VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ---------- NGUYỄN THANH NGA A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF MICHELLE OBAMA’S SPEECH ON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2016 (Phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán bài diễn văn của Michelle Obama vào ngày Quốc tế Phụ nữ năm 2016) M.A THESIS PROGRAMME I Field : English Linguistics Code : 8220201.01 Hanoi - 2019 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ---------- NGUYỄN THANH NGA A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF MICHELLE OBAMA’S SPEECH ON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2016 (Phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán bài diễn văn của Michelle Obama vào ngày Quốc tế Phụ nữ năm 2016) M.A THESIS PROGRAMME I Field : English Linguistics Code : 8220201. NGUYỄN HÒA Hanoi - 2019 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “A critical discourse analysis of Michelle Obama’s speech on International Women’ s Day 2016”submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Linguistics. Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis. Ha Noi, 2019 Nguyễn Thanh Nga i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For the fulfillment of this study, first and foremost, I would like to express my high appreciation to my supervisor, Prof.
Nguyễn Hòa, the lecturer at Faculty of Post- Graduate, ULIS, VNU for his valuable instructions, comments as well as his advice. I also would like to send my thankfulness to all the lecturers of Faculty of Post- Graduate, ULIS, VNU for their training and assistance that help me to accomplish this M. Last but not least, my deep gratitude is towards to my family and my friends for their valuable support and encouragement. ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT This study aims at investigating and figuring out the ideologies embedded in the speech delivered by First Lady of the 44th U.
president, Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017 on International Women’s Day 2016 in Washington D.’s Union Market in front of dozens of adolescent girls in the Let Girls Learn from Critical Discourse Analysis (for short CDA) perspective. In this study, the main dialectical – relational framework provided by Norman Fairclough is used to achieve its objective. According to Fairclough’s CDA framework, the study conducts three major steps. The analysis interprets data in three different levels: text analysis (description), processing analysis (interpretation) and social analysis (explanation).
Each above phase can be sub- divided into three categories (experiential, relational, expressive). The conclusion supports her ideology that it is necessary that there be an equality for women in education across the globe, and she therefore calls for the approval and support from all corners of the world. It also confirms the relationship between language and ideology in CDA and suggests some implications in language research and pedagogy. iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 1.
CDA: Critical Discourse Analysis 2. SFG: Systemic Functional Grammar 3. MR: Members’ Resource iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
iv TABLE OF CONTENT. v LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES. vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Scope of the study.
Aims of the study and research questions. Methodology of the study. Design of the thesis. 2 CHAPTER 2THEORETICAL BACKGROUND& LITERATURE REVIEW.
Definitions of CDA. Principles of CDA. Some key concepts in CDA. Approaches to CDA.
Review of previous studies. 16 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Reasons to choose the speech. Context of the speech.
Data analysis procedure. Fairclough ’s CDA framework. 21 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. 26 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Textual description and Analysis. Appreciating women’s achievements. Sympathizing with women’s inequality. Supporting with women’s equality in education.
Interpretation of the relationship between the productive and interpretative processes. Interpretation of situational context. Intertextual context and presupposition. Explanation of the relationship between discourse processes and social processes .XL vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 2.
Discourse as text, interaction and context (Fairclough, 2001, p. Overview of process types (adapted from Halliday, 1994). Basic speech role (Thompson, 1996, p. Components of a multiple theme (adapted from Halliday, 1994, p.
25 vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This part includes rationale, scope, aims, methodology and design of the thesis. Rationale It is clear that language is the most important characteristic of human society, and it plays an important role in demonstrating human social relationship. Therefore, researching the relationship between language and human society has attracted many researchers’ attention, especially linguists’. Those who take interest in this relationship apply the knowledge in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA for short) to describe, interpret and explain these relationships.
According to Fairclough and Wodak (1997), that CDA addresses social issues is one of foundational principles of this critical approach. Not only does it describe language but it also provides critical linguistic resources to linguists who want to discover social relations underlying in a wide number types of discourse in terms of both their linguistic factors and contexts. This can help to uncover the relationship between language and human beings’ issues such as right, ideology or power. Similarly, with the hope of conducting the study, I want to analyze Michelle Obama’s speech on International Women’s Day 2016 from CDA perspective.
This address is considered as a doctrine presented by Michelle Obama as First Lady of the US on behalf of all women around the world. Through her speech, Michelle Obama hopes to emphasize the reasons why fighting for women’s rights and finding out the equality for all women, especially in education in the modern societyare absolutely indispensable. More importantly, the study’s underlying aims is to illustrate CDA concepts and discover how language is encoded in the speech delivered by Michelle Obama on International Women’s Day 2016 in D. The speech provokes a 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com significant effect on public opinion; hence, it may lead to the change in women’s awareness about their own rights.
In the procedure of conducting the study, I want to demonstrate how social issues are underlying in language. It is also expected to provide some suggestions about critical reading of any texts to researchers and some implications for teaching and learning a foreign language as well. Scope of the study This study explores the First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech on International Women’s Day 2016 in Washington D.’s Union Market in front of dozens of adolescent girls in the “Let Girls Learn” from CDA perspective. Aims of the study and research questions The study is carried out for the purpose of exploring ideologies of the First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech on International Women’s Day 2016 based on Fairclough’s CDA framework.
In order to achieve the above mentioned aims, the following research questions need to be found: - What are the messages that the speaker created in her speech? - How are these messages highlighted and constructed linguistically? 4. Methodology of the study This study uses CDA framework, particularly Fairclough’s three- dimensional framework. The analysis interprets data in three different levels: text analysis (description), processing analysis (interpretation) and social analysis (explanation). Each above phase can be sub- divided into three categories (experiential, relational, and expressive).
Design of the thesis Apart from references and appendices, the study is divided into five 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com main chapters as below: Chapter 1: Introduction This part includes rationale, scope, aims, methodology and design of the thesis. Chapter 2: Theoretical framework and literature review This chapter presents an overview of the history of CDA and mentions some definitions of CDA that give knowledge in understanding of CDA as a discipline. Some key concepts in CDA, including identity, power and ideology and some approaches to CDA are also presented in this part. Furthermore, it summarizes some previous researches from CDA perspective to provide the thorough knowledge in CDA.
Chapter 3: Research methodology This chapter mentions the reasons to choose the topic and the context of the given address. Additionally, it provides information about the organization “Let Girls Learn”. Also, the dialectical– relationalapproach by Norman Fairclough and the data analysis procedure of Michelle Obama’s speech on International Women’s Day 2016 are presented. Chapter 4: Findings and discussion This chapter explores critical discourse analysis of Michelle Obama’s speech on International Women’s Day 2016, mainly based on Fairclough’s CDA three-dimensional framework.It is an illustration and demonstration for what ideologies Michelle conveys and how they are expressed linguistically in her speech.
Also, it interprets the relationship between the productive and interpretative process and explains that between discourse processes andsocial ones. This is the very last part of the thesis that gives a brief summary of the 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com main findings of the study, draws some significant conclusions and makes some further research suggestions as well. 4 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND& LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter presents an overview of the history of CDA and mentions some definitions of CDA that give knowledge in understanding of CDA as a discipline. Some key concepts in CDA, including identity, power and ideology and some approaches to CDA are also presented in this part.
Furthermore, it summarizes some previous researches from CDA perspective to provide the thorough knowledge in CDA. Definitions of CDA Critical discourse analysis, abbreviated CDA, is a fairly new branch of linguistics. CDA is “a type of discourse analysis research that primarily studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in social and political contexts” (Van Dijk, 2004, p. From another perspective, Fairclough (1995) proposes a definition of CDA, accepted and commonly used among CDA practitioners.
He defines CDA as discourse analysis that aims to systematically explore causal relationships and fuzzy decisions between practice, facts and text, and structures, relationships and too wider cultural and social agenda; to investigate how these practices, events and texts arise and are ideologically shaped by power relations and power struggles; and to explore how the opacity of discourse and social relations is itself a factor to ensure power and hegemony. He also puts CDA as “viewing language use as social practice implies, first, that it is a mode of action, in a dialectal relationship with other facets of the social (its social context) – it is socially shaped, but is also socially shaping, or constitutive” (Fairclough, 1995, p. Personally, in this thesis, I totally agree with Van Dijk’s definition. 5 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Principles of CDA Principles of CDA, outlined by CDA practitioners (Fairclough, 1995; Kress, 1991; Van Dijk, 1998; Wokak, 1996) can be summarized as follows: - Language is social practice through which the world is represented - Discourse/ language use as a form of social practice in itself not only presents and signifies other social practices but it also constitutes other social practices such as the exercise of power, domination, prejudice, resistance and so forth. - Text requires their meanings by the dialectical relationship between texts and the social subjects: writers and readers, who always operate with various degree of choice and access to texts and means of interpretation. - Linguistics features and structures are not arbitrary. They are purposeful whether or not the choices are conscious or unconscious.
- Power relations are produced, exercised, and reproduced through discourse. - All speakers and writers operate from specific discursive practices originating in special interests and aims which involve inclusions and exclusions. - Discourse is historical in the sense that texts require their meanings by being situated in specific social, cultural and ideological contexts, and time and space.