call to arms definition
call to arms is an enduring means by which leaders in crisis have drawn on the power dynamics of their social contexts to exhort “the masses” to kill and to die, simultaneously strengthening a leader’s hold on power whilst weakening the longer term position of their institutions in ‘the field of power’ (cf. Bourdieu, 1998; Saul, 1992). To show the significance of Bush’s (2001) call to arms against terror, we take a discourse-historical approach consonant with that described by Fairclough and Wodak (1997) in so far as we attempt ‘to integrate systematically all available background information in the analysis and interpretation of the many layers of a spoken or written text’ (Fairclough and Wodak, 1997: 266; cf. also Wodak and Meyers, 2001; Reisigl and Wodak, 2001). Specifically, we show how the ultimate in exhortatory functions has been typically, which is to say generically, achieved over time; the particularities