An analysis of president barack obama’s speech at president nelson mandela’s memorial, from critical discourse analysis perspectives002

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FALCULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  - NGUYỄN DIỆU HẰNG ANANALYSISOFPRESIDENTBARACKOBAMA’SSPEECHATPRESIDENT NELSONMANDELA’SMEMORIAL,FROMCRITICALDISCOURSE ANALYSISPERSPECTIVES PHÂN TÍCH BÀI PHÁT BIỂU CỦA TỔNG THỐNG BARACK OBAMA TẠI LỄ TƯỞNG NIỆM TỔNG THỐNG NELSON MANDELA TỪ BÌNH DIỆN PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGÔN PHÊ PHÁN MA MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Hanoi - 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FALCULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  - NGUYỄN DIỆU HẰNG ANANALYSISOFPRESIDENTBARACKOBAMA’SSPEECHATPRESIDENT NELSONMANDELA’SMEMORIAL,FROMCRITICALDISCOURSE ANALYSISPERSPECTIVES PHÂN TÍCH BÀI PHÁT BIỂU CỦA TỔNG THỐNG BARACK OBAMA TẠI LỄ TƯỞNG NIỆM TỔNG THỐNG NELSON MANDELA TỪ BÌNH DIỆN PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGƠN PHÊ PHÁN MA MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Prof NGUYỄN HÒA Hanoi - 2014 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deep gratitude towards my supervisor, Prof Nguyễn Hòa, for his constant and invaluable assistance without which my study would be far from finished I am also greatly indebted to all my colleagues at Thuan Thanh High School who provided me with valuable materials and enthusiastic support Finally, my sincere thanks go to my beloved family for their love, encouragement, and support while I was carrying out this research Hanoi, May 2014 Nguyễn Diệu Hằng i ABSTRACT This study presents an attempt to apply a critical discourse analysis perspective to investigating a political speech addressed by President Barack Obama on the occasion of th the Nelson Mandela’s memorial on December 10 , 2013 Based on a brief overview of critical discourse analysis introduced by Norman Fairclough, the study follows a framework with three parts: Description, Interpretation and Explanation It focuses on the analysis of language features (lexical ones and grammatical ones), the relationship between situational and intertextual context, and the discourse process and social process Data for the research, thanks to which the objectives are achieved, are collected from the research The findings show that the author employs linguistic features as the strategies to represent his power and ideology The ideology of freedom, democracy and tolerance does not only belong to Nelson Mandela, but to Barack Obama as well That is the way Obama hopes to exert his power and gain support from people around the world The analysis also proves that critical discourse analysis is the smartest choice for those whose concern is about political discourse, especially political speech ii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Common pronouns in the speech 19 Table 2: Summary of thematization analysis 26 Table 3: Reasons of making the speech 28 Table 4: Mandela as a liberator, a person who struggles for liberation and democracy 28 Table 5: Mandela as a person of tolerance and non-violence 29 Table 6: The on-going struggles 31 Table 7: Our actions 31 Table 8: Representatives 36 Table 9: Commissives 36 Table 10: Commissives 36 Table 11: Directives 36 Table 12: Summary of the findings 38 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT LIST OF TABLES PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the Study Objectives of the Scope of the Study Method of the Structure of the CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL 1.1 Political Discourse and Speech 1.2 Critical Discourse Analysis 1.2.1 Definition of CDA 1.2.2 Stages of CDA 1.2.3 CDA as the 1.3 Ideology CHAPTER 2: RESEARCH 2.1 Collecting data 2.2 Analyzing data CHAPTER 3: AN MEMORIAL 3.1 Context 3.2 Textual Description and 3.2.1 Vocabulary Analysis 3.2.2 Grammatical 3.2.3 Thematization 3.2.4 Macro-level Analysis 3.3 Interpretation of the processes 3.3.1 3.3.2 Intertextual context and 3.4 Explanation of the Discourse Process and PART C: CONCLUSION Recapitulation iv Conclusion 40 Limitations 40 Recommendations and implications 40 REFERENCES 42 APPENDIX 1: VII APPENDIX 2: VII v PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the Study Along with the development of the human society, language has evolved to satisfy human needs An important move in linguistics in recent years has introduced a new model and method of analysis of language known as Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), a new branch of Discourse Analysis (DA) Different from Discourse Analysis in general, CDA views language as a social practice – language is a part of society, language is a social process, and language is a socially conditioned process (Norman Fairclough, 1989) This is a linguistic approach widely applied for the analysis of political discourse In politics, CDA is often applied to explore and discover power and ideology hidden in the political discourse held by the authority This inspired me to choose Norman Faircoulgh’s as the theoretical framework for my MA thesis Furthermore, I myself find CDA really useful and interesting as it provides us an analytic tool to illustrate and clarify CDA concepts, along with uncovering the speaker’s power and ideology For those reasons, I have decided to choose CDA as the field of my study and take “An analysis of President Barack Obama’s speech at President Nelson Mandela’s memorial, from critical discourse analysis perspectives” as a text for my thesis, using Norman Fairclough’s viewpoints as a theoretical framework Objectives of the Study Basing on CDA approach and Norman Fairclough’s framework , the study aims at: Analyzing the grammatical and lexical features, and the structures of the discourse Analyzing Nelson Mandela's values presented in the discourse, and the purpose of the author making this speech through grammatical and lexical items, and the structures of the discourse With the above objectives, the study deals with the following research questions: What are Nelson Mandela's values presented in the discourse? How are these values realized in terms of lexical and grammatical features, and structure of the discourse? Scope of the Study The study takes the written text of the speech at Nelson Mandela’s memorial by the incumbent president of the USA, Barack Obama It is the speech Barrack Obama delivered in Prague on Tuesday, December 10, 2013, paying tribute to Mandela’s life, and calling on the world to remember him by continuing to fight injustice, on the occasion of Mandela’s memorial at the First National Bank Stadium (FNB Stadium), South Africa In this study, I focus only on relevant salient features Since this research is pure linguistic, I have no intention of giving an in-depth research into political science Nevertheless, social-political context is presumed to result in the realization and representation of power and ideology of the speaker Method of the Study The methodology in this paper follows the view of the most outstanding theoreticians in this approach (Fairclough1989, 1992, 1995, 2001, 2002; van Dijk1993, 1997, 1998, 1980, 2000) Methods of description and analysis are applied to investigate the realization and representation of power and ideology of the discourse Although several approaches to CDA have been chosen and analyzed, the one by Norman Fairclough is prior as it supplies most fundamental knowledge in the CDA Structure of the Study The study consists of three main parts Firstly, the Introduction part explains the rationale, aims, scopes and methods of the research The next part is Theoretical Background, which sets a theoretical and suppositional orientation for the study A detailed Analysis will follow this with a thorough look into description, interpretation and explanation stage And the two parts ending this study are Conclusion and References 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 VIII 21 And 22 23 24 25 But 26 Instead 27 28 29 Unless 30 31 32 IX 33 because 34 35 36 37 And 38 39 And 40 41 For 42 43 44 45 X 46 47 48 Perhaps 49 50 And 51 52 53 But 54 so 55 Moreover 56 57 58 XI 59 60 61 62 63 But if 64 65 66 67 But 68 69 But also 70 71 XII 72 73 74 And 75 so that 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 XIII 85 But as 86 87 And because 88 89 90 91 And 92 93 94 95 96 XIV 97 98 99 100 101 102 But 103 104 105 106 107 108 so 109 XV 110 111 but 112 For 113 114 But 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 XVI 122 123 124 125 But 126 that 127 128 129 130 but 131 For 132 133 XVII 134 135 and 136 137 and 138 and 139 140 And so 141 too too 142 143 144 but 145 that 146 XVIII 147 148 but 149 And 150 when 151 152 153 But 154 155 156 until 157 158 159 XIX 160 161 162 163 164 But 165 166 167 168 and 169 170 and 171 172 And while XX 173 174 175 176 After 177 and when 178 179 180 And when 181 when 182 when 183 184 XXI 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 XXII ... decided to choose CDA as the field of my study and take ? ?An analysis of President Barack Obama’s speech at President Nelson Mandela’s memorial, from critical discourse analysis perspectives” as a text... new model and method of analysis of language known as Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), a new branch of Discourse Analysis (DA) Different from Discourse Analysis in general, CDA views language... NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FALCULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  - NGUYỄN DIỆU HẰNG ANANALYSISOFPRESIDENTBARACKOBAMA’SSPEECHATPRESIDENT