1. National strength
The dominant ideology in Bashar al-Assad’s speech is national strength. This ideology stems from some semantic properties which are absent from the euphemistic
expressions in the speech transcript. Below is the list of the semantic properties which are absent from Bashar al-Assad’s euphemistic expressions:
1. to hide information 12. war
2. possible objection 13. destruction
3. violent 14. critical
4. organized military force 15. suffering
5. threat to world peace 16. strong disapproval
6. wrongful act 17. serious problem
7. against others’ wishes 18. to cheat
8. unfair 19. disliked
9. negative intention 20. possible damage
10. to take advantage 21. combat
11. to harm 22. offensive
Those twenty two semantic properties are absent from the text because they create an impression of a serious threat towards Syria. Such impression is going to
make the Syrians question their own strength as a nation. When they worry and question about their own strength against their enemies, they will be reluctant to fight
back and defend Assad’s right to rule Syria. Thus, it is essential to scrutiny these
semantic properties in order to relate them to the national strength that the Syrian president believes in.
The semantic properties “to hide information” and “possible objection” is hidden from the expression patronize when describing about what the West has been
doing to his rebellious society. Assad does not want his loyal follower to know that the West has been hiding information from them because it means that when the
opponent is hiding something, it becomes stronger than them. It shows that the West is that powerful compared to the Syrian people.
The semantic properties “violent”, “organized military force”, and “threat to world peace” are absent from the euphemistic expression sedition. Assad does not
want to admit that the FSA is a violent, organized military force and that their conflict has become a threat to world peace. By hiding these meanings, Assad wants to
convey the message to his people that the FSA is not really big a deal and thus is easily defeated.
“Wrongful act” and “against others’ wishes” are absent from the euphemistic expression orchestrator. The omission of those two euphemistic expressions indicates
that their enemies are not the parties who will deliberately cause harm for the Syrian people. It gives the impression that their enemies are not going to do anything that is
rather unexpected to the Syrian people. With that being the case, Syrian people are in the upper hand position compared to the enemies.
The semantic properties “unfair” and “wrongful act” are missing from the euphemistic expression opportunist. Those semantic properties are hidden to create
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