Euphemism in Tony Blair’s Political Discourse in the Iraqi war 2003: A Socio-cognitive CDA Account...

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Issue 1 June 2015

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HUMANITIES AND CULTURAL STUDIES ISSN 2356-5926

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Euphemism in Tony Blair’s Political Discourse in the Iraqi war 2003: A Socio-

cognitive CDA Account

Mohamed Abidi

University of Tunis, Tunisia

Abstract

As a rhetorical device, euphemism holds a staple focus in political discourse. It can be deployed

as an asset to justify a given contentious venture, such as initiating an assault on another

country. It is against this background that the present study sets out to probe into the way the

former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, adduced his arguments to justify the controversial

military actions in Iraq 2003. Specifically, drawing upon a socio-cognitive CDA framework, this

paper investigated the euphemistic constructions that featured Blair’s political discourse. The

critical scrutiny of this rhetorical strategy revealed that, along with being a function of social

cognition, its use was constrained and organized by the epistemic Knowledge device (K-device)

of Blair’ context model. The analysis also concluded that Tony Blair opted for euphemism, as a

source of transgression, to legitimize his political actions and sustain his ideological or

hegemonic ends.

Keywords: euphemism, CDA, transgression, manipulation, K-device, hegemony

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Introduction

Rhetorical devices including euphemism have been given a staple focus and heed in political

discourse (van Dijk, 2006a). Such attention is motivated by politicians’ proclivity to manipulate

the import of political discourse, which may allow them to achieve their political and ideological

effects, i.e., the construction of preferred mental models (van Dijk, 2006b), acquiescence of their

ideologies (van Dijk, 1993a,), and sustaining of unequal power relationship (Fairclough, 1989).

Therefore, the core objective of the present study is to probe into the rhetorical device of

euphemism in the political discourse of the former British Prime Minister (PM), Tony Blair, as a

source of norms transgression during the outbreak of the second Gulf war on Iraq. The focus is

specifically pegged to the methods of euphemistic constructions proposed by Warren (1992) so as

to identify the most constructions used and disentangle the ideologies disguised therein. To this

end, the socio-cognitive framework of critical discourse analysis (CDA) is used by virtue of the

fact that it is multidimensional subsuming social, cognitive, and discursive-semiotic phenomena

(van Dijk, 2006b). Besides, it lends itself well to the critical goals of this study in that it goes

beyond description to illuminate the mental processes and ideologies which underlie text

production and text comprehension.

The present paper falls into four sections. The first section presents the theoretical

background of this study. It unfolds with the introduction of critical discourse analysis showing

its major notions and concepts. Then, it outlines the relationship between CDA and ideology.

Finally, it introduces the rhetorical strategy of euphemism. The second section briefly outlines the

targeted corpus and the methodology used to explore and probe into euphemization. The third

section is devoted to the quantitative and qualitative scrutiny of the results obtained. The last

section puts forward discussion and conclusions alongside suggestion for future work.

Theoretical background

Critical Discourse Analysis

CDA is a relatively new interdisciplinary analytic approach that refers to the use of a myriad

of linguistic tools for the sake of uncovering the opacities in discourse which contribute to the

exercise, maintenance, and reproduction of unequal power relations (Fairclough & Wodak,

1997). CDA is hence distinctive in the sense that it aims at achieving social justice through

revealing the way language is deployed, manipulated, and abused in the exertion of power

(Widdowson, 1998). CDA is a highly integrated approach, for it blends different yet intertwined

levels of analysis. To wit, within CDA grid, the exploration of the ideological nature of

euphemism implies that discursive products (texts), discursive practices and social context as

well as social cognition should be examined in an interconnected way. Such a mutual analysis

can end up with the achievement of critical awareness by illuminating the mechanisms deployed

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to manipulate recipients’ models, and demystifying politicians’ discourses by deciphering their

manifest and latent ideologies (Weiss & Wodak, 2003).

Power and access

The notion of power in CDA, particularly institutional social power which refers to the

oblique control of actors over the actions of the others, is relevant (Barnett & Duvall, 2005).

Institutional social power is not contingent upon coercion, but rather purely mental and

hegemonic (van Dijk, 1997a: 17; author’s italics). It can be reproduced and legitimized at the

ideological level. That is, by controlling their attitudes and ideologies, people will be monitored

to the extent that they will behave out of their own “free will” and in tune with the interests of

power-holders (Delinger, 1995: 41).

The discourse reproduction of hegemonic power and dominance presupposes the existence of

a central aspect of the connection between discourse and power, namely access (van Dijk, 1997a)

or control over public discourse. Seen from this perspective, the control of access, which is

unequally disseminated among people, can be regarded as a decisive criterion against which

power of the dominant groups is measured (van Dijk, 1993b). In other words, access to more

patterns and strategies or resources, be it symbolic or material such as knowledge, beliefs, topics,

referents of discourse, i.e., who is spoken or written about, media, and indeed text and talk may

amount to more social power and dominance (van Dijk, 1996: 96; italics added).

Access to resources, be it limited or unlimited, can hence provide politicians with better

opportunity to influence and manipulate the public mind through calculating the use of discourse

strategies in accordance with their interests in political struggles (Jäger, 2001). It is noteworthy

that in order to control people’s minds effectively, politicians need to monitor not only the

diverse patterns and resources of access but also importantly context.

Context control

Van Dijk (1998a: 5) argues that “context is defined as (the mentally represented) structure of

those properties of the social situation that are relevant for the production or comprehension of

discourse.” Therefore, people in position of power may hold control over context through the

control of some of its structural categories amid the nature of the communicative event or

situation and its setting (van Dijk, 1997a). Likewise, power-holders may monitor the context by

deciding which participants may or must be included, and in which roles, and which beliefs and

knowledge they may hold, and more importantly which relevant information to be articulated in

discourse (van Dijk, 1998a).

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Operating within a CDA grid, the focus of this study is on the set of euphemistic strategies

and categories managed and used as a tool to monitor public discourse and exercise social and

political power. Such a focus is grounded on the assumption that discursive structures of

euphemism represent a source of transgression as well as a real mechanism of the emblematic

reproduction and concealment of power abuse or dominance (van Dijk, 1998b). The emphasis is

also motivated by the fact that these devices can be used to reinforce the polarization of “us” and

“them” that features the socially shared representations and their ideologies (van Dijk, 1998a).

CDA and ideology

Investigating euphemization in political discourse is motivated by the need to probe into the

way ideology works. Political discourse practices, being a complex class of genre (Triki &

Baklouti, 2002), are argued to be ideologically laden (van Dijk, 2001). Ideology has been defined

as a set of beliefs and principles that underpin the construction of reality (Fairclough, 1992a,

Simpson, 1993). It is used as a powerful mechanism to achieve hegemonic ends amid the

“production, reproduction or transformation of relation of domination” (Fairclough, 1992a: 87).

Relevant, however, to this study is van Dijk’s definition of ideology which is at variance

with classical and some contemporary approaches to ideology (Eagleton, 1991; Thompson,

1990). Ideology, as van Dijk (1993a) argues, is the basic framework that shapes the social

cognition shared by members of the group and institutions. Of vital importance are the cognitive

and the social dimensions of ideology. Indeed, they “function as the ‘interface’ between the

cognitive representations and processes underlying discourse and action on the one hand, and the

social position and interests of social groups, on the other hand” (van Dijk, 1995a: 18).

Put differently, ideology can monitor the social attitudes and influence its consumers in such

a way that their discourse will be ideological. Such an impact can manifest at all levels of

discourse including syntax, lexical, style, and more importantly rhetoric (van Dijk, 2006b). At the

social level, it can influence the social interaction and activities of social groups through the

manipulation of their mental models. Operating within a critical analytical framework, the current

study will highlight in its ideological analysis the preferential or selective discourse structures

and properties that reflect ideological manipulation whose aim is to warrant action of power

abuse.

The pursuit of such a business is likely to be sustained by the properties of ideology, namely,

socio-cognitive and cognitive properties. Ideology inherently embraces socio-cognitive and

cognitive properties (van Dijk, 2000). The socio-cognitive aspects comprise socially shared

beliefs that are connected to the characteristic properties of a given group including their identity,

their position in society, their concerns and aims, their relations to the other groups, and their

natural environment, among many more (Edwards, 2006). These various beliefs are in turn

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associated with different systems of cognition, namely, short-term memory (STM) and long-term

memory (LTM).

STM represents the locus or repository for more personal beliefs about individual

experiences (van Dijk, 2000). These beliefs determine episodic memory (van Dijk, 2000) where

information processing, such as monitoring of talk-in-interaction, text and talk understanding,

and production, takes place (van Dijk, 1997b). Considering the goals of this study and the

political background, attempts will be made to show not only how these personal experiences are

represented in political actors’ minds but also how they are strategically exploited by Tony Blair

to process the social situation in a bid of producing a cognitive effect on the socially shared

representations.

LTM is basically about the socially shared beliefs of which the most salient component is

socio-cultural knowledge (van Dijk, 2006b). These socially shared beliefs and knowledge

constitute the crucial system of mental representation in social memory (van Dijk, 2000). They

not only connect between the social system and the personal cognitive system, but further

underlie the “translation, homogenization and co-ordination between external requirements and

subjective experience (Meyer, 2001: 21). Particularly worthy of signaling is that the fact of

categorizing knowledge as a socio-cultural common ground, i.e., shared by nearly all members of

the community can account for the use of euphemism in political discourse. Further, being the

basic framework of ideology, these controlled features may give rise to new opinions and

attitudes about the other and implicitly result in their potential appropriation. Seen from this

vantage point, the present study will endeavor to unfold how ideology contributes to the

inculcation of negative attitudes related to Iraq.

The cognitive properties of ideology concern the context model alongside its categories

which govern the processes of discourse production and reception. Context model is seen as a

pivotal construct in contemporary pragmatic theories (Sperber & Wilson, 1995) and cognitive

discourse analysis frameworks (van Dijk, 2001). It refers to the “subjective participants’

constructs of communicative situations” or events that are organized and represented in context

or mental models in episodic memory (van Dijk, 2006a: 1). Context models are, as argued by the

cognitive psychologist, Johnson-Laird (1983), the cognitive interface in discourse-situation

relationship. They can account for a variety of cognitive operations as to how participants

understand and represent the social situations that impact on discourse structures (Johnson-Laird

& Garnham, 1989).

Typically relevant in context models is their being sketchy and lopsided or prejudiced (van

Dijk, 2006a). They are also featured by their dynamic and changing nature in that they are

“dynamically construed (and updated) during interaction” (van Dijk, 2005a: 4). This contextual

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character should be regarded as an advantage by virtue of the fact that it allows the flexible

control of many aspects of discourse production and reception process (van Dijk, 2005b). Such

strategic control of discourse properties is made possible through an epistemic device called

knowledge device or K-device (van Dijk, 2003), whose core goal is to adapt and handle discourse

production and processing. This cognitive device is purported to hold a pragmatic function on

account of its strategic control and management of information in talk-in-interaction (van Dijk,

2005a). Put simply, based on the structural constraints of the current context, including the

setting, event type, goals, actions, discourse partakers, their roles and their knowledge, (the K-

device will keep track of the information in the event model as the basis of the discourse content

or meaning. More importantly, it will determine and govern the way discourse content is variably

articulated and appropriately couched in political discourse structures amid rhetoric (van Dijk,

1997b). In the following, the rhetorical device of euphemism is introduced.

Euphemism

Being a rhetorical strategy, euphemism is profusely used in political discourse to obliquely

materialize ideological manipulation (Blackledge, 2006; Mihas, 2005). Euphemism is basically

grounded on minimizing a negative property or purposefully switching the means or names by

which it is couched, creating thereby disguised yet desirable connotative meanings (Lutz, 1989).

A case in point, the usurpation of Iraq masquerades as liberation. The change in name, aside from

conferring new properties upon the denotate, mirrors power holders’ propensity to shroud the

sheer essence of the message so as to make it palatable to the public taste (Mihas, 2005).

That being said, name or concept substitution is a quintessential feature of political discourse

by virtue of its key role in swaying and creating perception of reality and governing recipients’

actions (Mral, 2006). Politicians may have recourse to this linguistic practice for

recontextualization purposes (Blackledge, 2006), however. In other words, they can, for instance,

afford social actors new nominations or properties, which may culminate in the reproduction of

prejudiced representations and their naturalization as common sense or common knowledge

(Fairclough, 1989). Seen from this vantage point, euphemization may be deemed a type of

deceptive communication where lies for political advantage can show up (Galasinski, 2000).

Considering euphemization a sort of deceptive communication equates it with the practice of

doublespeak or doubletalk. Such a practice, according to Lutz (1989) and Fernandez (2006),

refers to the language that is willfully manipulated and constructed to make the illogical seem

logical, the unspeakable sound speakable, and the blamed look blameless. Central to doublespeak

practice is the notion of incongruity. This concept stands for the mismatch between what is said

or left unsaid and what really is; between the fundamental function of language and what

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doubletalk does, that is, misleading, deception, evasion, and obfuscation (Bhatia, 2006; Ham,

2005).

Against this background, euphemism, seen as a doublespeak practice, can be drawn upon by

power holders to fulfill political and ideological ends. Fairclough (1989), in this respect, asserts

that euphemism can be used as a strategy of avoidance, allowing thereby the speaker to shun any

communicative discomfort by veiling the essence of the matter. Implicit in this is that

euphemization can do face work. Put differently, it can mitigate face-threatening acts for both the

speaker and the recipient along with smoothly passing on the speaker’s ideology. Another

application of euphemism is to promote and talk indirectly about things whose explicit

description is deemed inappropriate, which will allow political actors to manage the impression

of their audience (van Dijk, 2004).

Data and methodology

The corpus of the present study originates from statements on the Anglo-American military

action in Iraq issued by the former British PM, Tony Blair, during the outbreak of the Second

Gulf War on Iraq. These statements, which comprised transcripts of interviews, press

conferences, speeches, and statements to the parliament, have been downloaded from the

Internet. The overall corpus totaled 18 statements of 17,216 words, and it was reduced to only 8

after applying a stratified random sampling. Such statements were delivered from the inception of

the military action in 2003. In terms of length, the statements were of uneven length, ranging

from 920 to 3.996 words.

Given the present study is concerned with the disclosure of the way Tony Blair crafts his

manipulation by the use of euphemization as a source of transgression to achieve political and

ideological goals, the socio-cognitive model of CDA is opted for. Such a paradigm can

adequately describe and elucidate the role political discourse plays in the political process

through the focus on the socio-cognitive interface which interactively relates discourse to the

socially shared political representations and cognitive models that monitor political action and

systems (van Dijk, 1997b). The critical momentum of this framework lies in (i) its being open to

accommodate a variety of theoretical approaches amid critical linguistics, pragmatics, and

cognitive linguistics which can enrich its dissecting tools and (ii) its analytical advantage in

minimizing the risk of bias. Put shortly, it can allow a multilayered scrutiny of discourse

manipulation, employing an analysis at one level so as to illuminate another.

The adopted framework of analysis can be represented diagrammatically in Figure 2 below

where the shaded area, i.e., discourse meaning or structure, represents the output of the effective

ideological interaction between social structure and social cognition. The double-headed arrows

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signify that the dialectical relationship between discourse meaning and social structure is

mediated by social cognition.

Social cognition

Discourse structure Social structure

Figure 1. Discourse-cognition-society triangle (adapted from Van Dijk, 1993b, 2001, 2004)

As suggested in Figure 2 above, to get a fully-fledged analysis of the link between discourse

meaning and social structure, social cognition should be considered. Social cognition, as van Dijk

(1993b, 2004, 2006a) argues, features the set of socially shared representations, attitudes,

ideologies, and cognitive models that underpin the production and interpretation processes of text

and talk.

Discourse structure, being controlled by ideologically-based models, can target the

enactment of the underlying ideologies, on the one hand, and act as a tool of manipulation, i.e., as

a strategic asset to influence the construction of preferred mental models, on the other hand (van

Dijk, 1995b). Hence, the focus at this level of analysis was on those discursive properties that

suggest potential purposive manipulation of the social structure. The targeted analytical

categories subsume the rhetorical device of euphemism. The aim of this analytical focus is thus to

prize out the different constructions of euphemism so as to be accounted for by the theory of the

cognitive models and construe their impact on the production and reception processes. To this

effect, a modified version of Warren’s (1992) model was adopted, as illustrated in the following

figure.

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Figure 2. Modified version of Warren’s (1992) model for the analysis of the euphemistic

constructions

As Figure 3 above illustrates, two ways in which euphemisms may be constructed were used

for the classification of euphemistic structures in this study: word formation devices which are

included under the rubric of formal innovation and semantic innovation. These methods of

formation subsume different linguistic levels each. As regards word formation devices, the focus

was only on two ways used for forming euphemisms. Compounding which refers to the

combining of two individually innocuous words to form a euphemism for an otherwise perverse

term. A case in point, “regime change” and “liberation of Iraq” were deployed by the ex-British

Prime Minister to euphemize instances of illegal invasion or occupation. Acronyms stand for the

mingling of the initial sounds of more than one word to form a new concept.

Within the semantic innovation, care was given to circumlocution, reversal, and

understatement. As the name implies, circumlocution stands for talking indirectly about

something, usually by supplying a descriptive expression in place of a name. The example of “the

elimination of the weapons of mass destruction” which was stated by Tony Blair to euphemize

usurpation falls into this category. With respect to reversal, it means irony which enables the

reference to something bad by using opposites. As an example of expressions instantiated under

this rubric was “moment of liberation” which disguised moments of bitterness and occupation in

view of the war aftermath. Understatement was tackled by focusing on expressions meant to

soften harsh realities or acts, such as “remove” and “liberate” which both of them imply the use

of undesirable actions.

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Being a fundamental property of the social cognition structure, context models are argued to

play a key role in discourse production and reception out of their control of the various levels of

discourse structure (van Dijk, 1997d). Hence, there is a need to examine the contextualization of

the different euphemistic constructions in Blair’s discourse. Central to context models is the

prominent role of the knowledge device or K-device (van Dijk, 2003, 2005b). Indeed, such a

device helps discourse producers determine what to express as appropriate and politically

propitious and what to leave as implicit and presupposed (van Dijk, 2004). Therefore, the aim, at

this level of dissection, was to show how Blair manages participants’ knowledge through his K-

device.

Social structure, being the by-product of the interplay of social cognition and discourse

structure, was scrutinized to delve into the (re)production of social inequality and the hegemonic

effects. Further, the political and ideological implications of Blair’s ideologically-based discourse

were investigated. Put differently, Blair’s manipulative euphemistic strategies were probed into to

unveil its contributions in the (re)production and naturalization of the political and ideological

practices. To achieve this end, context parameters such as institutional power, access to discourse

resources, control over access, and dominance were drawn upon.

Of vital importance, however, in the analysis of the impact of discourse on social structure is

social cognition and in particular cognitive models which “embody instantiation of social

knowledge and attitudes” as well as ideology constraining the interpretation process (van Dijk,

1993b:111). Hence, the emphasis was on how Blair’s discourse manages to monitor and shape

the cognitive processes of discourse participants. That is, how the British PM strategically

controls the formation, activation and updating of participants mental models (van Dijk, 2005a).

Results

Euphemistic constructions or expressions seemed to abound in Tony Blair’s political

discourse relating to issues raised in the outbreak of the second Gulf war on Iraq. Indeed, out of a

total of 18 statements, 48 euphemistic constructions were prized out. The linguistic realizations of

euphemisms were asymmetrically distributed as far as the modified version of Warren’s (1992)

model is concerned. Such euphemisms were presented in quantitative terms in Table 1 below in

the word formation and semantic levels.

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Table1. Distribution of the euphemistic constructions based on their

corresponding methods

Word formation

devices

Frequency

%

Semantic devices Frequency

%

Compounding 12 Circumlocution 8

Acronym 1 Reversal 5

Understatement 23

As can be seen in Table 1, there was a clear discrepancy in euphemistic realizations. The

quantitative analysis showed that euphemism was mainly realized as semantic devices, with 36

occurrences. So pervasive among these was understatement (23 occurrences), followed by

circumlocution and its eight tokens, such as the liberation of the Iraqi people and the liberation of

Iraq from Saddam. Reversal trailed behind, showing just five occurrences amid they are doing a

superb job and removing Saddam will also be a blessing for all the Iraqi people, which has a

metaphorical origin. Relevant within the euphemistic understatement was that 16 out of the 23

tokens referred to conflict which has been resorted to by Tony Blair to substitute the expression

war.

As regards word formation devices, there were two methods used to construct euphemism. These

were compounding and acronym. What was noticeable in these formation devices was that

compounding was, by far, the most frequent mechanism in the formation of euphemisms for

questions related to the Iraqi war, with 12 cases detected. Indeed, the imposed interim

government was substituted by post-conflict administration (four occurrences), war was

euphemized as peace-keeping (one occurrence), and British soldiers were replaced by British

servicemen (one token), for instance. The mechanism of acronym was the least frequent, being

realized by means of only one expression referring to the Weapon of Mass Destruction. What

transpired from these data was that euphemism tended to constitute a potent source of

transgression when tackling politically-loaded topics. Such a transgression by the former British

PM was no more than a by-product of a cognitive makeup (Ariel, 2008) meant to create

hegemonic effects. In the following, a contextual analysis, rooted in the theory of cognitive

models, of the conscious use of euphemism by Tony Blair is presented.

As suggested earlier, euphemistic constructions in Tony Blair’s political discourse were

persuasively selected as a function of both his context models and his definition of the current

political situation in Iraq, UK, and the world. Put differently, being ideologically based, Blair’s

context model endeavored to control the understanding of discourse by adapting the articulation

of the semantic mental models -including content, information, ideology, attitudes, norms and

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values, etc- to the ongoing communicative situation. This contextual control over discourse was

also fostered by such components of context models as setting, participants, action, intention, and

shared knowledge. Considering the present study, setting category embraced the war time which

was 2003, local and abroad TV viewers, British troops, MPs, Iraqi people and of course Tony

Blair as the dominant participant; action referred to the political speeches; intention concerned

Tony Blair’s attempt to persuade his audience of the righteousness of the war and shared

knowledge entails British foreign policy, war in Iraq, alleged WMD, among others. Contextually

relevant here was the role of the epistemic cognitive device in monitoring the use of the different

euphemistic constructions and their functions.

Knowing that there was a large-scale objection to the war on Iraq, Tony Blair opted for

euphemizing war as a conflict (16 occurrences), an action (three tokens) a job (one occurrence) a

battle (two occurrences). Such euphemization was a function of the K-device which elected to

transgress the cultural and political norms by using such understatements instead of war to

achieve persuasive ends. Indeed, these euphemistic understatements could have a somewhat

positive effect on the psyche of the audience, for the dreadful connotations of war and its

tragedies would be lessened or concealed and the seriousness of the situation would be

minimized. Further, the circumlocution device was constrained by the K-device, so that the

invasion of Iraq was branded liberation of the Iraqi people, liberation from Saddam or liberation.

The use of these circumlocutions, aside from possibly obfuscating the legal boundary to warrant

the illegitimate war, might trigger a host of cognitive representations and evoke some

fundamental values and ideologies for the audience, such as the importance of liberty and rule of

democracy. The outcome of such a cognitive framing could be a positive opinion and thereby

support of the current war.

Blair’s discourse was marked by the euphemistic portrayal of removing the Iraqi leader as a

kind of blessing through the use of the strategy of reversal. Such a strategy palpably reflected that

the former British PM, through his K-device, extracted from the socio-cultural knowledge of the

participants some religious beliefs and adapted them to the present political situation. The

implication of this was twofold. First, the Iraqi people were led by a chairman who was devoid of

morality. Second, it was the religious duty that underlied Britain’s engagement in this war, that is,

Britain undertook to help the Iraqi people savor and practice their freedoms. This pragmatic

function was buttressed by the other euphemistic reversals which could be classified under the

rubric of security and liberation. Regarding the euphemistic construction of compounding, it

encompassed peace–keeping which, being grounded on the democratic values, was meant to be a

gloss over the allegation of usurpation raised against the British troops. Post-conflict

administration or government was deployed by Tony Blair to deflect the attention of the

participants and lead them to focus on post-war issues. These constrained euphemistic choices

mirrored the British PM intention and proclivity to shroud the sheer substance of the war to

achieve his political and ideological purposes.

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Probing into the rhetoric of euphemism beyond what was actually said by Blair and

interpreting it in light of the political and ideological functions, it was found that what the former

British PM did was, politically speaking, vindicating himself and legitimizing as well as

defending the legitimacy of the war (Chilton & Schäffner, 1997). He made use of such

euphemisms to sidestep any potential discomfort and mitigate face-threatening acts, such as

accusation; and to ascribe the ongoing and controversial war a positive and emancipatory aspect.

To this effect, Tony Blair had recourse to a set of values and beliefs which constitute the socio-

cultural or political representations stored in the episodic memory. These political representations

were activated where relevant, such as the democratic values and notions of freedom and liberty

which were drawn upon by Tony Blair when referring to war. The overall purpose of this was to

influence the structure of the mental model of the recipient so as to construct the “preferred

model” targeted, i.e., a model which is in line with the government policy and interests. Implicit

in this was that inequality of social power persisted and dominance prevailed, given that

recipients were seemingly made willing to accept the ideological beliefs entailed in the different

euphemistic structures and importantly more vulnerable to do things they otherwise would not

do, such as the support of the Iraqi war as well as the belief in its Legitimation.

As far as the ideological practices of the euphemistic constructions deployed were

concerned, they were geared to promoting the negative-other presentation and positive-self

presentation (van Dijk, 1992). Put shortly, the OTHER category which included Saddam and his

regime were cast as criminals and evil whereas “US” category was afforded the brunt of

liberators and peace keepers. The pursuit of such a business was made possible through

contextual parameters, namely, access and control over discourse. Throughout the whole corpus,

Tony Blair was found to have an active and dominant access to discourse sources (38 times),

which could be explained by his political power as a Prime Minister or “the high personal

standing in the party” (O’Malley, 2007: 5). He was also the one who initiated and set the agenda

of his discourse, mainly in statement and speeches. One implication of this was that the former

British PM managed to focus on the activation or modification of more general, socio-political

representation, including attitudes, ideologies, and beliefs in a view of winning audience’s

acquiescence and back up of the ongoing war.

Discussion and conclusion

As the data in focus have evinced, the rhetoric of euphemism was extensively used in Tony

Blair’s political discourse during the outbreak of the second Gulf war on Iraq. This rhetoric

serves as a valuable asset to political incumbents, for the efficiency of its political and ideological

work. Being seemingly cognizant of the potential power of euphemization, Tony Blair tried to

make every effort to exploit such in his discourse to manage the impression of his audiences and

more importantly permeate their cognitive models. Relevant in the achievement of these ends

was the role of the K-device which constrained the use of the different euphemistic constructions.

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These ideologically grounded constructions seemed to have helped the former British PM convey

his political purposes and pass on his ideologies:

1- Legitimization of the ongoing war;

2- Avoidance of any potential political discomfort and mitigation of face-threatening acts;

3- Promotion of the positive-self presentation and negative-other presentation;

4- Permeation of audience cognitive models and construction of “preferred mental models”

(van Dijk, 1996) as the major requisite for upholding the asymmetrically existent

institutional and social power.

The present critical study has revealed how Tony Blair crafted the manipulation of his

audiences by selectively employing different euphemistic constructions on issues surrounding

the Iraqi crisis. The critical scrutiny of this rhetorical strategy has also suggested that, along with

being a function of social cognition, its use is constrained and organized by the epistemic

Knowledge device (K-device) of Blair’ context model. Despite these insights, the extent to

which elite or politicians manipulate euphemisms as a source of transgression on intent of

permeating participants’ cognitive models or perception is an area worthy of further

investigation. Indeed, relied upon in politics or even media, the rhetoric of euphemism can sway

and guide reasoning. It can constitute and create cognitive representations in line with that of

power-holders by highlighting simulacrum aspects of reality and hiding the real ones. Hence,

further cognitive analysis of such a rhetoric can help us trace the process of meaning making and

offer us clues as to the different political representations stored in the episodic memory that

underlie its relevant use. Further, if the present study is taken as a starting point for a

longitudinal study or foray into the role and the cognitive underpinnings of euphemism in Blair’s

political discourse as far as his final departure from the cabinet, a clear understanding of the role

and functions of his K-Device, as a flexible epistemic component, can be reached.

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Appendix 1: Corpus of the study

Interviews Date of delivery N° of Interviews

PM interview with the British Forces

Broadcasting Service

23 March 2003 1

http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page3335

Prime Minister's interview with British Forces


24 March 2003 2


Prime Minister interviewed for the BBC World

Service

4 April 2003 3

http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page3423.asp

Prime Minister's interview with Arabic television 4 April 2003 4


Prime Minister interviewed on Iraq, WMD,

Europe and the Euro

31 May 2003 5


Prime Minister's interview with Sky TV 21 July 2003 6


PM interview at the European Council meeting in

Brussels

12 December 2003 7


PM interview with the BBC Arabic Service 16 December 2003 8


Prime Minister's interview with British Forces


16 December 2003 9


Speeches Date of delivery N° of Speeches

Prime Minister's address to the Nation 20 March 2003 1


Prime Minister's vision for Iraq 30 March 2003 2


Prime Minister's message to Iraqi people 8 April 2003 3


PM’s message broadcast to Iraqi people 10 April 2003 4


Prime Minister's speech to the US Congress 18 July 2003 5


Statements Date of delivery N° of statements















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Statement televised 20 March 2003 1


PM statement to troops in Iraq 29 May 2003 2


Press conferences Date of delivery N° of Press

conference

PM press conference 25 March 2003 1


Joint press conference with President Bush at

Camp David

27 March 2003 2


Appendix 2: The different euphemistic constructions detected

Euphemisti

c

categories

Compounding Acrony

ms

Circumlocution Reversal Understatemen

t

2003

1. Peace-keeping.

2. British

Servicemen.

3. The post-

conflict issues.

4. Post-conflict

administration.

5. The post-

conflict

administration.

6. Post-conflict

administration.

7. Security threat.

8. The security

threat.

9. Military

conflict.

10. A post-

Saddam Iraqi

government.

11. The post-

1. WMD 1. The service

men and women.

2. The liberation

of the Iraqi

people.

3. The conflict

'is not a war of

conquest but of

liberation'.

4. This is not a

war of conquest

but of liberation.

5. The taking of

the al-Faw

Peninsular.

6. The taking of

Basra.

7. The

liberation from

Saddam..

8. The liberation

1. They are

delivering

safety and

security for

us.

2. They are

doing a

superb job.

3. They are

doing a

necessary

job for

Britain and

the wider

world.

4. This is

not a war of

conquest but

of liberation.

5. Removing

Saddam will

1. This

conflict.

2. The conflict.

3. This

conflict.

4. The conflict.

5. The conflict.

6. Post-

conflict.

7. This

conflict.

8. This

conflict.

9. Conflict

10. This action

11. This

conflict.

12. The

conflict.

13. The

conflict.





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conflict Iraq.

12. Former

Saddam

sympathisers.

of Iraq from

Saddam

also be a

blessing for

all the Iraqi

people.

14. The

conflict.

15. The

conflict in Iraq.

16. The

conflict.

17. The

conflict.

18. The battle.

19. The battle.

20. Military

action.

21. Military

action.

22. Friends

and liberators.

23. The job

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