Re-imagining the Past and Mastering the Present: The Power of Analogical Arguments in American Presidents’ and Celebrities’ Discourses

Abstract

Inspecting the genealogy of American statecraft discourse, it seems that historical knowledge grasped out of past experiences has been framed as a social reality that has been justified with consistency and uncompromising conviction by different political actors to contain global threats. The present article studies how analogical analysis is engaged in linking various texts of different genres, though displayed by different actors at different points in history, embed common themes and ideologies. In this regard, this study is an attempt to uncover the analogical construct underlying US presidents’ (George W.H. Bush and George W. Bush) and celebrities’ (Ben Affleck and George Clooney) discourses by investigating the extent to which their analogical reasoning contributes to the construction of common ideologies. To unpack this argument, the paper also scrutinizes the linguistic parameters of analogies by delineating the linguistic devices aimed at reinforcing the tenor of the analogy. To study the implications of the analogical arguments communicated in the language of these political actors, the research adopts a theoretical scheme combining Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis and Analogy. The findings bring out that their analogical reasoning, reinforced by linguistic toolkits, draws on the retreat strategy to legitimize US foreign policy in the Third-World.