Austermühl Frank. The Great American Scaffold. Intertextuality and identity in American presidential discourse

John Benjamins, 2014. — ix, 338 p. — (Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture). — ISBN: 978-90-272-7078-8.American echoes – On intertextuality in American presidential discourse
The speeches of American presidents as a cultural intertext
POTUS speaks
Hypotheses
Thyories of intertextuality
A typology of presidential intertextuality
Methodology“The voice of the nation” – The democratization of American presidential discourse
Defining America’s discursive space
The “I” in presidency – Personal pronouns in presidential discourse
On actors and interaction in presidential discourse
Presidential discourse and the unilateral executive
Presidential genres
“To declare to the world” – Inaugural addresses, eternal topoi, and American civil religion
The inaugural address as a presidential genre
Analyzing presidential inaugural themes
Thematic intertextuality in presidential inaugural addresses
Inaugural themes in other presidential genres
American themes
“Freedom and fear are at war” – Th making of an American hypotext
George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” – Rhetoric or reality?
“It’s Us vs. Them” – Identity and alternity in presidential crisis discourse
American auto- and hetero-images
The pragmatic dimensions of the Us-vs.-Them matrix
“In the words of …” – Sacred texts, lieux de mémoire, and presidential allusions
Types of allusions
Allusions in presidential inaugural addresses
Functions of presidential allusions
The Great American Scaffold
Affirming national identity
Supporting the unilateral presidency
Creating a critical dialog