Lexical Representation of Culturonyms in American Political Discourse: A Case Study of George W. Bush’s Presidential Rhetoric

Abstract

Culturonyms — lexical units that encode culturally specific concepts, values, and realities — constitute a privileged site for the linguistic analysis of political discourse, since they reveal how language mobilizes shared cultural meanings to construct identity, legitimize policy, and shape collective perception. This article examines the lexical representation of culturonyms in American presidential political discourse through a case study of the rhetoric of George W. Bush, whose two-term presidency (2001–2009) produced a distinctive and widely documented body of politically consequential language. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of linguoculturology, critical discourse analysis, and conceptual metaphor theory, the study develops a classification of the culturonyms characteristic of this discourse — politionyms, ideologonyms, ethnonyms and toponyms, religionyms, and militaronyms — and analyzes the lexical-semantic mechanisms through which they function. The analysis demonstrates that culturonyms operate as condensed carriers of cultural and ideological meaning, deploying binary moral framing, religious-providential register, and metaphorical conceptualization to construct a particular vision of national identity and international order. The study argues that the analysis of culturonyms offers a methodologically productive approach to understanding the interface between language, culture, and power in political discourse, and contributes to the broader fields of linguoculturology and political linguistics. All linguistic examples discussed are drawn from the public record and from the existing scholarly literature on this period of American political rhetoric.