Language as a Puppet of Politics: A Study of McCain’s and Obama’s Speech on Iraq War, a CDA Approach

Abstract

On Tuesday, 4 November 2008 one of the most significant events of the world will happen: the presidential election of the U.S.1 The 44th president of the U.S will enter the White House on 20th January 2009. This election is in fact a competition between two main parties: republican and democratic. This paper studies the speeches of the nominees of these two parties: John McCain and Barack Obama. We selected one of their speeches on a similar topic (“Iraq War”) and incorporated their states in the framework of CDA introduced by Norman Fairclough. The results show that the two senators take two opposite strands on the same event. They use language as a means of promoting their own social, political, personal interests. Language is an effective means for power struggle.