Abstract

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a useful tool to probe into and determine dominant values and ideologies inherent in news stories as well as in speeches by government leaders since it treats them as texts. CDA can draw upon mainly two kinds of approaches to analyzing texts. One of them emphasizes grammatical and semantic analysis, while the other sets great store by research into social theoretical issues. In this thesis I have chosen the second-term inaugural speech by U. S. President George Bush delivered in January 2005 and tried to use a combination of linguistic and social issue research approaches to analyze the speech text with the emphasis placed on the analysis of rhetorical strategies and the logic underlying his remarks, and the intertextual analysis. In this study I have found out that the speech is full of rhetorical strategies, such as repetition of the same words and metaphor, and detected the underlying logic of “orientalism” to boost the image of his cherished ideologies of “freedom” and “democracy.” Moreover, with the use of the intertextual analysis, I found out main themes recurrent in presidential inaugural speeches since the founding of the United States. In sum, CDA was a valuable means to carry out an in-depth analysis of President Bush's second-term inaugural address, both in terms of linguistic and social aspects.