Politeness strategies in joe bidens speech at the democratic national committee winter meeting in 2022

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY M.A THESIS POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN JOE BIDEN’S SPEECH AT THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE WINTER MEETING IN 2022 (Các chiến lược lịch phát biểu Joe Biden họp mùa đông Ủy ban Quốc gia Đảng Dân chủ năm 2022) NGUYỄN HƯƠNG LAN Field: English Language Code: 8220201 Supervisor: ASSOC PROF DR HỒ NGỌC TRUNG Hanoi - 2022 i CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY The undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled POLITENESS STRATEGIES IN JOE BIDEN’S SPEECH AT THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE WINTER MEETING IN 2022 submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis Hanoi, 2022 Nguyen Huong Lan Approved by SUPERVISOR Assoc Prof Dr Ho Ngoc Trung Date: ……… /2022 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thesis has been successfully completed thanks to the help and support from my teachers, my friends and my colleagues First and foremost, I would like to show my deepest gratitude to Assoc Prof Dr Ho Ngoc Trung, my supervisor, for his enthusiastic and useful guidance, insightful comments and dutiful supervision Secondly, my sincerely thanks also go to all other lectures and the staff at Faculty of Post Graduate, Hanoi Open University who have been teaching and encouraging me with their precious knowledge, valuable lectures and wonderful experiences during the learning process, which laid the foundation of my thesis accomplished Finally, I am greatly indebted to my family, my husband and my children who always support and give their best to me in the process of finishing this academic work iii ABSTRACT The thesis conducts a study of politeness strategies and their functions in the speech of Joe Biden at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in 2022 Politeness strategies are used to show the respect and satisfy the hearer Those phenomena can appear in delivering speech which the politeness strategies of BrownLevinson’s theory applied in the speech of Joe Biden at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in 2022 such as positive politeness, negative politeness, bald on record, and off record By employing a pragmatic approach to carry out the research, this is qualitative research because of focusing on understanding a linguistic phenomenon, politeness strategy used in a formal speech In addition, the study also used quantitative method and statistical instrument in order to list all of the politeness strategies Joe Biden uses all four politeness strategies in his speech at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in 2022 Based on the analysis, it can be concluded, positive politeness is mainly used and has the highest rate among of the other three strategies The main reason for the difference is positive politeness strategy helps Joe Biden to be closer to the hearers From the findings of the research, the author suggests that the readers can use this study as a reference to add their knowledge in using language In addition, for the Linguistics students, the result of this research shows something different from the previous theories related to the usage of politeness strategies iv LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Sub-strategies of Bald on record 12 Table 2.2 Sub-strategies of Positive Politeness 14 Table 2.3 Sub-strategies of Negative Politeness 17 Table 2.4 Sub-strategies of Off record 19 Table 4.1 Realizations of politeness strategies 27 v TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY .ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ABSTRACT iv LIST OF TABLES v TABLE OF CONTENTS vi Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims and Objectives 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Methods of the study 1.5 Scope of the study 1.6 Significance of the study 1.7 Structure of the study Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous studies 2.2 Theoretical background 2.2.1 Pragmatics 2.2.2 Discourse analysis 2.2.3 Conversational cooperative principle 2.2.4 Political speeches 2.2.5 Historical background of the speech 2.3 Theoretical framework 10 2.3.1 Face 10 2.3.2 Politeness strategies 12 2.3.2.1 Bald on record 12 2.3.2.2 Positive politeness 13 2.3.2.3 Negative politeness 17 2.3.2.4 Off record 19 2.4 Summary 22 vi Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 23 3.1 Subjects 23 3.2 Instruments 25 3.3 Procedures 25 3.4 Statistical Analysis 26 3.5 Summary 26 Chapter 4: FINDING AND DISCUSSION 27 4.1 Types of politeness strategies used in Joe Biden’s speech at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in 2022 27 4.1.1 Realization of bald on record in Joe Biden’s speech at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in 2022 28 4.1.2 Realization of positive politeness in Joe Biden’s speech at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in 2022 30 4.1.3 Realization of negative politeness in Joe Biden’s speech at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in 2022 46 4.1.4 Realization of off record in Joe Biden’s speech at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in 2022 47 4.2 Functions of politeness strategies in Joe Biden’s speech at Democratic National Committee winter meeting in 2022 48 4.2.1 Functions of bald-on-record strategies in Joe Biden’s speech at Democratic National Committee winter meeting in 2022 49 4.2.2 Functions of positive politeness strategies in Joe Biden’s speech at Democratic National Committee winter meeting 2022 49 4.2.3 Functions of negative politeness strategies in Joe Biden’s speech at Democratic National Committee winter meeting in 2022 50 4.2.4 Functions of off record strategies in Joe Biden’s speech at Democratic National Committee winter meeting in 2022 50 4.3 Discussion 51 4.4 Implications 52 4.5 Summary 52 Chapter 5: CONCLUSION 54 5.1 Recapitulation 54 5.2 Concluding remarks 54 5.3 Limitations and recommendations for further Study 55 REFERENCES 56 vii APPENDIX 1: REALIZATIONS OF BALD ON RECORD 58 APPENDIX 2: REALIZATIONS OF POSITIVE POLITENESS STRATEGY 60 APPENDIX 3: REALIZATIONS OF NEGATIVE POLITENESS STRATEGY 70 APPENDIX 4: REALIZATIONS OF OFF RECORD STRATEGY 71 viii Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale Politeness strategies help us to communicate well to others, in which a good communication gives a beneficial impact to us in interacting with others By politeness, people can avoid a conflict as well as create a good harmony while communicating and interacting Those phenomena can appear in delivering speech Therefore, this research focuses to find out the kinds of politeness strategies used by Joe Biden and to find out the functions of using kinds of politeness strategies The study is conducted to identify politeness strategies which are applied in the speech of Joe Biden at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in 2022 It specially describes how the politeness strategies used by Joe Biden in his remark in front of people of America This research will give understanding and awareness to people how important is Politeness Strategies Hopefully, it also can give the contribution for those who want to learn further more about Sociolinguistics espesially Politeness Strategies In addition, this research is expected to be usefull to many people especially people who have to dealing with other people daily for example Psychologist The result of this research could be important part to other researchers to improve their research quality, especially when they want to carry out similar or further research about politeness strategy in a speech or a presentation Theoretically, the research findings are expected to enrich the comprehension and understanding of pragmatics learning, especially about politeness strategies by using theory of Brown and Levinson Practically the research findings will be useful for readers which gives something of politeness strategies in a speech For the students of English Department, or the students of English Study Program who want to conduct research on the theory of Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies 1.2 Aims and Objectives The aim of the study is clarifying the politeness strategies used in Joe Biden's speech at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in 2022 to help Vietnamese students have a better knowledge about the politeness strategies The objectives of the research are formulated as follows:  To identify the types of politeness strategies used in the speech of Joe Biden at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in 2022  To investigate the functions of politeness strategies used in the speech of Joe Biden 1.3 Research questions In order to achieve the above aims and objectives of the study, there are two research questions formulated as follows: What are the realizations of politeness strategies used in Joe Biden's speech at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in 2022? What are the functions of the politeness strategies used in the speech? 1.4 Methods of the study The writer used qualitative method in this research which noted clearly the data in the form of words and in this case is speech text, because the data of the research is analyzed by word other than by number From these data, the writer tries to describe and analyze politeness strategies used by Joe Biden in his speech by using theory of Brown and Levinson Descriptive method is used to analyze the data descriptively to gain deep understanding about politeness strategies used in the speech In addition, the quantitative method and statistical instrument also used to list all of the politeness strategies, their frequency The data was collected from reputable sources from the internet about Joe Biden's speech at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting The main source is youtube.com The writer searchs data in the selected speech text, then the writer looks for scenes in the speech video that is suitable as a data The writer collects the data by bibliography technique, considering the corpus of this research is speech text, then the writer writes on the data card to make analysis easier 1.5 Scope of the study The research is maily focused on analyzing politeness strategies used in Joe Biden's speech at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting in 2022, which contain politeness strategies used by speaker, based on Brown and 17 Kess, J 1992 Psycholinguistics and study of natural language Amsterdam: Benyamin Publishing Press 18 Mey, J L 2001 Pragmatics Oxford: Blackwell Publishing 19 Leech, G 1983 Principles of Pragmatics London: Longman 20 Levinson, S.C 1983 Pragmatics Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 21 Lisa, C W 1996 Positive- and negative-politeness strategies: Apologizing in the speech community of Cuernavaca Mexico: University of Louisville 22 Mills, S 2003 Gender and politeness Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 23 Riyadh, T K A & Zina A H K 2015 A Pragmatic Study Of Barrack Obama’s Political Propaganda University Of Babylon 24 Ryan, T T (2021) Politeness Strategies in Second 2020 Debate Between Donald Trump and Joe Biden Medan: University of Sumatera Utara 25 Renkema, J 1993 Discourse Studies: An Introductory Text Book Philadephia: John Benjamin Publishing 26 Stake, E R 2010 Qualitative research: Studying how things work USA: The Guilford Press 27 Yani, K S 2016 An Analysis of Politeness Strategy In Barack Obama’s Victory Speech Syarif Hidayatullah State: Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University 28 Wardhaugh, R 1986 An Introduction To Sociolinguistics Oxford/UK: Blackwell Publisher 29 Watts, R J 2003 Key Topic In Sociolinguistics Politeness Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 30 Yule, G 1996 Pragmatics Oxford: Oxford University Press 31 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Democratic _National_Committee 32 http://ncac.org/project/youth-free-expression-program/political-speechin- schools 33 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/10/biden-dnc-midtermsdemocrats-00016405 34 http://youtube.com 57 APPENDIX 1: REALIZATIONS OF BALD ON RECORD No of sub strategy Politeness No of sub strategy realization Detail Look, to all of you today, there are Both so, so many friends here tonight And if I mentioned every hearer and speaker know that no face redress is necessary, Where one by name, we’d be here all night But let me start by saying thank you Thank you maximum efficiency is very important privilege, I want to say thank you to the Delaware delegation They brung me to the — (applause) — stand up The Delaware folks, stand And excuse me, as we used to say in the Senate, a point of personal up (Applause.) Look, coming out of the State of the Union, we are in the strongest position we’ve been in in months We have a record - a record to be proud of; an agenda that addresses the biggest concerns here in America, in people’s lives; the message that resonates And all remember - you all remember the lines of cars that lined up for miles - miles, waiting for someone to put a box of food in their trunk Because of the law- this law we passed 41 million Americans put food on the table today 58 Now we’ve got to the work And I’ve seen what you can I saw it in 2020 Nothing was going to stop you then We can’t let anything stop us now And folks, look: For families, it’s going to cut the cost of childcare in half As I said, you know, you’re not going to pay more than one - for one child, paying $14,000 a year some places Many most places $7,000 59 APPENDIX 2: REALIZATIONS OF POSITIVE POLITENESS STRATEGY No of Politeness Sub Sub strateg strategy y No of realization Detail I think the American people know how important this fight is I think they know that as painful as the price is today, the costs are going to be higher if we not act now to deal with this tyrant So let me be clear on the facts: We are increasing oil production with a record productivity By the end of the year, we will have produced more oil than any time in the last number of years The CEOs of major oil companies have said they’ll increase investment and Exaggerate (interest, approval, sympathy with hearer) production They have the capacity to it They have over 4,000 opportunities They say there’s nothing the U.S government needs to to incentivize them We should be proud of it We did so much people don’t even know we did it Without exaggeration, few pieces of legislation in our history have done more to lift the country out of crisis When I took office, only million Americans had been fully vaccinated Today, we’ve vaccinated the nation — more than 215 million people fully vaccinated 60 Twenty million people were out of work just months before I took office Job growth was anemic, 60,000 jobs a month leading up to January ’21 — 2021 But because we took action, we created 6.5 million jobs just last year - more jobs than ever created in one year in the United States of America More jobs And people got pay increases And it hasn’t stopped We’re now well over million new jobs — 678,000 jobs last month alone Unemployment — down to 3.8 percent And the economy grew last year at 5.7 percent — the best economic growth in four decades It’s literally within our power to this (Applause.) And we can make sure that this nation is going to continue to be what it’s always been And here’s one thing that I’m proudest of: 10 Our recovery has lifted everyone Black unemployment at an all-time low; Hispanic unemployment, youth unemployment, long-term unemployment — all have farrel [sic] — fallen by historic amounts We have more to do, but they’ve fallen by historic amounts It was very different from how previous administrations designed their $2 trillion tax cut Pretty much all of that $2 trillion went to the top percent And we took — we took the exact opposite approach with the American Rescue Plan 61 Now, let’s talk about our record The American Rescue Plan People were Intensify hurting We had to act, and we did We interest to hearer did it as Democrats, without a single, solitary Republican vote (Applause.) And the one-year anniversary of the passage of that act is tomorrow You know, there’s a — there’s an impediment to production in the United States, and it’s called “the bankers on Wall Street.” And this crisis is another indication of why we need to get off dependency on fossil fuels (Applause.) These are public utilities They’re going to pay for it by raising ta- — and by the way, all these programs and others I’m not going to mention in the interest of time, they’re going to be able to be done without raising the taxes one single penny on anyone making less than $400,000 a year Not a penny (Applause.) Because we’re going to raise taxes on the wealthiest among us and corporations We used to have the best infrastructure in the world Now we rank number eight in the world China is number two in the world We’re already starting to — make great progress Just this year, we’ve announced 4,000 projects across the country, with 1,500 bridges in disrepair I was just talking to a good friend - county executive out in Pittsburg When I went out there to talk 62 to the folks out there, it was the day that bridge collapsed — just flat collapsed Thank God it was two hours earlier, because there would have been school buses on that No one was killed, but it was a drop of well over 100 feet We have hundreds of those bridges all across America that are ready to collapse Look, I come from the state of Delaware More corporations are incorporated there than all the rest of the United States of America combined And I got elected seven times as senator Be optimistic Folks, we’ll — we’ll strengthen our position with governorships, and up and down the ticket And more importantly, we’re going to change this country This law is going to put an end to that and so much more And we’re going to bring about — we’re going to bring back something we thought — many people thought we had lost: the ability to manufacture product stamped “Made in America.” (Applause.) Look, just a few years ago — just a few years ago, the companies building in America, factories in America would have built them overseas Now we’re buying them That’s not only great for manufacturing, it’s great for cost One third of all the inflation in America last year was a consequence of automobiles — not having access to computer chips to be 63 able to build their automobiles We’re going to make them again in America (Applause.) here in America I’ve said it before I was in China with Xi Jinping, and he turned to me with just — we each had an interpreter, and he said, “Can you define America for me?” And this — God’s true story — and I said, “Yes, I can, in one word: possibilities.” Thank you, Jaime, for that introduction and for all you’ve done for the party And thank all of the leaders of the DNC and the staff This bill is going to create millions of jobs — not — now, that’s not hyperbole; that’s literal — rebuilding America’s roads, bridges, highways, ports, airports "It’s going to something else It’s going to start to get rid of the poisonous Seek agreement lead pipes that our kids and our families have been drinking from their lead pipes coming through the water coming through their — it — it affects over 10 million homes and 450,000 schools And there’s overwhelming evidence of the impact of lead on the brain of a developing child We’re going to invest $65 billion to deliver affordable high-speed Internet everywhere in America — suburban, and rural and communities urban, Tribal Look, folks — and wh- — you know what we’re going to do? You know how much people pay now? Some of you know 64 because you struggle with it They pay an average of $647 a month, as high as $1,000 a month Folks, it cost them 10 bucks to make it Talk about stripping — not only worrying about the health of your child — 200,000 of them — but what else is happening? You strip a mother or father of their dignity, their sense of responsibility if they can’t it Imagine — imagine if you have a child, you don’t have the insurance, you don’t have the cash What in God’s name you do? Now, here’s more — one way to help families reduce their monthly costs as well, by the way At a time when food and gas prices are rising, if you can lower other major costs for families, you cannot affect their — you can help their standard of living Leading financial firm of Moody’s on Wall Street estimates that our record plan created four million more jobs, and unemployment is percent lower because of what we did Poverty for all children — including Black children, Hispanic children — re at the lowest levels ever recorded in our first year — ever recorded (Applause.) And that just didn’t happen; it was a direct result of how we designed the American Rescue Plan 65 Folks, in major cities, it’s $14,000 a year per child As the Delawareans can tell 10 you, I got credit for 36 years for commuting every single solitary day from Washington to Wilmington, Delaware — over a 300-mile round trip 11 And by the way, million women out of work — they’ll be able to go back to work They’ll be able to go back to work God bless you all And may God protect 12 our troops Thank you, thank you, thank you (Applause.) Use ingroup identity markers Presuppose/ 1 raise/ assert common ground Ask your Republican friends — I mean this sincerely — name me something the National Republican Party is for We’re going to improve the lives of millions of Americans We’ll meet the great challenges of our time: voting rights, climate crisis, gun violence, criminal justice, immigration, and so much more Look, we can lower the cost of energy with tax credits An average of 500 bucks a year by giving tax credits to families to weatherize their homes so they use less energy (Applause.) Seventeen Nobel laureates in economics wrote me a letter unsolicited, saying that if we pass what I’m talking about, it would actually reduce inflationary presreduce inflationary pressures 66 I’m not anti-corporation or anti-people being able to go make a lot of money But everybody - everybody - everybody should pay a fair share Everybody And our agenda is not only supported by the public, it’s enthusiastically supported One, opioid addiction — taking the lives of literally thousands of Americans We’re doing very little about it, especially our children and fentanyl being laced with them The second thing we can all agree on is dealing with mental health, especially for our kids There’s a serious, serious problem in America today (Applause.) And fourthly, the only truly bipartisan thing I know that I’ve been involved in of late is ending cancer as we know it (Applause.) We can this We have the possibility of doing this Joke Assert or presuppose speaker's knowledge of and concern for hearer's wants See that little tyke up there clapping? God love her (Laughter.) I want to meet — is it a boy or girl? I can’t see from here 1 We want to further help working-class and middle-class families that are dealing with cost of gas and food that’s gone up I want to make two things clear Again, first, no one making less than $400,000 will pay a single, solitary additional penny in taxes And those earning less than that, as I said, are going to find themselves in good shape 67 We need to bring some real determination, the same work ethic, the same enthusiasm And if we that, we’re going to keep the House and keep the Senate and add seats And by the way, if we don’t that - if we don’t that, it’s going to be a sad, sad two years Offer/ promise Folks, this is not rocket science Even some of the CEOs of the biggest utility companies came to see me — nine of them — saying that if we continue the prospect that we br- — get tax credits, we promise you we will lower the cost of energy Let’s talk about infrastructure We passed 10 Include both speaker and hearer in the activity the biggest investment in physical infrastructure in the history of the United States of America Well, let’s cap the cost of childcare at percent of a family’s income (Applause.) We can afford to this Let’s get Medicare the power to negotiate lower prescription drugs (Applause.) It costs $10 for a pharmaceutical company to make insulin for those suffering from a serious, serious problem if they don’t get the insulin — Type diabetes We can anything when we decide to it together (Applause.) When we it as the United States of America, there’s nothing beyond our capacity (Applause.) So let’s get it done Let’s remind people what we’ve done and keep it going 68 We can anything when we decide to Give/ ask 11 it together (Applause.) When we it as the United States of America, there’s for reasons nothing beyond our capacity (Applause.) So let’s get it done Let’s remind people what we’ve done and keep it going So, what happens? Not only we lose jobs and they go overseas, they pay no tax at home, even though they’re here in in De- — in the state of Delaware, the state of Maryland, the state of California And they’re just shipping these jobs overseas Well, guess what? We agreed — 170some countries agreed that we should all pay a min- — they should all pay a minimum tax of 15 percent And guess what? That’s going to bring in billions of dollars in taxation here at home again That’s why I proposed closing the loophole for the very wealthy who pay lower tax rates than a teacher or firefighter 12 Assume or assert reciprocity So, we’re going to cap the cost of insulin at $35 Period (Applause.) And by the way, they’ll still make a healthy profit We need to bring some real determination, the same work ethic, the same enthusiasm And if we that, we’re going to keep the House and keep the Senate and add seats (Applause.) And by the way, if we don’t that — if we don’t that, it’s going to be a sad, sad two years 69 APPENDIX 3: REALIZATIONS OF NEGATIVE POLITENESS STRATEGY No of sub strategy Politeness sub strategy Be direct No of realizatio n Detail We decided we were going to build America from the bottom up and the middle out Because when the middle does well, everybody doeswell (Applause.) Everybody does well And our plan didn’t leave a single working person behind — no one behind But guess what, folks? I did it because when my wife and daughter were killed, I had two Be pessimistic beautiful, young boys I could not afford childcare Not a joke Not a joke Thank God I had a mom, a sister, and a brother who busted their neck to help me How families it? 70 APPENDIX 4: REALIZATIONS OF OFF RECORD STRATEGY No of sub Politeness sub strateg y strategy No of realizatio Detail n Look, I just want to run — the Give hints Use rhetorical questions Republicans are playing a game here They’re talking about the Democrats having raised prices; they all voted for the same thing You know, we can’t be a country where a mother has to take her child to the McDonald’s parking lot to get access to the Internet to be able to their homework (Applause.) This is the United States of America for God’s sake 71