A Critical Discourse Analysis of Agency Concealment in the Speeches of Kamala Harris and Spoljaric at the 60th Munich Security Conference
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1608.36Keywords:
critical discourse analysis, social actor exclusion, humanitarian discourse, political discourseAbstract
In the context of security negotiations, speeches that promote peace and stability are never ideologically neutral; rather, they contribute to the legitimization of existing power relations. This study aims to examine the linguistic strategies through which agency is concealed in speeches delivered at the 60th Munich Security Conference in 2024, with particular attention to how both the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars are legitimized or contested through selective representations of agency. Adopting a mixed-method approach, the study applies van Leeuwen’s (2008) framework of social actor exclusion combined with van Dijk’s (2024) model of nominalization to uncover the role of linguistic strategies in revealing ideologies. Two speeches delivered by American Vice President Kamala Harris and the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, were analyzed. It was found that genericization and nominalization strategies were remarkably employed in Harris’s speech to conceal the agent in comparison with Spoljaric’s speech, which preferred suppression to completely anonymize the agent. Moreover, both speakers resorted to indetermination to render responsibility vague, particularly when addressing sensitive content. Ideologically speaking, Harris concealed agency to naturalize negative actions in the Middle East and to redirect blame and responsibility in the Eastern European war, while Spoljaric highlighted the victims, generating sympathy to delegitimize war in international security conferences. It is concluded that agency concealment is employed not only by humanitarian actors but also by political actors as a strategic tool to legitimize or delegitimize war.
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