An Analysis of the Role X-phemism as an Aspect of Doublespeak

This study explores the role of X-phemism in English political discourse during the War on Terror within the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to clarify the fallacy of such language and its role in communication. It also examines how X-phemism as a linguistic theory may embody and reveal the ideology and attitude of politicians. X-phemism is divided into some subtypes following the hybrid model of Mazid (2003) and Allan and Burridge (1991). The employed analytical framework is an eclectic one drawing on some pragmatic and semantic theories and notions such as Grice s (1975) Cooperative Principle and its generated maxims, presuppositions, connotation and denotation. It follows quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis to determine the prevalence of one X-phemistic type over the other, to assess the role of these linguistic tools, and to evaluate their possible effectiveness depending on the supposed political goals of the speakers. The data of this study comprise some illustrative samples of some transcribed English press conferences held after the attack on the World Trade Centre and during the second gulf war.