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Article published In:
Pragmatics
Vol. 14:4 (2004) ► pp.499–525

Weapons of mass destruction

The unshared referents of Bush’s rhetoric

The polemics of political rhetoric encourage the implementation of presupposed referents as though they were assumed and shared. This paper examines the presupposed referents employed by the White House, concerning the urgency of invading Iraq, and countered by the political left. Details indicate that the White House was endeavoring to build an undeniable argument for invasion. Consequently, they had to employ definite noun phrases as first mentions of previously unshared referents in order to achieve the hidden didactic goal of pre-empting counter arguments. The Democrats, the liberals, and the media had to endeavor to overcome such presuppositions and explain that addressees neither shared nor identified the assumed referents. Appeals to fear and epistemological assessment are also examined. Insights from the analysis suggest that, given the conducive political temperament of the country prior to the November 2002 mid-term elections, forestalling argumentation by implementing definite noun phrases as if they were previously shared referents is highly efficacious.

Keywords: Superlatives, Unshared referents, Definiteness, Articles, Epistemology, Political language, Fear induction, Shared Social Reality, Presupposition
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 1 December 2004
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.14.4.05rud
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2014. References. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. 275 ff. DOI logo
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2014. Chapter V. Discourse participant profiling. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. 229 ff. DOI logo
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2014. Chapter IV. Indeterminate constructions. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. 187 ff. DOI logo
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2014. Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], DOI logo
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2014. Chapter II. Person deixis. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. 21 ff. DOI logo
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2014. List of abbreviations. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. xiii ff. DOI logo
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2014. List of figures. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. ix ff. DOI logo
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2014. Chapter VI. Conclusions and prospects for further research. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. 267 ff. DOI logo
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2014. Chapter III. Discourse participant profiling beyond 
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2014. Chapter I. General introduction. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
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2014. Acknowledgements. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. xv ff. DOI logo
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2014. List of tables. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. xi ff. DOI logo
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2014. Index. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. 303 ff. DOI logo

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