1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES -----***----- PHẠM THỊ QUYÊN A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SPEECH “WOMEN’S RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS” BY HILLARY CLINTON PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGÔN PHÊ PHÁN BÀI PHÁT BIỂU “NỮ QUYỀN LÀ NHÂN QUYỀN” CỦA HILLARY CLINTON M. Minor Programme Thesis FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60 22 15 HA NOI, 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES -----***----- PHẠM THỊ QUYÊN A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SPEECH “WOMEN’S RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS” BY HILLARY CLINTON PHÂN TÍCH DIỄN NGÔN PHÊ PHÁN BÀI PHÁT BIỂU “NỮ QUYỀN LÀ NHÂN QUYỀN” CỦA HILLARY CLINTON M. Minor Programme Thesis FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60 22 15 SUPERVISOR: DR. LÂM QUANG ĐÔNG HA NOI, 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Certification of originality of study project report .iii Table of contents.
iv List of abbreviations. vii List of figures and tables. viii List of appendices. ix Part A: Introduction.
Significance of the study. Scope of the study. Aims of the study and research questions. Design of the study.
5 Chapter 1: Theoretical background. What is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)?. Components of CDA: Critical, Discourse, Analysis. What is CDA?.
Key concepts in CDA. Principles of CDA. Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) in CDA. 8 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 7 Chapter 2: Methodology.
Social Context of Women’s Position in Society. Women‟s position in the past. Women‟s position nowadays. Hillary Clinton with women‟s rights.
Critical Discourse Analysis in Practice: a Framework of CDA. 23 Chapter 3: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Speech “Women’s Rights are Human Rights”. Textual Description and Analysis. The use of personal pronoun.
The use of voice. Moods of the sentences. Connective values of the text. Macro-structure of the text.
Interpretation of the relationship between the productive and interpretive processes. Explanation of the relationship between discourse processes and social processes 41 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 8 Part C: Conclusion. Summary of findings. Implication and recommendations to teaching and learning translation.
II Appendix II. VII Appendix III. XII Appendix IV….XV LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 9 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CDA Critical Discourse Analysis CL Critical Linguistics MR Members‟ Resources SFG Systemic Functional Grammar LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 10 LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1: Aspects of interpersonal management Figure 2: Interpretation Figure 3: Explanation Table 1: Overview of process type Table 2: Primary speech roles Table 3: Components of a multiple theme Table 4: Summary of transitivity analysis data Table 5: Summary of thematic analysis LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 11 LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix I: Hillary Clinton‟s speech Appendix II: Transitivity analysis Appendix III: Thematic analysis LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 12 PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale In the past few decades, the world has seen profound economic and social changes thanks to significant contributions of many organizations and individuals all over the world.
Every day, contracts are signed, policies are made, laws are enacted and so on in order to meet the demands of people‟s life and to make our world better. However, for a long time, things do not happen equally for every one in many parts of the world, i. men and women are treated differently and women are often those who suffer ill-treatment. Human rights are mentioned so many times but it seems that human rights are only for men, not for the other half of the world‟s population.
Fortunately, recently, there have been many forums, conferences where a lot of brave and responsible people speak for women and fight for women‟s rights. Nowadays, women‟s rights around the world are an important indicator of understanding global well-being. It has been recognized and agreed that successful development also involves gender equality. The World Conference on women in Beijing in 1995 is a famous one as one of its goals is to reflect on the promised provisions of equality, development and peace for all women everywhere.
In the speech on women‟s rights delivered at the conference titled “Women‟s rights are Human rights”, Hillary Clinton said: “I believe that, on the eve of a new millennium, it is time to break our silence. It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women‟s rights as separate from human rights.” Hillary Clinton wants to use this speech to speak for women and call for joint efforts to protect women‟s rights. In order to find out how effective language can be in expressing ideas or ideologies, in other words, to find out the relationship between language and power, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is considered as an important tool as what Fairclough stated: “This is an opportunity and a challenge for critical language study – it can make a considerable contribution on issues which are vitally important for the future of humankind.” LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 13 For all the above reasons, the author conducts the research entitled “A Critical Discourse Analysis of “Women‟s rights are Human rights” by Hillary Clinton at United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in China, 5 September 1995. Significance of the study CDA is actually a new linguistic research area in Vietnam; however, for the last few years, more and more linguists find interest in this field and are making efforts to enhance the consciousness of how power and ideology are embedded in language in particular and the relation between language and the society in general.
Nevertheless, more researches and studies should look into this area to make CDA a more popular choice for linguists when the relation between language and society is in question. This study is expected to raise a voice in approval of applying and advancing Critical Discourse Analysis in doing linguistics research. In addition, it is hoped to benefit English language learners as it is common that they usually find authentic discourses difficult to comprehend fully. This is mainly due to their failure to interpret the author‟s underlying assumptions.
The awareness of the ideological meanings of the discourse will enable the comprehensive understanding of authentic discourses, especially political ones. Scope of the study As mentioned above, so far there have been a lot of forums and conferences where people speak for women and struggle for women‟s rights. This study focuses on the speech made by Hillary Clinton “Women’s rights are Human rights”. Research assumptions Analyzing the speech in the light of CDA, the researcher assumes that: - The discourse embeds ideology and power.
- The speaker‟s ideology can be uncovered by the analysis of vocabulary, mood and modality, transitivity, thematic structure and macrostructure. Aims of the study and research questions LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 14 The study is aimed at: - finding out the ideology embedded in the discourse, - pointing out the expression of ideology in the discourse, - raising critical awareness of the ideology of the discourse on women‟s rights for English language learners and others concerned with women‟s rights. The analysis of the speech is hopefully expected to serve as an instance of how power and ideology are achieved through language. It is also hoped to enhance the awareness of the role of language in general and of Critical Discourse Analysis in particular.
Specifically, the following research questions will be answered in the study: - What are the ideologies embedded in the discourse? - How are these ideologies linguistically expressed in the discourse? - Why are the ideologies embedded in the discourse? 6. Design of the study The study consists of three parts: Part A: Introduction: This part includes the rationale, scope, research assumptions, aims and research questions, and design of the study. Part B: Development: This part includes three chapters: Chapter 1: Theoretical background In this chapter, an overview of CDA theories is presented including a definition of CDA, key concepts in CDA, principles of CDA as well as Systemic Functional Grammar and its roles in CDA. Chapter 2: Methodology This chapter presents the social context of women‟s position in society including women‟s position in the past and women‟s position nowadays.
The chapter also briefs on Hillary Clinton‟s roles in struggling for women‟s rights. Then a framework of Critical Discourse LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 15 Analysis procedure which sets the basis for the analysis of the speech “Women‟s rights are human rights” will be introduced and explained. Chapter 3: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Speech “Women’s Rights are Human Rights” In this chapter, the procedure of CDA by Fairclough and FSG theory will be applied into analyzing Hillary Clinton‟s speech to see how language and power are embedded in the text. Part C: Conclusion This part summarizes the major findings, provides concluding remarks, gives implication to teaching and learning translation and makes recommendations for further study.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 16 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1. What is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)? A lot of CDA practitioners like Chouliaraki and Fairclough, Gee, Luke, VanDijk, Wodak,… treated social practices not only in terms of social relationships but also in terms of their implications for things like status, power,… from the critical approaches. Following are the views of some practitioners on CDA. Components of CDA: Critical, Discourse, Analysis In order to understand what CDA is, an overall understanding of the three components of CDA namely: Critical, Discourse, Analysis, is mandatory.
Critical According to Wodak (2001:9), “Basically, „critical‟ is to be understood as having distance to the data, embedding data in the social, talking a political stance explicitly, and focus a self reflection as scholars doing research”. Fairclough (2001:4) states that “Critical is used in the special sense of aiming to show up connections which may be hidden from people – such as the connections between language, power and ideology referred above them”. Discourse Fairclough and Wodak (1997:259) point out “CDA sees discourse – language use in speech and writing – as a form of „social practice‟ ”. (1999:38) view discourse as “a particular perspective on these various forms of semiosis – it sees them as moments of social practices in their articulation with other non-discursive moments.
Analysis LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. (1999) claim that the analysis of discourse covers the structural and interactional analysis. The structural analysis is concerned about the locating of the discourse in its relation to the network of orders of discourse and specifying how the discourse draws selectively. From the interactional perspective, the concern is with how the discourse works with the resource – how the genres and discourses which are drawn upon are worked together in the textual process of the discourse and what articulatory work is done in the text.
What is CDA? According to Van Dijk (1998a), Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is a field that is concerned with studying and analyzing written and spoken texts to reveal the discursive sources of power, dominance, inequality and bias. It examines how these discursive sources are maintained and reproduced within specific social, political and historical contexts.