community with a Shared Future in President Xi Jinping’s Diplomatic Discourse (2013–2018): The Role of Personal Pronouns we and they.
Critical Arts 35:3
► pp. 35 ff.

Randour, François, Julien Perrez & Min Reuchamps
2020.
Twenty years of research on political discourse: A systematic review and directions for future research.
Discourse & Society 31:4
► pp. 428 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 january 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.