A Critical Discourse Analysis of a Presidential Speech

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN THỊ HẠNH A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF A PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH (Phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán phát biểu Tổng thống) MASTER MINOR THESIS Field: English linguistics Code: 8220201.01 Supervisor: Prof Nguyen Hoa HANOI – 2018 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I, Nguyễn Thị Hạnh, hereby claim the originality of my study Unless otherwise indicated, this is my own piece of academic accomplishment Signature i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I wish to express my deep gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Prof Nguyen Hoa, for his friendly and patient guidance; insightful critiques during the research and preparation of this thesis I would like to thank him for his advice and assistance for my paper in terms of linguistic and structural aspects If it had not been for his invaluable supports, I could not have completed my study properly Secondly, I am particularly grateful to the Post-Graduate Department, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University and all the lectures for the precious lectures and lessons; the encouragement and assistance which not directly but importantly support my thesis My great thanks go to my workplace, my managers and my colleagues at Faculty of English, Hanoi National University of Education for their support when I have been doing my degree Finally, I wish to thank my family whose love, unconditional support and never -ending encouragement have carried me this far Without constant support of these people, this thesis would not have been possible ii ABSTRACT This study critically investigates the main ideologies conveyed by linguistic features in a speech of Barack Obama It is premised on Halliday‘s Systemic Functional Grammar, and the qualitative research design was used for the content analysis of the text The study shows the results of transitivity and modality In terms of transitivity, material processes dominate the speech with a total occurrence of 55,4 % here as the existential process types are used minimally in the speech with a total occurrence of 12,5 % This implies that Obama and his government are the main actors in an attempt to create a sense of developmental progression and continuity of the relationship between the two countries, US and Vietnam calls for immediate action and not a mere formality of assurances and wishful thinking Regarding modality, modal verbs, tenses and textuality are taken into consideration The study finds out that positive modals, present tenses are used the most with 78,4% and 58,4% in turn The study concludes that language structures can produce certain meanings and ideologies which are not explicit for readers This is in affirmation to the assumption that language form is not fortuitous, but performs a communicative function iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the study 1.2 Rationale for the study 1.3 Aims of the study 1.4 Research questions 1.5 Significance of the study 1.6 Outline of the thesis CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .7 2.1 Critical Discourse Analysis 2.2 Halliday‘s Systemic Functional Linguistics Theory 2.3 Ideology 14 2.4 Transitivity System 2.4.1 Material Processes 10 2.4.2 Relational Processes 10 2.4.3 Mental Processes 11 2.4.4 Behavioral Processes .11 2.4.5 Verbal Process 12 2.4.6 Existential Processes 12 2.5 Modality 13 2.6 Framework for CDA .14 2.6.1 Description Stage .15 2.6.2 Interpretation Stage 19 2.6.3 Explanation Stage 19 B PREVIOUS STUDIES .20 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 23 3.1 Context of the speech 23 iv 3.1.1 Obama and the speech 23 3.1.2 The relationship between Vietnam and the US 23 3.2 Data 25 3.3 Research Instrument .25 3.4 Procedure 26 3.5 Mode of Research 27 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 28 4.1 The ideologies of Obama in the speech 28 4.2 Obama‘s identities through this speech 30 4.3 Transitivity analysis 30 4.3.1 Material process .32 4.3.2 Relational Process 35 4.3.3 Mental Processes 36 4.3.4 Behavioral Process 38 4.3.5 Verbal Process 39 4.3.6 Existential Process 40 4.4 Modality Analysis 41 4.4.1 Modal verbs 41 4.4.2 Tenses .45 4.4.3 Personal pronouns 47 4.5 Textuality 50 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION .52 5.1 Recapitulation 52 5.2 Limitations of the study 53 5.3 Recommendations for further studies .53 REFERENCES I APPENDICES V v ABBREVIATION TABLE Abbreviations Words Abbreviations Words Pme mental process A actor Pm material process G goal Pb behavioral process S sensor Pv verbal process Sy sayer Pe relational process Rv receiver Pr existential process Bh behaver vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1: The Emergence of Transitivity Process Types in Obama‘s Speech 31 Table 2: Transitivity Analysis of Obama‘s speech (Material Process) 32 Table 3: Personal Pronouns 39 Table 5: Modality analysis of Obama‘s speech (Modal verbs) 42 Table 6: Tenses of sentences 45 Table 7: Personal Pronouns 47 vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter presents the background of the study, rationale, aims, research questions, significances and outline of the study 1.1 Background to the study Our words, undoubtedly, are never neutral, transparent or innocent They always carry the power and ideologies that reflect the interests of those who speak or write them (Taiwo, 2007) As language users, we have several words at our disposal to choose from when producing a text; the choice of certain words over others may reflect conscious and unconscious ideologies held by those who produce them At the same time they may shape the meanings of a text towards certain preferred ideologies Therefore, as observed by Van Dijk (2006), the analysis of language is a critical component in discovering and understanding particular ideologies He uses the term ideology to refer to attitudes, set of beliefs, values and doctrines with reference to religious, political, social and economic life, which shape the individual's and group's perception and through which reality is constructed and interpreted Language can be also defined as a tool utilized for the communication of meaning However, there is much more than simple lexical or grammatical meaning encoded in text People use language to achieve goals and express ideas Through language, individuals establish and maintain social identity and relationships According to Thompson (2004): “We use language to talk about our experience of the world, including the worlds in our own minds, to describe events and states and the entities involved in them We also use language to interact with other people, to establish and maintain relations with them, to influence their behaviour, to express our own viewpoint on things in the world, and to elicit or change theirs.” (p.30) Analyzing texts can provide insight into an individual‘s communicative objectives and beliefs about the world of the speaker that in this paper is Former US President Barack Obama In 2016, Obama paid a visit to Vietnam as the promise between him and Former President of Vietnam Truong Tan Sang This visit was really paid much attention of the whole country Vietnam, and I was not an exception This event somehow made the author of this paper so curious about this trip and made a good selection of questions about his style, his choice of cuisines, places, and his ideologies towards Vietnam Many scholars have analysed political speeches with reference to countries presidents (Horváth: 2009; Duran: 2008) They have realized that Presidents stand for their countries They have also come to be viewed as common fathers of their citizens, burdened with the care of their children (Hinckley, 1990) They have become people‘s representatives; hence, they should speak for their people The voice of the President is taken as the voice of the people The political ideologies embodied in presidential speeches and addresses, therefore, reflect the political ideologies and realities of their nations Obama who was a first-term senator from Illinois, became the first AfricanAmerican president of the United States He was born in August 1961, in Hawaii and has lived in many places, including Indonesia He attended Columbia University in New York and earned a law degree at Harvard University in Massachusetts After that, he worked as a lawyer and later for the University of Chicago When Obama served in the Senate since 2004, he introduced bipartisan legislation which allows Americans to distance learning online how their taxes dollars are spent Also, he served on the Veterans Affairs Committee, which helped oversee the care of soldiers back from Iraq and Afghanistan Therefore, his approval rate on the Internet was high In 2008, he defeated McCain, the Republican Party presidential candidate and won the all three debates on television held in Oxford, Nashville and Hempstead Finally, he won the final success and became the 44th American president and the first African-American president in American history According to the statistics of The Telegraph since his first overseas visit to Canada in February 2009, Mr Obama has taken 156 trips to nearly 60 countries in Air Force One during his presidency (Henderson, 2017) Those trips were his