VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES PHẠM THỊ NHƯ A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF HILLARY CLINTON’S SPEECH AFTER HER PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION DEFEAT IN 2016 MA THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE HA NOI, 2021 Luan van VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES Phạm Thị Như A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF HILLARY CLINTON’S SPEECH AFTER HER PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION DEFEAT IN 2016 Field: English Language Code: 8.01 Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Việt Nga, Ph. HA NOI, 2021 Luan van DECLARATION BY AUTHOR Except where reference has been made in the text, this thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person. I, Phạm Thị Như, hereby state that this thesis is the result of my own research and the substance of the thesis has not, wholly or in part, been submitted for any degrees to any other universities or institutions. Author’s Signature Phạm Thị Như i Luan van ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this thesis is credited to many people’s contributions and support.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all most sincerely, knowing that my thanks are never adequate. First of all, Thanks to Assoc. Võ Đại Quang introduced the whole new realm of Critical Discourse analysis to me. I would like to express my sincere gratitude and deep appreciation to Mr.
Đặng Nguyên Giang, PhD and Department of Foreign Languages, Graduate Academy of Social Sciences, Mrs.Nguyễn Thị Việt Nga, PhD, my supervisor, for her helpful and warm encouragement as well as her insightful comments on my work from the beginning to the end of the study. In addition, I would like to thank all of the lecturers who gave me interesting lessons, dedication and advice during my study at Graduate Academy of Social Sciences. I also offer my special thanks to my beloved pupils and friends whose support and encouragement help me to have this thesis accomplished. Last but not least, I must express my gratitude to my family.
It is their endless love and expectations that have motivated me to complete this thesis. I am immensely thankful for all the assistance they have given me. ii Luan van TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DECLARATION BY AUTHOR…………………………………………. vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS………………………………………….
vii LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES……………………………………. viii Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION…………………………………………. Aims of the study …………………………………………. Scope of the study…………………………………………………….
Significance of the study……………………………………………. Structure of the study……………………………………. 6 Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………. Overview Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) ……….1 History of CDA …………………………………………………….2 Definitions of CDA ……………………………………………….
Three main approaches to CDA ……………………………………. The socio-cognitive approach by Teun van Dijk…………………… 10 2.2 The discourse - historical approach by Ruth Wodak ………………. The Systemic Functional Grammar approach by Norman Fairclough 13 iii Luan van 2. Ideology and power in CDA ………………………………………… 18 2.
Review previous studies…………………………………………. 23 Chapter 3: POWER AND IDEOLOGIES IN HILLARY CLINTON’S 24 2016 SPEECH …………. 32 Chapter 4: REALIZATION OF POWER AND IDEOLOGIES IN 33 HILLARY CLINTON’S 2016 SPEECH………………………………. Description of vocabulary use……………….
Description of grammatical features ………. Description of macro-structure…. Interpretation of vocabulary use………………. Interpretation of grammatical features ……….
Explanation of vocabulary use………………. Explanation of grammatical features ………. 59 iv Luan van 5. Limitations and suggestions for further studies……………………… 62 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………… 64 APPENDIX v Luan van ABSTRACT The purpose of the study is to point out power and ideologies embedded in Hillary Clinton speech after her presidential election defeat in 2016 in the light of CDA framework suggested by Norman Fairclough (2001).
Descriptive qualitative and quantitative methods are collaboratively employed to find out how power and ideologies are realized in terms of vocabulary, grammar and discourse structure. The thesis follows three steps of description, interpretation and explanation as well as set of questions suggested by Fairclough (2001), which proves to be appropriate to find out answers to the research questions. The analysis reveals optimism, friendliness, patriotism and inspiration in Hillary Clinton’s speech. Moreover, her tactful and flexible use of vocabulary, grammatical properties as well as the well-organized structure of her speech have illustrated her implicit power and ideologies, making this speech a successful discourse that can effectively convey what the speaker means to express.
Hillary Clinton has also succeeded in depicting herself as a brave, strong-willed woman who is not discouraged by failure but always heads forward the brighter future instead. The research contributes to the understanding of CDA as an approach in linguistics, enhance the awareness of CDA, of how power and ideology are embedded in language and of the relationship between language and society in general. It also makes a certain contribution to English language education, specifically to English learners, English teachers as well as translators. vi Luan van LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS CDA: Critical Discourse Analysis.S: United States CL: Critical Language SFL: Systemic Functional Linguistics.
MR: Members’ Resources. CLS: Critical Language Study SFG: Systemic Functional Grammar. vii Luan van LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES FIGURES AND TABLES Page Figure 1: Analytical framework of the current study 5 Figure 2: Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework for analysis of 13 discourse Figure 3: Interpretation.119) 14 Figure 4: Explanation (Fairclough, 2001, p.136) 15 Table 1: Words with positive meaning in Hillary’s 2016 speech 34 Table 2: Words with negative meaning in Hillary’s 2016 speech 35 Table 3: Number of active and passive sentences in Hillary Clinton’s 40 2016 speech. Table 4: Frequency of pronouns “I” and “We” in Hillary Clinton’s 41 2016 speech.
Table 5: Modes of sentences in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 speech. 43 Table 6: Relational modality in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 speech 44 Table 7: Expressive modality in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 speech 45 Table 8: Conjunctions in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 speech 47 Table 9: Macro-structure of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 speech 48 viii Luan van CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Since its advent, language has been considered as an effective communication tool, enabling human beings to express themselves and communicate with one another. Language, in this way, is also addressed as a social phenomenon which reflects the world and expresses the way we apprehend and perceive the world.
Moreover, language also is a personal representation attitude in interaction. In this context, language is used to generate particular purposes, in the other words, to produce particular discourses. Thus, any study of language should focus on language in use. Language is much more than just ‘means of communication’.
It is a “medium of domination and social force; it serves to legitimize relations of organized power” (Habermas, 1977, p.259 cited in Wodak and Meyer, 2001). Fairclough (1989) regards language as a socially conditioned process. According to Wareing (2004), language has the affective function which refers to who is allowed to say what to whom and which is “deeply tied up with power and social status” (Wareing, 2004, p. Therefore, how language is chosen depends much on the speakers, the listeners and also the situation.
With its significant role, language has been taken advantage of by different experts from various fields including politics. In political situations, it is widely acknowledged that language can serve as a weapon for politicians to achieve their goals. Chilton and Schaffner (1997, p.206) stated that ‘‘It is surely the case that politics cannot be conducted without language, and it is probably the case that the use of language in the constitution of social groups leads to what we call ‘politics’ in a broad sense’’. Insisting that the study of language extends beyond the domains of literature and linguistics, Pelinka (2007, p.129) affirmed that ‘‘language must be seen (and analyzed) as a political phenomenon’’ and that politics must be conceived and studied as a discursive phenomenon.
In other words, there is no doubt about the tight relationship between language and 1 Luan van politics, and political speeches are typical examples for the application of linguistic practice to illustrate power and ideology. Analyzing the messages and the speaker’s embedded ideology and power is the focus of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). CDA, according to Fairclough (1996, p.287), is “a perspective which is concerned with showing up often opaque connections between language and other aspects of society and culture”. Besides, Van Dijk (1993) suggests understanding the style, rhetoric or meaning of texts will help figure out social power relations and the exercise of power.
CDA will deeply analyze the text to conceal the relationship between texts, processes and the social context, as well as the connection between language, power and ideology. Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State in Obama's administration, and Senator from District of New York. As a former First Lady of the United States, a lawyer, an activist and a volunteer, she has always kept in mind what and who she needs to fight for. Hillary Clinton always shows a strong passion and determination to bring social justice, which constantly consolidates the love and admiration that all people give to her.
Her dedication and positive spirit have contributed to the development of national politics and has greatly influenced the progressive ideology of women. In her career path, Hillary Clinton made a great number of speeches but her concession speech after her failure of 2016 US Presidential Campaign is one of the most outstanding ones. Although she did not succeed in the 2016 election, she left a good impression in the hearts of Americans and the people around the world. Analyzing her speech in the light of CDA is needed to understand her character, the power of her message and the embedded ideologies she wanted to disseminate to all the audience.
With all of the above-mentioned reasons, the researcher chooses the topic “A critical discourse analysis of Hillary Clinton’s speech after her presidential election defeat in 2016” as the title of her MA thesis. Aims of the study The study is aimed at identifying the relationship between discourse, ideology, and power expressed in Hillary Clinton’s concession speech in 2016. To achieve that goal, two particular objectives are as follows: + Find out the power and ideologies embedded in Hillary Clinton's 2016 concession speech + Analyze how the power and ideologies are realized via linguistic features. Research questions In order for the above-mentioned aims to be achieved, the research attempts to answer the following questions: 1.
What ideologies and power are embedded in Hillary Clinton’s speech after her presidential election defeat in 2016? 2. How are ideologies and power realized linguistically in Hillary Clinton’s speech? 1. Scopes of the study There are two types of communication: verbal and nonverbal one. The researcher is fully aware of the fact that such factors as paralinguistics (i.
intonation, volume, speed, etc.) and extra-linguistics (eye contact, facial expressions, etc) are so important to understand the speaker's ideology, power and identity. However, this current CDA research of Hillary Clinton's speech relates to vocal aspects of the speech only, and also is confined to the specific social contexts in which the speech was delivered. Hillary Clinton has made a lot of speeches in her life but the author only analyzes her speech in 2016 after her presidential election defeat. As this research merely serves academic purposes, the author does not intend to express any personal political viewpoint.
Also, the study does not mean to support any parties, or to change people’s political stands. In addition, this current study follows Fairclough’s (2001) CDA framework which contains three main properties of language including vocabulary, grammar and textual structures. However, the research will only focus on vocabulary and 3 Luan van grammar to identify how power and ideologies are realized in Hillary Clinton’s speech. Moreover, though it is well-aware that power and ideologies may be hidden behind language, the study just focuses on the verbal cues.
Significance of the study CDA has received increasing attention in the world as well as in Vietnam for the past decades. Nevertheless, the number of studies on CDA among Vietnamese researchers remains limited. With this research, I would like to have a small contribution to the understanding of CDA as an approach in linguistics.