Deconstructing Diplomacy: a Critical Analysis on the Strategic Use of Language by American Political Figures During the Vietnam War

Abstract

Diplomacy is the main ‘soft power’ tool through which international relations are conducted amongst different actors today, and has been at least since the birth of modern states. Diplomacy is heavily dependent on communication, and communication is built on the use of language, which is an ever-changing part of human history. What happens when the use of language becomes strategic, thus revealing the existence of structural conditions of dominance, power and control that can influence international politics? This dissertation aims at analysing the relationship between language and politics through the eyes of a doctrine born in the 1970s, that is, Critical Discourse Analysis, which is the theoretical ground on which this dissertation will be constructed. This relatively new doctrine extensively analyses the underlying meanings behind the use of language (from non-verbal to verbal), in order to reveal hidden social power abuses, dominance or inequalities of any kind that can be manifested through language itself. In fact, texts, documents, and speeches by US former presidents will be critically analysed for the theoretical purposes of this dissertation, that is again, the strategic use of language. In order to provide instead a practical overview of how language and politics are interwoven, the dissertation will focus on a prime example of diplomacy: the Vietnam war. The Vietnam war is a perfect case study because American diplomacy gained several facets during that time, ranging from direct to back-channel negotiations, and depended on a great deal of factors (public opinion, internal and external pressures, political actors). What will emerge from the critical analysis of speeches and documents of that time is the intrinsic relationship between language and politics, and how that can be relevant for the current political climate, in which social media are constantly providing new shapes to the political universe.