This study explores the role of X-phemism in English political discourse
during the 'War on Terror' within the framework of Critical Discourse
Analysis (CDA) to clarify the fallacy of such language and its role in
communication. It also examines how X-phemism as a linguistic theory may
embody and reveal the ideology and attitude of politicians. X-phemism is
divided into some sub-types following the hybrid model of Mazid (2003) and
Allan and Burridge (1991). These types include the pragma-semantic types of
jargon, abstraction, indirections and circumlocution, and figurative language.
The employed analytical framework is an eclectic one drawing on some
pragmatic and semantic theories and notions such as Grice's (1975)
Cooperative Principle and its generated maxims, presuppositions,
connotation and denotation. It follows quantitative and qualitative methods
of analysis to determine the prevalence of one X-phemistic type over the
other, to assess the role of these linguistic tools, and to evaluate their
possible effectiveness depending on the supposed political goals of the
speakers. The data of this study comprise some illustrative samples of some
transcribed English press conferences held after the attack on the 'World
Trade Centre' (WTC) (September 11th) and during the second gulf war.
It was published by VDM 2009 www.amazon.de/Analysis-Role-X-phemism-Aspect-Doublespeak/dp/3639190610/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=books-intl-de&qid=1254352197&sr=8-9
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