This article explores legitimacy-building in United States President’s 2013 Address to the Nation on Syria. Based on a slightly modified version of Theo van Leeuwen’s (2008) model of the discursive construction of legitimation and with a view of the war in Syria as the super-macro context of the Address, the investigation illustrates how the speech attempts to legitimate the prospect of a direct American military engagement in Syria on the one hand, and to justify avoiding another war that may prove too costly, on the other. Through the illustration of such double-legitimation discursive practices, the study portrays how critical discourse studies can provide the ground for awareness of a delicate aspect of the discourse of politics and the rhetoric of politicians in shaping public consent and projecting an always-legitimate image of even contradictory political positions, decisions, and actions.
Aune, James A., and Martin J. Medhurst (eds). 2008. The Prospect of Presidential Rhetoric. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.
Austermuhl, Frank. 2002. “‘Creating hope’ – Narrative Strategies in Bill Clinton’s Rhetoric.” In Investigations of Narrative Structures, ed. by Horst W. Drescher, Christian Todenhagen, and Wolfgang Thiele, 129–151. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Ben-Porath, Eran N.2008. Presidents Creating the Presidency: Deeds Done in Words. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Billig, Michael. 2003. “Critical Discourse Analysis and the Rhetoric of Critique.” In Critical Discourse Analysis: Theory and Interdisciplinarity, ed. by Gilbert Weiss, and Ruth Wodak, 35–46. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Black, Ian. 2015. “US Axes $500m Scheme to Train Syrian Rebels, Says NYT.” The Guardian, October9. Accessed April 19, 2016. [URL].
Borger, Julian, and Nick Hopkins. 2013. “West Training Syrian rebels in Jordan.” The Guardian, March8. Accessed April 19, 2016. [URL].
Boyd, Michael S.2009. “De-Constructing Race and Identity in US Presidential Discourse: Barack Obama’s Speech on Race.” ATLANTIS: Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies 31 (2): 75–94.
Cap, Piotr. 2002. Explorations in Political Discourse: Methodological and Critical Perspectives. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.
Cap, Piotr. 2006. Legitimisation in Political Discourse: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective on the Modern US War Rhetoric. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Council on Foreign Relations. 2016. “Council on Foreign Relations, Global Conflict Tracker.” Accessed April19, 2016. [URL]
Chang, Gordon C., and Hugh B. Mehan. 2008. “Why We Must Attack Iraq: Bush’s Reasoning Practices and Argumentation System.” Discourse Society 19 (4): 453–482.
Charteris-Black, Jonathan. 2013. Analysing Political Speeches: Rhetoric, Discourse and Metaphor. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Chilton, Paul. 2004. Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge.
Cooper, Tom. 2014. Syrian Conflagration: The Syrian Civil War, 2011–2013. Solihull: Helion.
Dagher, Sam, and Farnaz Fassihi. 2013, August22. “Syria Presses Offensive, Shrugs off Gas Attack Claims.” The Wall Street Journal.
de Gialdino, Vasilachis. 2010. “Labour, Workers and Work: Sociological and Linguistic Analysis of Political Discourse.” Critical Discourse Studies 7 (3): 203–217.
Fairclough, Norman. 1989. Language and Power. London: Longman.
Fairclough, Norman. 2012. “Critical Discourse Analysis.” In The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ed. by James Paul Gee, and Michael Handford, 9–20. New York: Routledge.
Fairclough, Isabela, and Norman Fairclough. 2012. Political Discourse Analysis: A Method for Advanced Students. London: Routledge.
Fetzer, Anita, and Peter Bull. 2012. “Semantic Processes and Pragmatic Inferences.” Discourse Society 23 (2): 127–144.
Gale, Tammy A.2010. “Ideologies of Violence: A Corpus and Discourse Analytic Approach to Stance in Threatening Communications.” Doctoral Dissertation, University of California, Davis, USA.
Hart, Christopher, and Piotr Cap (eds). 2014. Contemporary Critical Discourse Studies. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Hodges, Adam. 2011. The “War on Terror” Narrative: Discourse and Intertextuality in the Construction and Contestation of Sociopolitical Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Krzyzanowski, Michal. 2014. “Values, Imaginaries and Templates of Journalistic Practice: A Critical Discourse Analysis.” Social Semiotics 24 (3): 345–365.
Lu, Louis Wei-Lun. 2008. “Ideological Influence on BUILDING Metaphors in Taiwanese Presidential Speeches.” Discourse and Society 19 (3): 383–408.
Maalej, Zouhair. 2012. “The ‘Jasmine Revolt’ has Made the ‘Arab Spring’: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Last Three Political Speeches of the Ousted President of Tunisia.” Discourse Society 23 (6): 679–700.
McElroy, Damien. 2013. “UN Accuses Syrian Rebels of Chemical Weapons Use.” The Telegraph, May6.
Neagu, Maria-Ionela. 2013. Decoding Political Discourse: Conceptual Metaphors and Argumentation. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Oddo, John. 2011. “War Legitimation Discourse: Representing ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ in Four US Presidential Addresses.” Discourse and Society 22 (3): 287–314.
Olanrewaju, Faith, and Segun Joshua. 2015. “The Diplomatic Dimensions of the Syrian Conflict.” Jadavpur Journal of International Relations 19 (1): 43–63.
Peters, Gjalt-Jorn Ygram, Robert A. Ruiter, and Gerjo Kok. 2013. “Threatening Communication: A Critical Re-Analysis and a Revised Meta-Analytic Test of Fear Appeal Theory.” Health Psychology Review 7 (1): 8–31.
Reyes-Rodriguez, Antonio. 2008. “Discursive Strategies in Chavez’s Political Discourse: Voicing, Distancing, and Dhifting.” Critical Discourse Studies 5 (2): 133–152.
Reyes-Rodriguez, Antonio. 2011. “Strategies of Legitimization in Political Discourse: From Words to Actions.” Discourse Society 22 (6): 781–807.
Richani, Nazih. 2016. “The Political Economy and Complex Interdependency of the War System in Syria.” Civil Wars 18 (1): 45–68.
Ruiter, Rob. A. C., Bas Verplanken, David De Cremer, and Gerjo Kok. 2004. “Danger and Fear Control in Response to Fear Appeals: The Role of Need for Cognition.” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 26 (1): 13–24.
Salama, Amir H. Y.2012. “The Rhetoric of Collocational, Intertextual and Institutional Pluralization in Obama’s Cairo Speech: A Discourse-Analytical Approach.” Critical Discourse Studies 9 (3): 211–229.
Shukry, Azimah S. M.2013. “A Critical Discourse Analysis of Mahathir Mohamad’s Speeches on the “War on Terror”.” Intellectual Discourse 21 (2): 171–195.
Solomon, Jay, and Nour Malas. 2012. “U.S. Bolsters Ties to Fighters in Syria.” The Wall Street Journal, June13. Accessed April 19, 2016. [URL]
Van Dijk, Teun A.1995. “Discourse Analysis as Ideology Analysis.” In Language and Peace, ed. by Christina Schaffner, and Anita Wenden, 17–33. Aldershot: Dartmouth.
Van Dijk, Teun A.1997. Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction. London: Sage.
Van Dijk, Teun A.2002. “Political Discourse and Political Cognition.” In Politics as Text and Talk: Analytical Approaches to Political Discourse, ed. by Paul Chilton, and Christina Schaffner, 204–236. Amsterdam: John Benjamines.
Van Dijk, Teun A.2006a. “Discourse and Manipulation.” Discourse and Society 17 (2): 359–383.
Van Dijk, Teun A.2006b. “Politics, Ideology and Discourse.” In Elsevier Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd ed.), ed. by Ruth Wodak, 728–740. Oxford: Elsevier.
Van Dijk, Teun A.2007. “Macro Contexts.” In Discourse and International Relations, ed. by Dagmar Scheu Lottgen, and Jose Saura Sanchez, 3–26. Bern: Lang.
Van Dijk, Teun A.2009. Society and Discourse: How Social Contexts Influence Text and Talk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Van Dijk, Teun A.2012. “Discourse and Knowledge.” In Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ed. by James Paul Gee, and Michael Handford, 587–603. London: Routledge.
Van Dijk, Teun A.2015. “Critical Discourse Analysis.” In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (2nd ed), ed. by Deborah Tannen, Heidi E. Hamilton, and Deborah Schiffrin, 466–485. Oxford: Blackwell.
Van Leeuwen, Theo. 2007. “Legitimation in Discourse and Communication.” Discourse and Communication 1 (1): 91–112.
Van Leeuwen, Theo. 2008. Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Van Leeuwen, Theo. 2009. “Critical Discourse Analysis.” In Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics (2nd ed), ed. by Jacob L. May, 166–169. Oxford: Elsevier.
Van Leeuwen, Theo, and Ruth Wodak. 1999. ”Legitimizing Immigration Control: A Discourse-Historical Perspective.” Discourse Studies 1 (1): 83–118.
Wakim, Jamal. 2013. The Struggle of Major Powers Over Syria. Reading: Ithaca Press.
White House. 2013. “Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on Syria.” The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, September10, 2013. Accessed April 19, 2016. [URL]
Wieczorek, Anna Ewa. 2008. “Proximisation, Common Ground, and Assertion-Based Patterns for Legitimisation in Political Discourse.” Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines 2 (1): 31–48.
Wilson, Scott, and Joby Warrick. 2011. “Assad Must Go, Obama Says.” The Washington Post, August18. Accessed April 19, 2016. [URL]
Wodak, Ruth. 2009. The Discourse of Politics in Action: Politics as Usual. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wodak, Ruth. 2012. “Politics as Usual: Investigating Political Discourse in Action.” In The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ed. by James Paul Gee, and Michael Handford, 525–540. New York: Routledge.
Wodak, Ruth, Wimston Kwon, and Ian Clarke. 2011. “‘Getting People on Board’: Discursive Leadership for Consensus Building in Team Meetings.” Discourse and Society 22 (5): 592–644.
Cited by (8)
Cited by eight other publications
Chaemsaithong, Krisda & Yoonjeong Kim
2023. Making death (in)different: discursive legitimation in death trials. Social Semiotics 33:4 ► pp. 841 ff.
Chaemsaithong, Krisda
2022. Moral legitimation in capital trials: the case of the prosecution’s closing summation. Text & Talk 42:6 ► pp. 849 ff.
Goulding, Stephen
2022. Against a Hard-Earned Peace. In Discourse, Media, and Conflict, ► pp. 162 ff.
Li, Ke & Xiaonan Gong
2022. Proximization: a critical cognitive analysis of health security discourse. Text & Talk 42:5 ► pp. 713 ff.
Cheng, Xi
2021. Legitimation strategies in discourse surrounding Sino-American trade friction: A case study of Chinese government white papers. Discourse & Communication 15:3 ► pp. 241 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. 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.