VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF HANOI THE UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES MAI VĂN KẾT THE DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY OF A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A CASE STUDY (KIẾN TẠO BẢN SẮC THÔNG QUA DIỄN NGÔN CỦA MỘT ỨNG CỬ VIÊN TỔNG THỐNG:MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU TRƯỜNG HỢP CỤ THỂ) Major master thesis Major: English linguistics Code: 60220201 HANOI - 2017 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF HANOI THE UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF RADUATE STUDIES MAI VĂN KẾT THE DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY OF A PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: A CASE STUDY (KIẾN TẠO BẢN SẮC THÔNG QUA DIỄN NGÔN CỦA MỘT ỨNG CỬ VIÊN TỔNG THỐNG:MỘT NGHIÊN CỨU TRƯỜNG HỢP CỤ THỂ) Major master thesis Major: English linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Professor Nguyễn Hoà HANOI - 2017 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby state that I, Mai Van Ket, a student of the Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, certify with my signature that my thesis entitled „The Discursive Construction of Identity of a Presidential Candidate: A Case Study‟ is entirely the result of my own work. I have faithfully and accurately cited all my sources, including books, journals, newspaper articles, generics, doctoral dissertations, and online resources. I declare that I understood the concept of plagiarism and I acknowledge that my thesis will be rejected in case of plagiarism. The thesis contains no materials that has been submitted previously, in whole or in part, for the award of any other academic degree or diploma.
Supervisor‟s signature Student‟s signature GS. NguyễnHoà Mai VănKết i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my thesis supervisor Professor Nguyen Hoa at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for his thoughtful andfruitful series of lectureson discourse analysis, which led and shed light to this present study. I gratefully owed him the introduction to Hillary Clinton and the speech, to the issue of identity in sociolinguistics. Especially, I wish to thank him for his constant guidance, dedication and professionalism which helped me to complete the final report of this study project.
My sincere gratitudes go to the lecturers at the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their interesting lectures, suggestions and scientific research, which inspired me to go in the journey of academics. I cannot express enough thanksto Doctor Huynh Anh Tuan, Dean ofthe Faculty of Graduate Studies,for providing me with an opportunity to do the project work and providing me with such a nice support and encourgagement, although he had busy schedule managing the corporate affairs. Last but not least, I must express my very profound gratitudes to my family and friends for providng me with unfailing support and comfort throughout my years of study. Thank you! ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT In the last decades, the focus on identity in social sciences has increased enormously.
Identity construction appears to be practices that sometimes escape our attention in teaching practices but they exert an enormous influence on education. Though much research has been undertaken on identity, there exist gaps that need further theoretical and practical advancements. Most importantly, a critical review suggests that there is an absence of identity research in Vietnam. In order to address such gaps, the present thesis explores the discursive construction of identity ina presidential campaign speech.
This study employs critical discourse analysis as an interdisciplinary approach to reality and representation of social actors and language styles are synthesized as an analytical framework. The study takes a special interest in the way Hillary Clinton discursively projects and negotiates identity to communicate in her campaign in a discursive process. The key findings of the study indicate that collective and personal identity was discursively constructed in the strategic choice of language. The results of the study contribute to an understanding of identity construction in political campaign discourses.
Practical suggestions for successful language communication and further research were also identified. Keywords:personal identity, collective identity, critical discourse analysis, discursive, interconnectedness, social actors, weapon iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF FIGURES.
vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vii CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION .1 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW. Critical Discourse Analysis. Identity as a Discursive Work.22 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND METHODOLOGY.
The Context of the Study. Representing social actors. Intertextuality and Interdiscursivity. Discussion of Validity and Reliability .46 CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS.
Social Group Struggles and Collective Identity. Activation and passivation .51 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Genericization and specification. Individualization and assimilation.
Association and disassociation. Determination and indetermination. Nominalization and categorization. Language Styles and Personal Identity.
Role allocation in process types. Intertextuality and interdiscursivity .70 CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION .77 CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION. Summary of the Findings. Implications of the Study.
Limitations and Further Research. I Appendix 1: The data. I Appendix 2: Coded data. XVI Appendix 3: Impersonalization.
XXXII v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: A framework for critical discourse analysis of communication event. 16 Figure 2: A working analytical framework. 29 Figure 3: The grammar of experience: Types of process in English. 31 Figure 4: The representation of social actors: Activation and Passivation.
33 Figure 5: Coding as a cyclical act in qualitative inquiry. 47 Figure 6: Activation and passivation of social actors. 56 Figure 9: Process frequencies with the in-group and out-group representation of social actors. 58 Figure 10: Epistemic modalizer „will‟.
67 Figure 11: Epistemic modalizer „would‟. 68 Figure 12: Deontic modalizer „should‟. 69 Figure 13: Deontic modalizer „must‟. 69 Figure 14: Deontic modalizer „have to‟.
69 Figure 15: Discursive construction of identity. 80 Figure 16: Interconnectedness of levels of identity analysis. 84 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CDA Critical discourse analysis GOP Grand Old Party ISIS Islamic State of Iraq and Syria LGBT Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization RQ Research question SFG Systemic functional grammar UN United Nations vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Language is a primary means through which the social world is constructed. It is here to say that the way we view the world and ourselves is constructed by language use, for that reason language use can be considered as the process of constructing and maintaining relations, values and identities, or participating in social change.
De Fina(2011) states that human communication mainly aims at exchanging information, getting things done or expressing feelings and emotions or conveying the idea of what kind of people we are or we are not. The use of language can reveal the geographical, ethnic social communities we are in, can reveal the images about ourselves and people. Therefore, through language use, similarities and differences can be analyzed and categorized. De Fina(2011)concludes language and discourse are central to the construction and negotiation of identities.
The present study is concerned with the analysis of one of Hillary Clinton‟s speeches in her presidential campaign. The choice of Hillary Clinton is due to a number of reasons. Firstly, she is a well-known and prominent political figure. The 2016 election marked an important historical moment in America when Hillary Clinton was the first woman nominee of a major party to run for president.
Secondly, she was a presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party and the only candidate from the party who was actively campaigning. Thirdly, previous analyses of her discourse was all conducted for different purposes rather than revealing the discursive construction of her identity as a presidential candidate. Scholars either looked into Hillary Clinton‟s speeches and focusing on the construction or performance of her voice, femininity, gender, racism, sexism (Anderson, 2002; Bligh, Merolla, Schroedel, & Gonzalez, 2010; Campbell, 1998; Gervais & Hillard, 2011; Templin, 1999; Uscinski & Goren, 2011)in the light of critical discourse analysis. Or scholars focusedon the study of her identity construction from 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com different perspectives.Zhou-min (2009) andJu (2011) analyzed the construction of identity in the light of Adaption Theory and Pragmatics respectively.
Prominently, Wodak(2003)studied the discursive construction of multiple identities to reveal the roles of female parliamentarians in the EU parliament in order to identify which roles and identities female EU members activate in the analysis of authentic interviews with female EU members. However, the subjects under investigation by Wodak were a group of women politicians to the purpose of comparative dimension between male and female politicians. Given the scope of this present study, the author would like to reveal the construction of collective and personal identity in the light of critical discourse analysis. The primary purpose of the study is to explore the identities Hillary Clinton discursively constructed in one of her speeches to communicate in her campaign, focusing on the tenets of critical discourse analysis to analyze social groups, modality, intertextuality and interdiscursivity embedded in the data.
It aims to reveal what language strategies Hillary Clinton employed in language. It also seeks to investigate why such identities were constructed. This study contributes to an understanding of the roles and construction of identity in a political discourse in an interdisciplinary approach. While a number of studies related to the present research have been undertaken in the past falling into two trends: (1) on social identities such as sexism, racism and nationalism in political contexts or personal identities in others; (2) on social and personal identities in other methods such as narrative, adaption theories, conversational analysis and so forth.
Arguably, there remains a need to incorporate critical discourse analysis to examine the discursive construction of identity in presidential campaign speech. In addition, previous studies on identity usually captured identity as „being‟ or „having‟. There exists a difference in the present thesis, it is to study identity construction as a discursive process. The findings of this study may therefore be of benefit in the field of knowledge as well as in language learning and teaching.
2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com From the general review of the formation and presentation of identities, as well as the trends in identity study, there exist gaps to fulfil: (1) studies at our home country on identity construction in discourse has long been neglected, (2) scholars studying on identity construction as a given product rather than a discursive process; (3) previous studies on the construction of identity in political discourse have not reached a presidential campaign speech; (4) identity was studied in other trends rather than in critical discourse analysis. This present thesis addresses the gaps, three key research questions are thus raised to discover the construction of identity as a discursive work: (1) What identities does Hillary Clinton discursively construct in her presidential campaign speech? (2) How are these identities linguistically realized? (3) Why does she choose to project such identities in her speech? Given the scope of the study, this present research project focuses on discovering the discursive construction of personal and collective identity in the data. In so doing, this study aims at investigating the interconnections between individual and social processes. That is to say social processes, ideologies and institutions meet with individual histories, behaviors and needs in the discursive construction of identity.
This discursive construction takes place in different levels and in different ways. Importantly, identities are the result of the negotiations between the interlocutors and the audience over the existence of roles, actions, attitudes and behaviors in certain social contexts. It is in this sense, language can be a strategic device to construct identity to serve different purposes.