How Does Charlie Sheen Use Language to Defend Himself Against Media Criticism and Elevate His Status?

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Lesego Mosweu Spoken Language Analysis How does Charlie Sheen use language to defend himself against media criticism and elevate his status? Charlie Sheen uses language that defends him against criticism from the press and he also attempts to elevate his status in the process during the interview with Diane Sawyer that was prompted by recent media criticism. The highly controversial character was known for his extravagant lifestyle and hard drug use and uses this interview as a platform to prove himself a changed man. His problems rapidly escalated and reached a point where he had an on-screen meltdown which led to his removal from the highly popular ‘Two and a Half Men’ Tv show. Firstly Charlie Sheen responds to initial questioning with the repeated use of the abstract noun ‘passion’. In line 2 he uses the noun three times. The abstract noun carries connotations of a great performer which is the image he is trying to put across of himself. ‘DS: your anger and your hate I think is coming of as erratic to be CS: passion (.) passion (.) it’s all passion’ He claims that he is of ‘tiger blood’ in line 53 where is trying to suggest that he is immune to the consequences of hard drug use through the use of this noun. This carries further connotations of being fierce and mystical. This also foregrounds his assumptions that he is above human of a different species. Sheen tries to elevate his status by using positively loaded adjectives to describe himself. ‘DS: how do you survive that CS: because I’m because I’m m (4) because I’m me I’m different(.) I just have a different constitution I have a different brain I have a different heart I have a different (.) y’know I get tiger blood man’. In line 43 Sheen states ‘I probably took more than than than anybody could survive’. The hyperbolic adverbial is used as he tries to show his drug use as heroic.

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