This dissertation seeks to delineate some of the
fault lines of the disparate worldviews and assumptions that have polarized our national
discourse, as well as the imbalances of power
they support or disrupt. Building on previous case studies of ideologically oppositional political blogs, the dissertation examines thirty-nine key documents from the website torturingdemocracy.org, primarily legal memos written by Bush Administration lawyers (the “Torture Memos”), to analyze a rhetoric of torture that, as a subset of the war on terror, serves as a “ground zero” of political values and motivations. Further, it seeks to combine
mixed methods of analysis from various disciplines
to help reveal the underlying beliefs and values
that inform current national discourse.
The cross-disciplinary methods combine rhetorical,
linguistic, and critical discourse analyses to
examine and interrogate the language that created
metaphorical and actual spaces in which torture
was legalized, employed, and legitimated. Applying a grounded theory approach to Huckin’s
four levels of linguisticgranularity--context,
text, phrase, and word (including the use of
concordancing software)--the research reveals
the logical fallacies, faulty argumentation,
slippery word usage, linguistic and rhetorical
manipulations, and finally, authoritarian
underpinnings that characterize the memos. The
research further uncovers multiple strategies
used to create the Other, such as Lazar and Lazar’s four micro-strategies of “outcasting”
(criminalization, (e)vilification, orientalization, and enemy construction), and
strategies of minimizing or maximizing the positive and negative traits of in-versus
out-groups in van Dijk’s “ideological square.”
The research shows how, in the language of the
war on terror, words take on different, even
opposite, meanings from previous significations,
shifting the national debate about the legitimacy
of torture as a hypothetical means of protection.
Further, close examination reveals a different
intent behind the memos than the purported
defense of the country used repeatedly to
justify torture. Findings illuminate the memos
as the products of authoritarian followers
who enabled what Altemeyer calls “double
highs”—ideological social dominants with an authoritarian worldview--in a wide-reaching
and largely successful bid for power. Lastly,
the dissertation points to the need to further
investigate and articulate an anti-authoritarian,
social egalitarian worldview as a challenge
to power structures that, enshrined in language,
may constitute a serious threat to democracy. / The great divide -- Review of the literature -- Methods and methodology -- The scene, the agents, their agency and their purpose : conceptions of power and the torture debate -- Torture and the law -- Thirty-nine documents -- The "semantic tap-dance" : discursive, rhetorical and lexico-grammatical strategies in the torture memos -- Constructions of identity -- Constructing torture -- Analysis and conclusions. / Department of English
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:123456789/194714 |
| Date | 06 July 2011 |
| Creators | Nier-Weber, Daneryl M. |
| Contributors | Hanson, Linda K. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
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