A PRAGMATIC CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF COHESIVE DEVICES IN SPEECHES BY BARRACK OBAMA AND MITT ROMNEY IN UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ----------------------- NGUYỄN THỊ HUỆ A PRAGMATIC CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF COHESIVE DEVICES IN SPEECHES BY BARRACK OBAMA AND MITT ROMNEY IN UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2012 (Phân tích tính dụng học-văn hóa phương tiện liên kết phát biểu Barrack Obama Mitt Romney tranh cử tổng thống Mỹ, 2012) M.A.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI, 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ----------------------- NGUYỄN THỊ HUỆ A PRAGMATIC-CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF COHESIVE DEVICES IN SPEECHES BY BARRACK OBAMA AND MITT ROMNEY IN UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2012 (Phân tích tính dụng học-văn hóa phương tiện liên kết phát biểu Barrack Obama Mitt Romney tranh cử tổng thống Mỹ, 2012) M.A.MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr. Đỗ Thị Thanh Hà, HANOI, 2014 DECLARATION I certify that this thesis is the result of my own research and the substance of this thesis has not been submitted for a degree to any other universities or institutions. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the assistance and support of many individuals. I wish to acknowledge and express my appreciation of these people for their invaluable contributions. Firstly and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Do Thi Thanh Ha , University of Languages and International Studies – Vietnam National University, Hanoi, for her valuable guidance and suggestions, encouragement and enthusiasm throughout my study. Secondly, I take this opportunity to show my sincere thanks to all my teachers during my M.A course at University of Languages and International Studies – Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their informative and interesting lectures, which laid the foundation for my study. On the completion of this paper, I must acknowledge my debt to the authors whose work I used for my reference. Last but not least, I wish to convey my thanks to my family for their understanding and support. Hanoi, 2014 Nguyen Thi Hue ii ABSTRACT This thesis investigates the cohesive devices used in the third debate by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in Unites States presidential election, 2012. It offers theoretical knowledge of Cohesive Devices in English as well as background information about the third debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in Unites States presidential election, 2012. The thesis then focuses on analyzing the cohesive devices employed in that debate. Three main parts included in this thesis are introduction, development and conclusion. Chapter I provides a review of relevant theories based on which the theoretical background is laid. Chapter II deals with some information about the third debate by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in Unites States presidential election, 2012. Chapter III, also the major one, analyzes in detail the cohesive devices used by the two candidates. To sum up, the paper claims the results obtained and offers suggestions for further researches. iii ABBREVIATION Adj: Adjective N: Noun Quant: Quantifier V: Verb Adv : Adverd Prep : Preposition iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES DECLARATION . i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .ii ABSTRACT iii ABBREVIATION . iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES .v TABLE OF CONTENS .vi PART A: INTRODUCTION PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW .4 Table 1: Grammatical and lexical cohesion .8 CHAPTER 2: AN OVERVIEW ON “UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2012” AND “THE THIRD PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE” 16 CHAPTER 3: AN ANALYSIS OF COHESIVE DEVICES IN THE THIRD DEBATE BY BARACK OBAMA AND MITT ROMNEY IN UNITED STATES PRESIENTIAL ELECTION, 2012 . 19 Table 2: The frequency of occurrence of reference used by Obama and Romney 19 Table 3: The frequency of occurrence of substitution used by Obama and Romney .21 Table 4: The frequency of occurrence of ellipsis used by Obama and Romney 23 Table 5: The frequency of occurrence of conjuction used by Obama and Romney .25 Table 6: The frequency of occurrence of reiteration used by Obama and Romney .29 Table 7: The frequency of occurrence of collocation used by Obama and Romney 31 CHAPTER 4: MAJOR FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING COHESION 35 PART C: CONCLUSION .39 REFERENCES . 41 SOURCES OF DATA 43 v APPENDIX . I TABLE OF CONTENS DECLARATION . i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .ii ABSTRACT iii ABBREVIATION . iv LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES .v TABLE OF CONTENS .vi PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study 2. Aims of the study .1 3. The research questions of the study .2 4. Scope of the study 5. Methods of the study .2 6. Design of the study .2 PART B: DEVELOPMENT vi CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW .4 1.1. Discourse and Discourse analysis 1.1.1. Discourse analysis .4 1.1.2. Discourse context 1.2. Cohesion 1.2.1. The concept of cohesion 1.2.2. Cohesion and Coherence 1.2.3. Types of cohesion Table 1: Grammatical and lexical cohesion .8 1.3. Persuasion in political speeches 14 CHAPTER 2: AN OVERVIEW ON “UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, 2012” AND “THE THIRD PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE” 16 2.1. An overview on United States presidential election, 2012 16 2.2. United States presidential election debates, 2012 and the third presidential debate 17 CHAPTER 3: AN ANALYSIS OF COHESIVE DEVICES IN THE THIRD DEBATE BY BARACK OBAMA AND MITT ROMNEY IN UNITED STATES PRESIENTIAL ELECTION, 2012 . 19 3.1. Grammatical cohesion 19 3.1.1. Reference 19 Table 2: The frequency of occurrence of reference used by Obama and Romney 19 3.1.2. Substitution 21 Table 3: The frequency of occurrence of substitution used by Obama and Romney .21 3.1.3. Ellipsis . 23 Table 4: The frequency of occurrence of ellipsis used by Obama and Romney 23 3.1.4. Conjunction 24 Table 5: The frequency of occurrence of conjuction used by Obama and Romney .25 Table 6: The frequency of occurrence of reiteration used by Obama and Romney .29 vii 3.2.2. Collocation .31 Table 7: The frequency of occurrence of collocation used by Obama and Romney 31 CHAPTER 4: MAJOR FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING COHESION 35 4.1. Major findings .35 4.2. Implications for the teaching and learning cohesion .37 4.2.1. Implications for teachers 37 4.2.2. Implications for learners .38 PART C: CONCLUSION .39 1. Recapitulation . 39 2. Conclusion 39 3. Limitations of the study .40 4. Suggestions for further studies 40 REFERENCES . 41 SOURCES OF DATA 43 APPENDIX . I viii our shores so that we're creating jobs here, as we've done with the auto industry, not rewarding companies that are shipping jobs overseas; making sure that we've got the best education system in the world, including retraining our workers for the jobs of tomorrow. (Obama) The phrase “bringing manufacturing back to our shores”, “creating jobs”, “got the best education system” are stuffs of rebuilding America. Thus, “rebuilding America” is the super-ordinates of these phrases. Ranking the last position is general words with 4% for Obama and 4.8% for Romney. 3.2.2. Collocation According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), collocation is “cohesion that is achieved through the association of lexical items that regularly co-occur”. In short, collocation refers to words that keep company with each other. In terms of structure, there are two types of collocation: grammatical collocation and lexical collocation (Halliday and Hasan, 1976). First and foremost, the overall picture of the occurrence of reiteration is shown in the table below. Types of collocation Frequency of occurrence Frequency of occurrence used by Obama (%) used by Romney (%) Lexical collocation 62% 54.4% Grammatical collocation 38% 45.6% Table 7: The frequency of occurrence of collocation used by Obama and Romney As is shown in the table, grammatical collocation takes up more percentage than lexical collocation with 62 %(Obama) and 54.4%(Romney) to 38%(Obama) and 45.6%(Romney), respectively. This may due to the fact that lexical collocation 31 consists of various combination of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and even quantitative. These content words can change their orders in the combination and can be added. Lexical collocation Lexical collocation is lexically restricted word pairs where only a subset of the synonyms of the collocators can be used in the same lexical content. Lexical collocation does not contain prepositions but consist of various combinations of nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. The following common patterns are involved: Adj + N, Quant + N, V + N, N + V, V + Adv, V + V, Adv + Adj, N + N. Some types of lexical collocation can be illustrated through the following examples in which we can see them as a means of creating cohesive relations for the discourses. Adj + N But, Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s, and the economic policies of the 1920s. (Obama) First of all, 30,000 people being killed by their Government is a humanitarian disaster. Secondly, Syria is an opportunity for us because Syria plays an important role in the Middle East, particularly right now. (Romney) V+N We've mobilized sanctions against that Government. We have made sure that they are isolated. We have provided humanitarian assistance, and we are helping the opposition organize. And we're particularly interested in making sure that we're mobilizing the moderate forces inside of Syria. (Obama) 32 And our military: We've got to strengthen our military long term. We don't know what the world is going to throw at us down the road. We make decisions today in a military that will confront challenges we can't imagine. (Romney) Grammatical collocation Grammatical collocation often contains a lexical content word and grammar function words, i.e. a noun, an adjective, a verb plus a preposition. Some main kinds of grammatical collocation include V + Prep, Adj + Prep, N + Prep, Prep + N. Some types of grammatical collocation can be illustrated through the following examples: V + Prep We don't want to get drawn in to a military conflict. And so the right course for us is working through our partners and with our own resources to identify responsible parties within Syria, organize them, bring them together in a form of, if not government, a form of council that can take the lead in Syria, and then make sure they have the arms necessary to defend themselves. (Romney) Imagine if we had pulled out at that point. Muammar Qaddafi had more American blood on his hands than any individual other than Usama bin Laden, and so we were going to make sure that we finished the job. That's part of the reason why the Libyans stand with us. (Obama) Prep + N We didn't have a lot of chance to talk about this in the last debate. Under my leadership, what we've done is reformed education, working with Governors, 46 States. (Obama) 33 Look, this, in my view, is the highest responsibility of the President of the United States, which is to maintain the safety of the American people. (Romney) To conclude, in this chapter, the author has dealt with analyzing the grammatical and lexical cohesive devices employed by the two candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in the third debate in Unites States presidential election, 2012. The data analyzed in accordance with illustrations taken from the speeches they use in the debate have shown that both two candidates have taken advantages of such cohesive items in making their speeches more persuasive. 34 CHAPTER 4: MAJOR FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING COHESION This chapter aims at summarizing the major findings of cohesive devices used in the third debate by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in Unites States presidential election, 2012 as well as providing some implication for both teachers and learners of English in teaching and learning cohesion. 4.1. Major findings The study gives an overlook into the cohesive devices used in the third debate by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in Unites States presidential election, 2012. The cohesive devices are employed to create cohesion and coherence of the discourse. The two candidates employ nearly all the items of cohesion mentioned by Halliday and Hasan (1976) and in fact, some items are more preferred to the others. Basing on Halliday and Hasan’s theory of cohesion (1976), six types of grammatical and lexical cohesive devices , namely reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction for the former and reiteration and collocation for the later, are covered. As for reference, it is found that demonstrative reference predominates the frequency of occurrence by both the two candidates with 51.9% for Obama, 47.12% for Romney. For conjunction, the frequency occurrence in order of addictive , adversative, causal, temporal and shows that the speeches in the debate aim at not only explaining or contrasting things but also providing information. Towards substitution, although they account for only small portion in the debate, they should not be ignore because they also contribute to the coherence and cohesion in the speeches of each candidate. With respect to lexical cohesion, among collocation and reiteration, collocation is the dominant type. Both lexical collocation and grammatical collocation play important roles in cohering texts. Reiteration account for only small portion; however, synonym/near-synonym, general words and superordinates 35 are also used as a means to avoid excessive repetition. The reason for the difference in the frequency of occurrence among two types of lexical cohesion is due to the speeches used related to political topics and the speeches used in a debate between two candidates for the president position. Although both the two candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney use numerous cohesive items in the debate, Democratic President Barack Obama employ cohesive devices more frequently and more effectively than Republican Governor Mitt Romney. After the third debate finished, CBS poll of uncommitted voters found that 53% believed that Obama won, 23% believed that Romney won, and 24% called the debate a tie. A CNN poll of debate watchers found that 48% of respondents called Obama the winner, 40% called Romney the winner, and 12% had no opinion or thought they tied. The success of a debater and the success of the whole presidential election campaign depend on a number of factors; however, it is unavoidable that using cohesive devices in the speeches effectively also play an important role. John Dickerson, chief political correspondent of Slate (a well-known American online magazine of news, politics, and culture which combines humor and insight in thoughtful analyses of current events and political news) said, “President Obama won the third debate, articulating his policies more forcefully, offering more detail and a coherent foreign policy rationale”. To sum up, of all six subtypes of two categories grammatical and lexical cohesion, reference and collocation are the most outstanding ones used by both the two candidates. They are, respectively, followed by conjunction, reiteration, ellipsis and substitution. In order to get best results in studying English, teachers should equip students with knowledge about these devices, and provide students with practice relating to these cohesive items. Some implications for teaching and learning cohesion will be discussed in the next part of this chapter. 36 4.2. Implications for the teaching and learning cohesion. This study is hoped to be useful to teachers and students in teaching and learning cohesion. Cohesive devices really play an important part in learning English at every grade of education. In fact, there are many students who are really good at grammar or structures but have difficulties in using cohesion effectively. Therefore, they should facilitate themselves with necessary knowledge of coherence and cohesion in order to get the best results in study. 4.2.1. Implications for teachers First of all, the teacher should raise the students’awareness of the importance of cohesion and the effectiveness of using them in both writing and speaking. Therefore, the teacher should introduce to the students the commonly-used cohesive devices as well as their meanings and how to employ them in particular situation. Hence, practical teaching must involve an emphasis on fulfilling cohesion and coherence in real contexts. In addition, teachers need to make sure that the knowledge of such cohesive items that students are exposed to is benefit to them. For example, teachers should include the information and the form of cohesive devices when teaching new words. Besides, it is necessary for the teacher to relate the writing skill to the speaking topic. This will help to enrich the skill areas and provide the students additional practice with the same function, vocabulary and structures. Teachers are advised to encourage their students to produce cohesive and coherent discourses and texts. Connectivity and acceptability should be characteristics of any successful discourse or text. Furthermore, teachers have to urge their students to use cohesive devices logically and efficiently so as to bind their discourses and texts. In general, teachers’appropriate students’learning effectiveness. 37 teaching methods will result in 4.2.2. Implications for learners Cohesion is a cognitive notion which people use when interpreting utterances or sentences. Cohesion relations, psychologically, are conceptual relations used by speakers and writers when processing speech or writing. Therefore, beside the teachers’instructions and advice, students should follow some other minor tips to achieve effectiveness. First of all, before processing speech or writing, students should identify the purpose of their speech or writing because different types of text require different types of cohesive devices. Concerning the knowledge of cohesive devices, students should know for certain which ones are the most suitable. In addition, it is better for the students to employ a variety of cohesive devices. For instance, they can use a wide range of synonymous or antonymous words to restrict unnecessary repetition and to shorten the sentences, make it clearer to understand. All the points mentioned here could entail an appeal to the readers’emotion or understanding. The author hope that to a certain extent, these would be helpful to those who are teaching and learning English in general and cohesion in particular or who are paying attention to them as well. 38 PART C: CONCLUSION In this chapter, the author would like to make a brief summary of findings, discuss the limitations of the study and provide some suggestions for future researches. 1. Recapitulation In general, there have been many linguistic learners carrying out researches on different subjects related to coherence and cohesion. Nevertheless, this thesis just focuses on analysis of cohesion used in the third debate between Barak Obama and Mitt Romney in Unites States presidential election, 2012 and provide some implications for the teaching and learning speaking skill. I hope this small research to be useful. After a certain time conducting this topic, I understand that cohesion in discourse is one of the important factors that contribute to the speeches in a debate. 2. Conclusion In the scope of my study, the answers to some research questions at the very beginning of the thesis have finally found out as follows: - All types of cohesion are exploited in speeches in the debate between Barak Obama and Mitt Romney as a means of textual links which helps the speeches used very coherent and cohesive. Though there is difference between the frequency of occurrences among these cohesive devices, they altogether contributes to the success of the speaker. - Discourse analysis is a new attempt to investigate how language works, and how texts are structured beyond the sentence level. In addition, when cohesion is appropriately used, it will help to create meaningful and logical texts. Therefore, it is undeniable that cohesion plays a very important role in the success of any discourse. 39 3. Limitations of the study The various types of cohesion mentioned can not complete the picture of cohesive functions in general. Like any study, there exist some limitations in this study. First of all, examples of cohesive devices employed in the debate are numerous, it is impossible to analyze all of them because of the shortage of length of this study. Secondly, the third debate is quite long and the cohesive devices are used in great numbers; consequently, the results gained may not be really exact. Lastly, the debate is about a lot of political issues, so it is difficult for the author to catch the messages that the two candidates wants to convey completely. The author hopes that in further researches, all these things will be dealt with to have better results. 4. Suggestions for further studies For the scope of the study, this thesis is attempt to investigate the cohesion of a discourse in a particular context and detailed analysis of cohesive devices used in the third debate by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in Unites States presidential election, 2012. Therefore, there are many aspect uncovered. Further studies conducted could focus on the followings: - Discourse features of the speeches in the debate - Cohesive devices in the first debate and second ones - Cohesive devices in other English speeches Due to the constraint in time, the framework of a M.A minor thesis as well as limited knowledge of the author, mistakes are unavoidable. All comments and suggestions for improving this thesis, in both content and form, are warmly welcomed and highly appreciated. 40 REFERENCES In English: Brown G. and Yule G. (1983), Discourse analysis, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Cook G. (1989), Discourse, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Crystal D. (1992), Introduction to linguistics, Penguin, London. De Beaugrande R. (1980), Text, Discourse and Process, Longman, London. Firth J.R. (1957), Papers in Linguistics, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Gee James Paul. (1999), An Introduction to Discourse Analysis, Routledge, London. Halliday M.A.K. & Hasan R. (1976), Cohesion in English, Longman, London. Halliday M.A.K. & Hasan R. (1989), Language, Context and Text: Aspect of language in a socio-semiotic perspectives, Deadkin University Press, Victoria. Halliday M.A.K. (1994), Functional Grammar, Edward Arnold, London. Nguyen Hoa. (2000), An Introduction to Discourse Analysis, Vietnam National University Publishing House, Hanoi. Nunan D. (1993), Introducing Discourse Analysis, Penguin, London. Omar Abdullah Aziz. (2011), Cohesion in English with Implications for Teaching, Tikrit University Journal for Humanities, Vol. (18) No. (10) Salkie R. (1995), Text and Discourse Analysis, Routledge Publisher, London. Telemans G. (2001), Discourse Analysis, Vietnam National University Publishing House, Hanoi. 41 Widdowson H.G. (1979), Exploration in Applied Linguistics, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Widdowson H.G. (1984), Exploration in Applied Linguistics 2, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Yule G. (1996), The Study of Language, Oxford University Press, Oxford. In Vietnamese: Nguyễn Hòa. (2003). Phân tích diễn ngôn: Một số vấn đề lý luận phương pháp. Nhà xuất Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội. Trần Ngọc Thêm. (2000). Hệ thống liên kết văn tiếng việt. Nhà xuất giáo dục, Hà Nội. Websites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_debates,_2012 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBS http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/10/third_presidential_debate _barack_obama_won_the_final_debate_but_mitt_romney.html 42 SOURCES OF DATA Transcript of the third debate between President Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney, Oct. 22 in Boca Raton, Fla., moderated by Bob Schieffer of CBS. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-of-final-2012-presidential-debate/ 43 APPENDIX SAMPLES OF COHESIVE EXERCISES Exercise (1): (Substitution): Example: - Do you like drinking milk? - I do. Ask the students to substitute for the underlined words: a.- Does she like swimming? - She ‫ـــــــــــــــــــ‬. b.- Did he sing beautifully? - He ‫ ــــــــــــــــــــ‬. c.- Do they play tennis? - They ‫ــــــــــــــــــــــ‬. d.- If you not like this book, I will give you another ‫ ــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬. e.- Did Shaw write many plays? -He ‫ ــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬. Exercise (2): (Ellipsis): Example: Rose went to the garden and (she/ Ø) collected flowers. Ask the students to delete the redundant words to make the sentences cohesive: a. Pupils have to study and they succeed. b. Wells wrote a novel and he published it. c. Jack is taller than Jill is. I d. These books are cheaper than those ones are. e. Dickens wrote more novels than Golding did. Exercise (3): (Lexical relationships): Example: I bought a bicycle. It is a good two – wheeler. Ask the students to use near synonyms (e.g. faith, deathless, deep, driver, four – wheeler) instead of the underlined words: a. Jane bought a car . It is the cheapest ‫ ـــــــــــــــــــــ‬. b. I went to the sea . The ‫ ـــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬was roaring. c. She sat behind the man at the wheel. He was the best ‫ ـــــــــــــــــــ‬. d. Man is not immortal. He is not ‫ ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬. e. Clay’s belief was Islamic. His ‫ ــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬was in Islam. Exercise (4): (Conjunctions): Example: He entered the room and sat down. Ask the students to use conjunctions (e.g. so, and, yet, moreover, because) to achieve cohesive sentences: a. They are clever. ‫ ــــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬, they are polite . b. Eva studied hard; ‫ ــــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬, she failed . c. He is healthy ‫ ــــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬he takes vitamins. d. Tom went to the garden ‫ ــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬watered the trees. e. Jack smoked a lot. ‫ــــــــــــــــــــــــ‬, he got lung cancer. Exercise (5): (Comparison): Example: This bag is good. That one is better. Ask the students to use comparison to achieve cohesive sentences: II ‫‪ .‬ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ ‪a. This pen is good. That one is‬‬ ‫‪ .‬ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ ‪b. This man is bad. That one is‬‬ ‫‪ .‬ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ ‪c. This car is fast. That one is‬‬ ‫‪ .‬ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ ‪d. These houses are far. Those ones are‬‬ ‫‪.‬ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ ‪e. These books are big. Those ones are‬‬ ‫‪III‬‬ [...]... solely on speeches by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in the third debate in Unites States presidential election, 2012, mainly based on linguistic views of Halliday and Hasan 5 Methods of the study To attain the aims of the study, the author has employed the Quantitative Method It means that the thesis focuses more on the collection and analysis of numerical data and statistics Counting and measuring are common... ROMNEY IN UNITED STATES PRESIENTIAL ELECTION, 2012 This chapter deals with the use of cohesive devices in the third debate by Barack Obama and Mitt Romney in Unites States presidential election, 2012 The analysis process is mainly based on the linguistic view of Halliday and Hasan In this part, the thesis shall go deep into presenting statistical results of frequency of cohesive devices appeared in speeches. .. disciplines in the 1960s and early 1970s, including linguistics, semiotics, psychology, anthropology and sociology There have been many interpretations to what is meant by Discourse analysis British discourse analysis was influenced by M .A. K Halliday’s functional approach of language His framework emphasizes the social function of language and the thematic and information structure of speech and writing... effect achieved by the 12 selection of vocabulary” We could say that it covers any instance in which the use of a lexical item recalls the sense of an earlier one Halliday and Hasan (1976) classify lexical cohesion into two main categories: reiteration and collocation Reiteration According to Halliday and Hasan (1976) is “the repetition of a lexical item, or the occurrence of a synonym of some kind, in. .. into account a brief understanding on the United States presidential election, 2012 in general and the third presidential debate in particular 2.1 An overview on United States presidential election, 2012 Departing from the monarchical tradition of Britain, the founding fathers of the United States created a system in which the American people had the power and responsibility to select their leader Under... instructive, persuasive, etc.) Field, tenor and mode of discourse are in a dialectical relationship The collectively define the context of situation of a text They are contextual variables of what is called a register In linguistics, a register is a variety of a language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting Halliday and Hasan (1976) 5 interpret 'register' as “the set of meanings, the... identical to that of the first debate There were six 15-minute segments, with the moderator introducing a topic and giving each candidate two minutes to respond, before allowing the candidates to discuss the topics The moderator will use the balance of the time in the segment for a discussion of the topic 18 CHAPTER 3: AN ANALYSIS OF COHESIVE DEVICES IN THE THIRD DEBATE BY BARACK OBAMA AND MITT ROMNEY IN. ..PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study Since antiquity the genre of political speech has been considered as a means of influencing audiences through rhetoric, which aims at persuading, claiming leadership and moving audiences to action with arguments In recent years, political texts have been analyzed to track legislative agendas and political topics and. .. terms of structure, there are two types of collocation: grammatical collocation and lexical collocation (Halliday and Hasan, 1976) - Grammatical collocation often contains a lexical content word and grammar function words, i.e a noun, an adjective, a verb plus a preposition Some main kinds of grammatical collocation include V + Prep, Adj + Prep, N + Prep, Prep + N - Lexical collocation is lexically... writing Halliday and Hasan (1976) and De Beaugrande (1980) have made contribution to this branch of linguistics in pointing out the links between grammar and discourse Yule (1996) states: In the study of language, some of the most interesting questions arise in connection with the way language is ‘used’, rather than what its components are ( ) we were, in effect, asking how it is that language-users interpret . INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ HUỆ A PRAGMATIC- CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF COHESIVE DEVICES IN SPEECHES BY BARRACK OBAMA AND MITT ROMNEY IN UNITED STATES PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION, . and the third presidential debate 17 CHAPTER 3: AN ANALYSIS OF COHESIVE DEVICES IN THE THIRD DEBATE BY BARACK OBAMA AND MITT ROMNEY IN UNITED STATES PRESIENTIAL ELECTION, 2012 19 3.1. Grammatical. by M .A. K Halliday’s functional approach of language. His framework emphasizes the social function of language and the thematic and information structure of speech and writing. Halliday and Hasan