Legitimization Discourse in Situations of Conflict: Language and Power after September 11
This paper will try to analyse the main characteristics of conflict discourse. We will do so through the analysis of the discourse generated after September 11 by President George W. Bush, Islamic leader Osama bin Laden and the Revolutionary Communist Party. We will also include in our corpora a complimentary text: the speech by Pope Urbano II to the Franks proclaiming the first Crusade in the 11th century in an attempt to generalise our conclusions. We consider that the idea of community is basic in the design of political conflict discourse. In this sense, the dichotomy pertenence/non-pertenence to such community conforms an important tool for persuasion.