THE PRAGMATICS OF USING CONCEPT “FREEDOM” IN THE INAUGURATION SPEECHES OF G.W. BUSH

Abstract

The article examines the pragmatic features of the use of concept “freedom” in two inaugural speeches of the American President George W. Bush (2001 and 2005) in order to study its axiological potential in the process of modeling the audience’s attitude to the described situation and determining the assessment vector to historical events. In the structure of the concept frames are identified that allow a more detailed consideration of the conceptualization process in individual contexts. In the second inaugural speech of the president, the author singles out frame “basis of life given by God”, which is not found in the first speech. Also, the work underlines a significant difference in the pragmatics of the same frames in the first and second inaugural speeches of the American leader, which is due to the need to enlist the support of the population in the issue of changing the foreign policy direction, in particular the desire to obtain approval of the situation of military intervention in the other countries’ internal conflicts. The concept “freedom” was chosen as the basic one in the second inaugural address because of its key importance in the Americans’ cultural mentality, which makes this concept a powerful means of influencing public opinion.