How Not To Do Things with the Word: Barack Obama on the Armenian Genocide

S.T Zolyan

doi:10.22363/2312-9182-2019-23-1-62-82

Abstract

The overarching premise of the paper is the idea that Barack Obama’s discursive strategies used in connection with the Armenian genocide in the annual commemoratory Statements could be considered “evasionist” because of the omission of the term ‘genocide’ and its substitution with the semi-official neologism of ‘Meds Yeghern’, transliteration of the Armenian name of the 1915 genocide. Such evasionist discourse in presidential statements avoids unambiguous assessments and expressions, thereby catering to recipients with different political attitudes and expectations. By analyzing different connotative and meta-linguistic mechanisms of taboo in modern political discourse, we show how Obama radically transforms the semantic principles of his predecessors’ discourse, maintaining identical goal-setting characteristics. It is argued that the transliteration of the Armenian name of the genocide can mean “everything and nothing” - for the Armenian audience, it implies full validation of their viewpoint and language, while for the rest of the world, it is only a meaningless sign. The paper demonstrates that the linguistic and semiotic resources that make up Barack Obama’s discourse on the Armenian genocide are based on intentional ambiguity and ambivalent interpretational strategies where intertextual linkages replace referential semantics. A hermeneutic approach appears to be the most adequate instrument for interpretation of such types of discourse, i.e. an interpreter is authorized to explicate inter-textual meanings and messages, which are implicitly incorporated within the text.

Highlights

It is widely recognized that a significant change has occurred in the principles of political discourse construction
By analyzing different connotative and meta-linguistic mechanisms of taboo in modern political discourse, we show how Obama radically transforms the semantic principles of his predecessors’ discourse, maintaining identical goal-setting characteristics
We examine the intertextual mechanisms of non-naming the word “genocide” through reference to texts where this term is explicitly expressed — a novelty for political discourse but quite common for twentieth-century poetic practices

Summary

INTRODUCTION

It is widely recognized that a significant change has occurred in the principles of political discourse construction. On 24 April, 1994, Bill Clinton made the American presidential commemoratory addresses to the Armenian people an annual tradition, thereby establishing the special textual pattern of the presidential addresses to be subsequently inherited by George Bush The semantics of this discourse on the one hand suggests political loyalty to the previous US approach to the 1915 events, while on the other hand it is determined by foreign policy implications with regard to the usage of the term ‘genocide’. We examine the intertextual mechanisms of non-naming the word “genocide” through reference to texts where this term is explicitly expressed — a novelty for political discourse but quite common for twentieth-century poetic practices This technique allows Obama both to confirm his previous position and preserve the principle of “non-naming” the tabooed expression, as his predecessors did it. In contrast to the traditional unanimous rhetoric of Clinton, Obama’s postmodernist discourse is based on implied meanings and ambiguity, delegating the interpreter to reconstruct allusions and explicate inter-textual meanings and messages, implicitly incorporated within the text

AMERICAN PRESIDENTS ON THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

SENATOR OBAMA ON THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

OBAMA’S LAST WORD

CONCLUSIONS