A Shared History:
Ideological Analysis of
Sarkozy Address to Congress
Kelley Marie Hatch – SPCH 3340
Dr. C. Wesley Buerkle
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Method: Ideological Analysis |
Artifact: Speech by President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy |
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“Rhetorical critics when interested in rhetoric for what it suggests about beliefs and values, focus on ideology. An ideology is a pattern of beliefs that determines a group’s interpretations of some aspect of the world. It is a system of beliefs that reflect a group’s ‘fundamental social, economic, political or cultural interests’…primarily our evaluative beliefs” (Foss, 239). |
So what then is the ideology present in Sarkozy’s address to Congress?
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History of the artifact: Sarkozy’s address to Congress was delivered November 7, 2007
Watch Sarkozy's address on You tube...click here.
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President Sarkozy follows in honored footsteps. The first foreign dignitary to address the U.S. Congress was General Marquise de Lafayette in 1824.
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Read news accounts of Sarkozy’s address: BBC NEWS | Americas | Bush and Sarkozy declare Iran aim
Canadian News covers the address.
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Analysis
Using ideological criticism, I examined the artifact to identify key words or phrases to deconstruct self-evidence of what I believed to be the central concept within, a shared history between France and the United States. President Sarkozy uses four key words throughout his address: friendship, common, freedom, and dreams. Examining these key words illustrated how Sarkozy’s use of them would attempt to further a political agenda facilitating a return to Franco-American relations pre former presidents de Gaulle and Chirac. In invoking a shared history between our two nations, Sarkozy attempts to make amends for the cooling of French-U.S. relations and to restore a working relationship between the two countries in order to work in tandem to take on world wide problems such as terrorism, nuclear armament in other nations, and the global economy.
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Conclusion
Ideological criticism of President Sarkozy’s address to Congress provides an excellent opportunity to understand how in deconstructing a text we can analyze it for broader meanings and biases. In delving deeper into the concepts behind the words a critic can ascertain and conceptualize what the rhetor is truly saying. As I have shown through the examples, the president of the French Republic has heralded a strong desire for a return to what France and the United States once shared: a close working relationship, a mutual friendship fueled by the desire to establish freedom, democracy, and the realization of dreams. President Nicolas Sarkozy’s address to Congress precipitates a new era in foreign relations between two great nations. The United States and France do not have to see eye-to-eye to work together for global change. “America defines itself as the leader of the free world…but leadership requires having followers who are prepared to move in the same general direction” (Sanders, 2007). At long last, after a detour or two, the French Republic led by conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy appears willing to do that. In using the theme of our shared history and legacy, Sarkozy uses everything from our forefathers - Washington, to our heroes - Lafayette, to our dreamers – Presley, Armstrong, to say the United States is a wonderful country. In communicating his intent through his address to Congress in November, Sarkozy is communicating to change the human condition of not only two great nations, but of the world that the United States and France are ambitious enough to want to make a better, more secure, more economically stable place. Perhaps George Washington was prescient when he said, “Someday, following the example of the United States, there will be a United States of Europe.” It appears that Sarkozy in citing the attributes of the United States would agree.
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