Challenger Euphemism in Bashar al-Assad’s Speech

businesses are shut down and the warfare has made it impossible for schools and hospitals to operate normally. In short, the whole nation’s survivability is at stake. This situation is not portrayed by the expression adversity. Abyss means a difficult situation that brings trouble or destruction. Compared to adversity, the degree of hardship implied in abyss is more serious. It reaches the point of destruction, which as a natural result leads to suffering. These meanings are not shown in the expression adversity. Adversity is still vague in terms of the degree of how serious the situation is. In another comparison to the expression crisis, adversity lacks the semantic property critical. Crisis itself refers to a situation that has reached an extremely difficult or dangerous point; a time of great disagreement, uncertainty or suffering. It is within this extremely difficult situation that it has become critical. The circumstance in which the Syrian people are under has become a matter of life and death – or survivability. Therefore, the expressions abyss and crisis are more likely to describe the situation that the Syrian people are facing. In order to show the comparison between those three expressions, the table below shows the comparison of adversity’s, abyss’, and crisis’ semantic properties. adversity abyss crisis hardship + + + destruction - + + suffering - + + critical - - + Table 14. Semantic properties of adversity, abyss, and crisis

13. Backward

Backward is defined as not advanced. Bashar al-Assad used this expression when describing the Arab society in his speech A10. The meaning of this expression is quite simplistic in order to portray what the Arab society is like in reality. Most of the countries in the Middle East are characterized as having high rates of poverty and birth, a limited number of industries, and a low economic growth. The examples of such countries are Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia. Although it implies laggard, the expression backward does not specify the extent to which the lag is and the aspect which is being described. Disadvantaged means a country, a person, and or a group of people which do not meet the standard of living conditions, education, etc. that most other people have. This expression is more explicit in terms of describing the aspect of the subject being described – living conditions, for instance – and the extent of the laggard – below the standard most people have. Compared to backward, this expression is more blatant in describing an unfortunate situation. It portrays the fact that not only are the countries not advanced but even worse, they are below standard of living. In other words, the expression disadvantaged contains the semantic property below standard while backward does not. Underdeveloped means having many poor people and few industries and services. Compared to backward and disadvantaged, this expression is more explicit in portraying the economic level. It does not only specify the living conditions but also the economic condition which causes them to live under such deprivation.