Dr. Salih Mahdi Adai AlMamoory & Sameerah Atshan Alfayadh
University of Babylon, Iraq
Americanism is the quality or state of being American. (Collins Dictionary). Merriam Webster (2018) defines Americanism as: a characteristic feature of American English especially contrasted with British English. It is an attachment or allegiance to the traditions, interests or ideas of the USA. It is a set of the United States patriotic values aimed at creating a collective American identity, and can be defined as “an articulation of the nation’s rightful place in the world, a set of traditions, a political language, and a cultural style imbued with political meaning”. According to the American Legion, a U.S. veterans’ organization, Americanism is an ideology, or belief in devotion, loyalty, or allegiance to the United States of America, or to its flag, traditions, customs, culture, symbols, institutions, or form of government. In the words of Theodore Roosevelt, “Americanism is a question of spirit, conviction, and purpose, not of creed or birthplace.” It is something said or written in American English, in contrast to British English. For example, the word “gas” in contrast with “petrol” or “candy “in contrast with sweets “. This study investigates the influence of Americanism as an ideology on Arabic and Persian political speeches and answers to the following questions: 1-How are the Arab and Persian political speeches affected by Americanism? 2- What are the affected areas in the chosen speeches? 3- What reasons are behind using such an ideology? This study aims at showing how the two Arabic and Persian political speeches are affected by Americanism as an ideology. Finding the areas affected by Americanism. Identifying the reasons behind using such an ideology. It is hypothesized that American expressions are ideologically used in the Arabic and Persian political speeches. There are economic, social or political reasons behind using such an ideology.
The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The Third International Conference on Current Issues of Languages, Dialects and Linguistics (WWW.TLLL.IR), 31 January-1February 2019 , Ahwaz.
