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

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.

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