VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ***** ***** BÙI THỊ THU HƯƠNG US PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S SPEECHES TO 2010 AND 2014 CADETS AT THE COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY OF THE UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS (Nghiên cứu bài diễn văn của Tổng Thống Mỹ Barack Obama trong buổi lễ tốt nghiệp của Học viện Quân sự tại West Point năm 2010 và năm 2014 từ góc độ Phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English linguistics Code: 60220201 HÀ NỘI – 2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ***** ***** BÙI THỊ THU HƯƠNG US PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S SPEECHES TO 2010 AND 2014 CADETS AT THE COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY OF THE UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS (Nghiên cứu bài diễn văn của Tổng Thống Mỹ Barack Obama trong buổi lễ tốt nghiệp của Học viện Quân sự tại West Point năm 2010 và năm 2014 từ góc độ Phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Prof. Nguyễn Hòa HÀ NỘI – 2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I, Bui Thi Thu Huong, hereby state that this minor thesis entitled “US President Barack Obama’s speeches to 2010 and 2014 cadets at the commencement ceremony of the United States Military Academy: a Critical Discourse Analysis” is the result of my own research and all the materials used in this study has been identified and acknowledged.A thesis has not been submitted for any degree to any other universities or institutions. Ha Noi, 2015 Bui Thi Thu Huong i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not be completed without the support of many people, to all of whom, I am profoundly indebted. First and foremost, from the bottom of my heart, I would like to express my special thank to my supervisor Prof.
Nguyen Hoa for his valuable guidance, ever- enthusiasm, responsibility and whole-hearted encouragement during the time of doing this thesis. He gave me a lot of support and inspired me to make this thesis better. Thanks to his critical feedbacks, invaluable suggestions and useful reference during the research process, I could complete my study. Secondly, I am greatly indebted to my lecturers at the University of Foreign Languages, VNU for their contribution to my thesis.
Especially, I would like to express my thanks to Prof. Hoang Van Van, Prof. Nguyen Quang, Assoc. Le Hung Tien, Dr.
Huynh Anh Tuan and Assoc. Prof Vo Dai Quang because their valuable lectures laid the foundation for this thesis and their constant assistance as well as their encouragement helped me a lot in this study. Moreover, I would like to take this opportunity to give my special thanks to my classmates who always encouraged, reminded and supported me during the time of doing this research. Last but not least, I would like to say a heartfelt thank to my parents and my husband for their consolation.
I am indebted to you all, who gave me energy, encouragement and inspiration to complete my thesis. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ASTRACT From a Critical Discourse Analysis perspective, this study is an attempt to exploit and uncover the underlying ideologies of the President Obama in his two speeches of 2010 and 2014 at the West Point commencement ceremony. The research is strictly based on the analysis framework proposed by Norman Fairclough (2001) with three stages of textual description, interpretation and description. Specifically, in order to explore how linguistic elements manifest the President‟s ideologies, general linguistic features of two speeches related to vocabulary, grammar and textual structure are put into focus.
In terms of vocabulary, only overwording, antonyms and metaphor are analyzed to reveal his ideologies encoded through language. Then, grammar features with his use of pronouns, voices and modality are mainly focused. In terms of textual structure, the author pays special attention to the larger-scale structure used in both speeches. The findings of the study are pointed out with some common features and differences in language use of the President Obama when he reforces his voice, exercise his power and express his ideologies in his speeches.
This study also helps prove the close relationship between language and ideology and that people can exert their voice and ideologies on others to change or maintain social relationships by his language. In the last part of the thesis, some implications of the study are drawn out with the hope of affirming its contributions to some aspects of our lives. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Declaration……………………………………………………………. i Acknowledgement………………………………………………………… ii Abstract…………………………………………………………….
iii Table of contents………………………………………………. iv List of abbreviations…………….…… vii List of fingures and tables………………………………………….…… viii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Aims of the study……………………………………………………… 3 3. Scope of the study……………………………………………………… 3 4.
Significance of the study……………………………………………… 4 5. Method of the study…………………………………………. Design of the study……………………………………….…………… 5 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND.1 An overview of CDA……………………………………………… 6 1.1 What is CDA.2 Major concepts of CDA…………………………………………… 6 1.1 Discourse in CDA………………………………………………… 6 1.2 Ideology in CDA…………………………………………………… 7 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.3 CDA‟s approaches and Fairclough framework for CDA………….2 Van Dijk‟s socio-cognitive approach………………………………… 8 1.3 Wodark‟s discourse-historical approach……………………………… 9 1.4 Fairclough‟s Hallidayan systemic functional approach……………… 9 1.4 Norman Fairclough‟s framework for CDA………………………….3 Explanation………………………………………………………… 13 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY AND ANALYSIS PROCEDURES 14 2.1 Approach of the study……………………………………………… 14 2.3 Data analysis procedure……………………………………………… 15 CHAPTER 3: DATA PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION………… 16 3.1 Context of Obama‟s speeches at West Point in 2010 and 2014……… 16 3.2 Ideologies of President Barack Obama in West Point 2010 and 2014 17 speeches………………………………………………………………….3 Realization of Obama‟s ideologies through his use of Vocabulary in 18 West Point 2010 and 2014 speeches……….1 In terms of using Overwording ……………………………………. In terms of using Antonyms……………………………………….3 In terms of using metaphors……………………………………… 25 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.4 Realization of Obama‟s ideologies through his use of Grammar in 32 West Point 2010 and 2014 speeches………….1 In terms of using Pronouns………………………………………… 32 3.2 In terms of using Voices…………………………………………… 34 3.3 In terms of Modality………………………………………………… 35 3.5 Realization of Obama‟s ideologies through his use of Textual 38 Structure in West Point 2010 and 2014 speeches……….
The summary of the findings in the study……………………………… 42 2. Implications of the study…………. Recommendations for further study…………………………………… 45 REFERENCE………………………………………………………… 46 APPENDIX I…………………………………………….…………… I APPENDIX II………………………………………………………… XV APPENDIX III……………………………………….……………… XVI APPENDIX IV……………………………………….……………… XXVII vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREAVIATIONS CDA Critical Discourse Analysis SFL Systemic Functional Linguistics MR Member‟s Resource USMA The United States Military Academy U.S The Unites States vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES IN THE STUDY Table Title Page The 10-Question model of the description stage (Fairclough, 1 I 2001:92-93) 2 Repetition of vocabulary in the speeches of 2010 and 2014 II Use of Antonymous phrases and clauses in the speeches of 2010 3 V and 2014 4 Use of Metaphors in the speeches of 2010 and 2014 VI 5 Use of Pronouns in the speeches of 2010 and 2014 XII 6 Use of modality in the speeches of 2010 and 2014 XIII LIST OF FIGURES IN THE STUDY Figure Title Page 1 Interpretation statge (Faiclough, 2001:119) XIV 2 Explanation stage (Fairclough, 2001: 136) XIV 3 Structure of Obama‟s 2010 and 2014 speeches 39 viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Critical Discourse Analysis (henceforth CDA) is regarded as a relatively new research field not only in Vietnam but also in many other countries around the world.
Since its first appearance in Britain in the 1970s, CDA has attracted much attention from scholars, researchers, linguistics and social analysts. According to van Dijk (1988), CDA is a field concerned with studying and analyzing written texts and spoken words to reveal the discursive sources of power, dominance, inequality and bias and how these sources are initiated, maintained, reproduced and transformed within specific social, economic, political and historical contexts. In addition, Fairclough (2001), a founding father of CDA, also asserted that CDA helps make clear the relationship between the use of language and the exercise of power and ideologies. Its principal aim is to look at the influence of ideologies and power relations on the content and structure of discourse.
Viewing language as a form of social practice and focusing on the ways that social and political domination are revealed in texts, CDA has really become a significant approach to language analysis. In the light of CDA, ideological assumptions, the relationships between language, power, ideology and society behind written texts or oral speeches will therefore be uncovered. Hence, realizing the great importance and the role of CDA in analyzing discourse in order to explore hidden ideologies in discourses will be the first reason for the author‟s choice. Moreover, with the rapid development of many countries in the world today, most of people have a desire to assert their position and influence on other countries.
The United States is not an exception. As a country with the strongest economic growth, its position, domination, strength and ideology “America must always lead” have been obviously revealed in many aspects, especially through presidential speeches using CDA perspective. Currently, before the extremely complex situation of the world where America's long war is against core al Qaeda, Russia and China are both flexing their muscles and a number of al Qaeda affiliates in countries such as Syria are enjoying something of a resurgence, any move of US attracts great attention from public opinion. Thus, when President Barack Obama delivered what was touted as a major foreign policy address on his travel to West Point to congratulate the newest 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com officers at US Military Academy commencement ceremony on May 28th 2014, it seemed that all attention was turned to America.
Compared to his West Point 2010 address delivered when he had just started his term as the President of the United States, the 2014 speech, marking the nearly end of his term, is more highly appreciated. It is supposed to be an important step in outlining his new foreign policy principles and setting up a new military doctrine as well as his vision for how the United States should lead in the years to come. As Fairclough said, people are members of the society and their speeches are a reflection of a set of experiential, relational, and expressive values (Fairclough, 1992: 110). Therefore, the way Obama used language to express his constant purposes, the way he exercised power through language cleverly and the way his ideologies were embedded and encoded in language use in the West Point 2010 and 2014 speeches prove that language is really a useful social tool.
It plays a crucial role for every political action prepared, accompanied, influenced and played by language. Accordingly, CDA includes not only a description and interpretation of discourse in context, but also offers an explanation of why and how discourse works. CDA then takes us beyond the level of description to a deeper understanding of texts. Therefore, choosing the suitable theoretical and analytical framework of CDA as the basic one to analyze Obama‟s West Point speeches of 2010 and 2014 and then discover his ideologies reflected in discourses will be the main concern of this thesis.
The last reason for choosing CDA approach for the study comes from my own interest. Through this study, I really hope that it will be a great contribution to support Fairclough‟s opinion that CDA not only sees “language as a form of social practice” but also focuses on the idea that social and political dominion is reproduced by “text and talk” (Fairclough, 1989:20).