Discourse and language of war: A comparison of the linguistic and rhetorical strategies employed in Russian, United States, and Ukrainian presidential speeches

Abstract

In the context of war, political speeches employ emotionally charged language in the form of linguistic devices, in an attempt to persuade the audience and appeal to their emotions. This study examines how the Russia-Ukraine War was presented by Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Joe Biden, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. This study identifies the linguistic features as well as the rhetorical strategies employed in the three presidential speeches which reflect the power and dominance of the conflicting parties in the Russia-Ukraine war. Therefore, a critical discourse analysis of three presidential speeches on the Russia-Ukraine War was conducted. The study analyzed and compared the use of vocabulary, semantic structure, grammatical devices, and rhetorical strategies used by the three presidents to reveal the extent of language manipulation and ideologies in the context war. The study revealed the power of language in political speeches in three different narratives of the war. The findings of this study indicate that word choice, grammatical structures, and rhetorical devices were employed to evoke public emotions, to reflect power and influence beliefs, attitudes, and ideologies. The study revealed that language manipulation is clearly evident through the use of linguistic strategies such as powerful word choices, pronouns, modals, tenses etc., as well as emotional and logical appeals in the form of rhetorical strategies.