The book presents an application of inductive and deductive research modes in an analysis of political discourse. The discussion is illustrated with text samples from inaugural addresses of US presidents and various speeches given by prominent NATO politicians. It is argued that both analytic approaches have their inherent inadequacies, which poses a need for an integrated research mode. Also, numerous observations are made about the rhetoric of the analyzed text types.

This book proposes a new theory ("proximization theory") in the area of political/public legitimization discourse. Located at the intersection of Pragmatics, Cognitive Linguistics and critical approaches, the theory holds that legitimization of broadly consequential political/public policies, such as pre-emptive interventionist campaigns, is best accomplished by forced construals of virtual external threats encroaching upon the speaker and her audience's home territory. The construals, which proceed along spatial, temporal and axiological lines, are forced by strategic deployment of...

The aim of the present volume is to provide the reader with a specimen of the massive and multifaceted research in linguistic pragmatics, as pursued worldwide at the beginning of the 21st century. The book offers a selection of methodological, interpretative and descriptive papers which form a continuum governed by a group of controlling factors: first, the amount of novel theoretical ingredient, second, the degree of interdisciplinarity, and third, the range of application. Accordingly, the volume proceeds from methodological accounts which propose non-standard, often cross-disciplinary...