Free Essays on Terrorism: The Language of Terrorism :: September 11 Terrorism Essays

The Language of act of terrorism On September 11, 2001, two airplanes flew into the World Trade Center and other into the Pentagon, while yet another suspiciously crashed. Blasted on T.V. screens across America, were images of fire, destruction, chaos and death. Framed in colors of red, white and blue, were such headlines that skim America Under-Attack, The War Against Terror and The Attack on America tout ensemble the while, urgent ticket taped messages flowed across our television screens and news anchors describe on the utmost of news. To sum-up the days events, death chair Bush addressed the nation. It was in the electric chairs initial dialect to the nation following the fire on the World Trade Center that the adjective evil was starting introduced. Quoting from the bible, and making reference to a power greater than any of us, the President reassured the American people of their safety and well-being. Within a match of minutes, the stage was set for all that wa s to follow. Since adopted by the media, the Bush brass section and the American people, the religious reference of evil by the President has start out an integral part of the public discourse. Framing the way we talk and recollect about the days events, and all subsequent events, including talk of put in Laden, the Taliban and terrorism, the use of binary language in religious and metaphoric smell have become an important element in the war against terrorism. And despite the Presidents and congress denouncement of any reference to the lash out on terrorism as a holy war, it seems as if the American ideal of separation of state and religion, has become suspended and/or forgotten all together. The intent of this paper is to analysis the language used by the President to describe the September 11th events, and consequentially, its binary effects. Given the Presidents religious and metaphoric references a dichotomous framework is persuasion to exit. For instance, in using the term evil, images of the devil and hell have been conjured up --and conversely-- images of God and heaven. Helping to demonize those responsible, the initial language used by the President and later incorporated by the press, has since served as a semipolitical weapon from which to fight the war against terrorism. In that the Presidents speech evoked from his audience (most notably the American people) feelings of fear, terror, anger, and hatred, the appeal has been to the publics emotions and senses rather than their ration and intellect.