DISCOURSE OF BARACK H. OBAMA
2.3. Communicative strategy characteristics in the political discourse of Barack H. Obama
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− Pronoun We instead of I for the demonstration of solidarity, involvement, immersiveness and unity;
− Possessive pronouns my, our in combination with objects which don’t belong to the speaker in reality. It is done to show his special positive attitude towards these objects: our kids, my country;
− Parallel constructions, which compose stylistic gradation, for the expression of specified emotions, feelings and state of mind of the speaker.
− Opposition, contrast to display personal position of the speaker on some occasion;
− Transformation of handicaps into potential advantages in the eyes of others.
It is noteworthy that pre-election image of Barack H. Obama was constructed on the principle of happy medium88. All the qualities which were demonstrated by Obama as the future leader of the country build a very balanced image of harmonic personality in rapport with himself and others which represents stability.
2.3. Communicative strategy characteristics in the political discourse of Barack H. Obama
Political discourse of Barack Obama covers a lot of communicative developments of American political life, which are connected with each other. All of them are constituted into one political discourse, have the same Addressant and Recipient, and are realized in the same cultural, political and social environment (context).
Barack Obama is the author of two autobiographical books, «Dreams from My Father» (1995) and «The Audacity of Hope» (2006), which, in the opinion of many researchers, are of a great importance for the discourse analyzed.
88 Elena Kubrjakova. By the definition of the image // Issues. Cognitive Linguistics. – M., 2008. – p. 136.
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In point of fact, the most distinguished feature of Obama’s discourse is its autobiographic nature. There is a direct, expressly underlined thematic and ideological connection between the facts from the life of the president and his political discourse.
Autobiographical texts serve as the main texts in the discourse of Barack Obama. They reflect a variety of big issues concerning American nation and, in fact, the main standings of the discourse are concentrated in his autobiographical books. Messages to the Parliament include only a few of them.
The main issues discussed in the books are listed in the names of the chapters: racial inequality, health care and education, alternative sources of energy, family, youth problems, the problem of nation disunity, religion, politics, and world outside the United States. The fact that the topics cited predominate not only in the autobiographical editions, but in all texts of the president’s discourse, is proved by computerized quantitative analysis of recurrence lexicon in Obama’s discourse and phased comparative analysis of autobiographical texts and speeches of the political leader.
Autobiographical works that have artistic merit fulfill esthetic function in the discourse of Barack Obama, which the researchers determine as follows:
“Formerly esthetic function dealt primarily with art, fiction as a special unique sphere of human existence expression. Literary text influences on the reader rationally as well as emotionally-sensuous; relaying on artistry, beauty, i.e. esthetic constituent of information”89. Autobiographical nature of Obama’s discourse shows the aspiration of the president to aestheticization of his discourse; wish to dress the semantic content of the message in attractive form.
Autobiographical nature of the discourse causes the change of the politician’s attitude to some traditions of the American political discourse. The researches speak about so called “Civil religion”. It means the existence of faith not only in God, but in endless possibilities of governmental system. Americans
89 Valeria Chernyavskaya. Text linguistics: polycodes, intertextuality, interdiscoursity. – M.: Publishing house
«Librokom», 2009. - pp. 90-91.
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are a very religious nation90, and their faith is closely connected with pragmatism and honesty. Max Weber, in his work “The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism”, notices that believe in God and membership in one of the churches are always considered as “absolute guarantee of ethic qualities of a gentlemen, and first of all, his business qualities” 91 . Speaking about American religiosity, an American sociologist Robert N. Bellah comes to the conclusion that in spite of obvious religiosity of American political discourse, it is deprived of any certain confession. God is understood non-traditionally. In the words of Bellah, “the God of civil religion to a greater degree ties into order, law and justice than salvation and love”. Hence, we can see the substitution of terms, which is common with American lingvocultiral society: “God” here is a new social order. Belief in
“God” doesn’t mean the faith in transcendental substance, as it is supposed to be, but more like the consequence of this faith (following ethic norms and rules), and also the faith in new life conditions, democracy and liberty. Civil religion changes the referent of religious notions, adapting them to the needs of new democratic society.
American political elite avoids appellation to Christian motives and characters, replacing them with lexical items “God”, “Lord” etc. Instead of divine nature these words mean order, legitimacy and fairness. Using of lexical items
“Jesus”, “Christ” as well as retelling of Christian stories is rather critical.
By all means, Barack Obama follows all these lingvocultural principles.
As well as his precessors, president often refers to “God” in his oral practice.
Many of his speeches finish with the following quote: «Thank you, God bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America» [Obama, 2010].
«Virginia, let’s go change the world. God bless you and God bless the United States of America» [Obama, 2008].
In this case, lexical item “God” can be discussed in its usual meaning: «the spirit or being who Christians, Jews, Muslims etc pray to, and who they believe
90 George Santayana. Character and Opinion in the United States. – M.: Idea-press, 2003. - p. 14.
91 Max Weber. Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. – Covier Dover Publications, - 2003. – p. 45.
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created the universe» [LDCE]. Nevertheless, in some contexts the rendering of the given lexical item can be dual. It can be used to mark the spiritual entity (5) or social order (6).
(5) «We should never forget that God granted us the power to reason so that we would do His work here on Earth – so that we would use science to cure disease, and heal the sick, and save lives» [Obama, 2009].
(6) «It’s the idea that while there are few guarantees in life, you should be able to count on a job that pays the bills; health care for when you need it; a pension for when you retire; an education for your children that will allow them to fulfill their Godgiven potential. That’s the America we believe in. That’s the America I know» [Obama, 2008].
In the example (5) lexical item “God” surely refers to the spiritual entity, who endows a human-being with intelligence. In the example (6), on the contrary,
“Godgiven potential” means not only God given capabilities, but also the possibilities that American society harbors. This becomes clear from the last two sentences of the quote that have local conjunction with the USA: «That’s the America we believe in. That’s the America I know».
Dual understanding of the notion “God” is considered to be normal in the Americal lingvoculture and raise no eyebrows in the society. Such implication of the lexical item has already become a part of cognitive base, which is interpreted here as “a carefully structured aggregate of compulsive knowledge and nationally-determined and minimalized perceptions of some lingvocultural society, which every carrier of a nationally-cultural mentality is armed with” 92.
Thus, one of the communicative strategy building methods in the discourse of Barack Obama is continuation of traditional civil religion and matching with the prescribed cognitive base, as soon as the lexical item “God” in his discourse covers two levels: religious and civil – as a God of American democracy.
In some speeches of Barack Obama one can observe the opposite tendency.
As soon as the semantics of the lexical item “God” is modified, it’s logical that it
92 Victoria Krasnykh. Friend among foes: myth or reality? – M.: Gnosis, 2003. - p. 61.
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can’t be replaced by traditional religious words “Jesus”, “Christ”. Above all, the established tradition of political ethic according to which a politician should avoid speaking about his religious confession. Nevertheless, in the speeches of Barack Obama we can see address to “Christ” and “Jesus”, that contradicts the traditions of civil religion.
«You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away – because you are human and need an ally in this difficult journey» [Obama, 2006].
He talks about himself as a committed Christian, stating that not only he himself sees Christian in Barack Obama (7), but others who practice Christianity recognize him as one of them (8).
(7) «It was in these neighborhoods that I received the best education I ever had, and where I learned the true meaning of my Christian faith» [Obama, 2009].
(8) «I was working with churches, and the Christians who I worked with recognized themselves in me» [Obama, 2010].
This kind of unusual and unnatural for American lingvocultural society situation has its inner reason that comes from the unique and fundamental characteristic of Obama’s discourse – its autobiographic background. President Obama makes his speeches a narrative text about his own experience in life. He not just mentions Jesus Christ in his speeches, but tells the story of his own way to Christianity: «I was not raised in a particularly religious household. <…> My father, who returned to Kenya when I was just two, was born Muslim but as an adult became an atheist. My mother, whose parents were non-practicing Baptists and Methodists, was probably one of the most spiritual and kindest people I’ve ever known, but grew up with a healthy skepticism of organized religion herself. As a consequence, so did I. It wasn’t until after college, when I went to Chicago to work as a community organizer for a group of Christian churches, that I confronted my own spiritual dilemma» [Obama, 2010]. For Barack Obama making
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mention of the Christ is not a single case, but a regular well-formed part of his discourse strategy, based on autobiography.
Thus, there are two bidirectional tendencies in the political discourse of Barack Obama regarding civil religion: 1) following canons of American civil religion which is expressed in substitution of the lexical item “God”; 2) breaking canons of American civil religion by appellation to Christian motives and characters and revelation of his own religious confession.
Another special feature of Obama’s Message is its slogan nature and relying on so-called “words-amoebas”: in the period of intensive information system development linguistic structure has been getting de-etymologizated and political ideas getting condensated in slogans and key “words-amoebas”,
“transparent, not really connected with the life context of the words”. Such lexis is also called “phantom” words. “Politicians don’t like concrete terms, what becomes the reason for tendency to dilute words semantically, adopting them to their own ideologies and policies by all means. This is the display of disrespect to the biography of the word, and to culture in general. Notions democracy, nation, rule of law, market reforms, European choice belong to “phantom” words. The peculiarity of the listed nominations is their referential diversity93.
The practice of using short linguistic formulas is definitely far from new, nevertheless, the given political discourse is characterized by its own selection of this kind of language units. Barack Obama often practices the usage of the following phantom lexical items: «democracy», «change», «opportunity»,
«progress», «challenge» and some other language units with close meanings. For example, the word «democracy» loses its dictionary meaning and changes denotation depending on the context. More over, it gains a new and more understandable, earthly definition: «We spend so much time talking about democracy – and obviously we should be promoting democracy everywhere we can. But democracy, a well-functioning society that promotes liberty and equality
93Lada Sinelnikova Political linguistics: coordinates of cross-disciplinarity //Political linguistics. 2009. Ed. 4. - pp.
41-48.
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and fraternity, a well-functioning society does not just depend on going to the ballot box. It also means that you're not going to be shaken down by police because the police aren't getting properly paid. It also means that if you want to start a business, you don't have to pay a bribe. I mean, there are a whole host of other factors that people need to – need to recognize in building a civil society that allows a country to be successful. And hopefully that will – that approach will be reflected not just in my administration's policies but in the policies that are pursued by international agencies around the world» [Obama, 2009]. American variant of democracy, as president Obama sees it, is the most correct and right one.
The leader expresses hope that the functioning of all international organizations will be realized according to the principles of American democracy.
The noun “change”, an important pre-election slogan of Obama’s campagne, has a very abstract interpretation. In his political discourse this word gains the meaning different from dictionary definition (the process or result of something or someone becoming different [LDCE]).
Now America has arrived at a crossroads. Embedded in American soil and the wind and the sun, we have the resources to change [Obama, 2009].
It’s that we are putting Americans to work doing the work that America needs done in critical areas that have been neglected for too long – work that will bring real and lasting change for generations to come [Obama, 2010].
I work for the American people, and I’m determined to bring the change that the people voted for last November [Obama, 2010].
In the examples above the lexical item “change” doesn’t have a concrete meaning. It’s clear that this language unit describes developments, but in a blurry way, it remains misty what sphere these changes will touch: political, social, economic, religious or all together? The political discourse of Mr. Obama doesn’t give the answer to this question.
There is one more remarkable example: «We are the ones we've been wait-ing for. We are the change that we seek. We are the hope of those boys who have
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little; who've been told that they cannot have what they dream; that they cannot be what they imagine. Yes they can» [Obama, 2009].
Obama says that Americans themselves are the change they are waiting for.
It means that there is no need to wait for some global changes coming from outside.
The power is hidden in the nation; it does have strength to bring changes, the only important thing left is to sincerely believe in this possibility. In the opinion of Svetlana Ivanova, language unit “change” transformed from an ordinary lexical item into a cultural sign: «Call for changes of Barack Obama <…> is directly connected with another American cultural archetype – intention to constant development, progressive moving forward, discovering new spaces»94. Herewith, it often happens that together with “change” goes a lexical item “reform” used in a close meaning, which multiply reinforces the unit “change”.
Slogans used in Obama’s discourse are also worth noticing and deserve attention: «Change we can believe in», «Yes, we can», «One voice can change the world», «Change can happen», «Organizing for America», «Vote Obama» etc. The main one which is repeated like mantra is the motto «Yes we can»:
<…> Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old. She was born just a generation past slavery.
<…> And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America – the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.
At a time when women’s voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot.
Yes we can.
When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.
94 Svetlana Ivanova. Cultural sign and cultural meaning in lingvo-cultural researches//Unites of language in cognitive-semiotic and lingvo-cultural aspects: scientific articles digest. – M., 2009. Ch. 1. - pp. 108-121.
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<…> America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. <...> to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth – that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can’t, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:
Yes We Can [Obama, 2008].
Here we see the quintessence of the cult of the American nation about its boundless possibilities. «Yes we can» is a world outlook credo of the American lingvocultural society. Besides all, the importance «Yes we can» is supported by stylistic organization of the speech: the politician uses epiphora to stress the motto, putting it on a “shooting” position at the end of every paragraph.
Above mentioned lexical item “change” also becomes a part of mottos in Obama’s discourse: «That’s the choice in this primary. It’s about whether we choose to play the game, or whether we choose to end it; it's change that polls well, or change we can believe in; it’s the past versus the future» [Obama, 2008].
«And if a voice can change a room, it can change a city, and if it can change a city, it can change a state, and if it can change a state, it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation, it can change the world» [Obama, 2009].
«Virginia, let’s go change the world. God bless you and God bless the United States of America» [Obama, 2009].
«That’s the promise we need to keep. That’s the change we need right now.
So let me spell out exactly what that change would mean if I am President»
[Obama, 2010].
The notion «change» truly becomes one of the core motifs in the president’s campaign. The word is used in a very different situation and means changes on any scale. It belongs to many-valued lexis and appears to be “word-amoeba”.
Motto «Organizing for America», contained in Obama’s discourse, is based on the biography of the political leader, who had been a small community
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organizer before entering Harvard University. Thus, his present job is perceived as the old one, but on a completely different scale.
Consequently, for the verbal filling of Obama campaign slogans’ often stand lexical items, characterized above as “words-amoebas”. They are the key words belonging to recurrent lexis that permeate the discourse. Slogan nature of the discourse, de-etymologization of linguistic structure of the quotations, dictates
Consequently, for the verbal filling of Obama campaign slogans’ often stand lexical items, characterized above as “words-amoebas”. They are the key words belonging to recurrent lexis that permeate the discourse. Slogan nature of the discourse, de-etymologization of linguistic structure of the quotations, dictates