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Abstract :
[en] This chapter examines how American exceptionalism has been articulated and redefined in U.S. presidential rhetoric at the United Nations General Assembly between 1989 and 2024. It asks how presidential language reflects continuity or rupture in America’s self-conception as an “exceptional” nation in world affairs. To address this, this chapter employs a quantitative and comparative linguistic analysis of 36 addresses delivered by six Presidents, from George H. W. Bush to Joe Biden. The findings reveal a consistent presence of exceptionalist discourse throughout the post–Cold War era, marked by three notable inflection points: a strong articulation of democratic ideals under George W. Bush, a rise of nationalist narratives under Donald Trump, and a strong emphasis on U.S. leadership under Joe Biden. Beyond its empirical insights, this chapter advances a methodological framework combining lexicometric and discourse analysis to trace transformations in foreign policy language, offering a transferable model for examining how states construct and project their international identity through rhetoric in an international context.
