Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics: Online-First Articles

Exploring the evolution of the concept of liberty in the U.S. presidential inaugurals

ORCID logo | University of Valencia
ORCID logo | University of Valencia
As daily news unveils, fundamental human values such as equality and liberty can be expressed through various terms influenced by multiple factors, reaching significant levels of disparity, ambiguity and controversy, particularly in specific socio-political contexts. This article employs advanced corpus analysis tools to examine the lexical and semantic configuration of the “right to liberty” as expressed in the U.S. Declaration of Independence and as North American presidents have transmitted it throughout their presidential inaugural addresses. The corpus of speeches is analyzed diachronically to identify the prevalent terms, connotations, and associated semantic categories and observe their differences and evolution. This research provides a comprehensive understanding of the concept of liberty in this context and highlights its startling malleability in American politics.
Keywords: American presidents, applied linguistics, human rights, political discourse
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction and background
  • 2.Distinctiveness of presidential inaugural addresses
  • 3.Methodology
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Description and characterization of the CARs associated with liberty
    • 4.2Description and frequency of references to liberty according to the presidents
  • 5.Conclusion
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 21 October 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.24103.gim
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