Evasive/Deceptive use of Euphemistic Language in Discourse: Barak Obama's Speech in Hiroshima

ABSTRACT: Obama mourns Japanese and other causalities in Hiroshima and calls for „a world free of nuclear weapons‟ as he became the first sitting U.S chief of staff to visit the site of dropping the first nuclear weapon in history. His speech neither mentioned anything about the 1945 atomic bombing nor showed an intention to apologize for the committed treacherous and odious military act. The completely extravagant speech appeared to be carefully crafted to draw the attention to reconciliation rather than expressing guilt and asking for forgiveness. His speech stunned so many people who saw that his presence only should have been enough to appease the Japanese. All Japanese people who witnessed the catastrophe (dead or surviving victims) are in need for Obama‟s apology to find comfort and are willing to forget and forgive. Quite the contrary, an impish rhetoric impinged upon them, and Obama appeared to be an extrovert who is seeking support for the upcoming election as well as for his plan of nuclear weapon proliferation as U.S. national interest bristles with tens of thousands of nuclear heads used as threat to the entire world. Furthermore, Euphemism is used in his speech to add insult to injury and to emphasize the “no regret” situation. Some went further to declare that the speech symbolizes the second nuclear bomb dropping which will take the Japanese people too long to heal. Obama‟s predicament is that his blurred speech seems to have lost much of its initial impetus when he should have felt impelled to bluntly apologize to the Japanese people.