VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* VU THI LUYEN A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF BIDEN’S 2020 PRESIDENTIAL SPEECHES.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English linguistics Code: 8220201.01 Hanoi – 2024 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* VU THI LUYEN A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF BIDEN’S 2020 PRESIDENTIAL SPEECHES (Phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán bài phát biểu vận động bầu cử của ứng viên Joe Biden năm 2020) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English linguistics Code: 8220201. Nguyễn Hòa Hanoi - 2024 DECLARATION I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and effort and that it has not been submitted to any other university or institution wholly or partially Hanoi, 2024 Approved by SUPERVISOR (Signature and full name) Date:. i ABSTRACT Before initiating this investigation, it was recognized that understanding politicians' ideologies is crucial for assessing their leadership capabilities. The hypothesis was that employing critical discourse analysis (CDA) could explain the ideological underpinnings and linguistic strategies speakers employ.
Motivated by this premise, a CDA inquiry was undertaken to examine Joe Biden's speeches for ideological patterns, communicative methods for conveying these ideologies, and the reasons behind his ideological statements. The analysis concentrated on Biden's speeches at the Democratic National Convention and at Gettysburg, using Fairclough's approach that includes analysis at textual, discursive, and social levels. The findings revealed Biden‘s emphasis on unity and highlighted his dedication to racial and economic justice, the importance of tackling climate change, endorsement of measures to combat COVID-19, and support for reforms in gun control, consistent with Democratic values. In addition, the political context at the time of these speeches likely contributed to his expression of his beliefs, notably his call for unity, support for racial equality, and advocation for COVID-19 prevention measures.
ii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION .v LIST OF TABLES. vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Background of the study. Statement of the problem.
Research aims and questions. Significance of the study. Scope of the study. Structure of the thesis .4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.
American political and social context. Presidential election cycle. Personal and political background of Joe Biden. American context during the U.
Overview of the 2020 presidential election. Significance of presidential speeches in political communication. Overview of the selected speeches. Critical discourse analysis.
Properties of CDA. Discourse in CDA. Ideology in CDA. Power in CDA.
Power, ideology, and discourse. Application of CDA in political speech analysis. Previous studies on political speeches .28 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Research question 1: What are the beliefs of Joe Biden?.
Research question 2: How are they (Biden‘s beliefs) linguistically constructed?. Research question 3: Why did Joe Biden express such beliefs in the speeches?. Existence and linguistic construction of beliefs of Joe Biden revealed in the discourse. Reasons for Joe Biden expressing his beliefs in the discourse.
Contributions of this study. I TEXT OF BIDEN‘S SPEECH AT DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION 2020. XII TEXT OF BIDEN‘S SPEECH AT GETTYSBURG 2020. XII iv ABBREVIATIONS CDA Critical Discourse Analysis DNC Democratic National Convention SFL Systemic Functional Linguistics SFG Systemic Functional Grammar v LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Selected speeches overview .10 Table 2: Properties of CDA.11 Table 3: Features of textual analysis .25 Table 4: Frequently occurring words .36 Table 5: Frequencies of personal pronouns .37 Table 6: Frequencies of collocations with common personal pronouns .38 Table 7: Frequencies of modals based on strength .40 Table 8: Frequencies of active and passive voice .41 Table 9: Frequencies of speech acts .41 Figure 1: Fairclough's three-dimensional model.23 vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION In this chapter, I introduce the study in six parts.
The first part provides a background of the study. The second states the research problem. The third part describes the research aims and questions. The fourth part states the significance of the study.
The fifth part describes the scope of the study. The final part provides the structure of the thesis. Background of the study Every four years, citizens in the United States of America are presented with an opportunity to elect a new president. The election days typically occur on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November (USA Government, 2023).
The presidential election is a complex process that follows a ‗presidential election cycle‘. Leading up to the election day, candidates participate in numerous events, such as primaries, debates, and conventions. During these events, the candidates address the audience, specifically American voters, by discussing various relevant sociopolitical and economic topics. Ultimately, the candidates attempt to persuade the audience to vote for them through their actions and words throughout their campaigning period.
The previous election was held in 2020 and the upcoming election will be in 2024. The 2020 election was unique in that it took place during the global COVID-19 pandemic. The Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, and the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, were the two main candidates (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2023). On election day, November 3, it was initially unclear who would win as key states continued counting a huge volume of mail-in ballots.
Over the next few days, Biden was projected to win and on November 7, most media outlets had revealed that Biden was the winner. On January 20, Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States of America (Collinson and Reston, 2020). During Biden‘s campaign, he communicated with the American people extensively through his debates, 1 advertisements, primaries, and more. He engaged in discourse with his audience and opponents in order to persuade America that he was the best candidate for presidency.
In the end, his persuasive efforts succeeded and he was democratically determined to be the most suitable person for presidency. To better understand the use of language in social contexts, such as political discourse, critical discourse analysis (CDA) can be applied. According to Fairclough (2013), CDA is a form of research and analysis that is ―is part of some form of systematic transdisciplinary analysis of relations between discourse and other elements of the social process‖, includes the systematic analysis of texts, and addresses social injustices in discourse (p. CDA also examines the interplay between language, power, and ideology and how those in power employ language to maintain their dominant position (Tian, 2021).
As such, CDA can help people to understand how discourse is used by influential individuals either for good or for bad. Statement of the problem Political campaign speeches play a vital role in how candidates communicate their ideologies, vision, values, and policy positions to voters. The language used in these speeches provides insights into how politicians construct their messaging to appeal to the audience. Moreover, language in political speeches can reveal to what extent and how politicians express their power.
Both an awareness of politician‘s ideology and power are essential for determining the suitability of a candidate for an influential position, such as the presidency. Previous studies have investigated the ideologies expressed by political speakers and how these ideologies were presented. For example, Wang (2010) examined two of Obama‘s presidential speeches to reveal how ideology is connected to language. Nga (2019) explored ideological power relations of globalization discourse in WTO Director-General Mike Moore‘s speech and Tran and Pham (2023) studied the ideologies embedded in President Biden's 2021 inaugural speech.
Previous studies have also investigated how political speakers express power in their discourse. 2 Nguyen and Sawalmeh (2020) analyzed the strategies used by Donald Trump in his first presidential debate in 2016; Susilowati and Ulkhasanah (2020) examined how Trump communicated power in his 2017 speech about Israel; and Xinin and Xiaolan (2022) investigated how language was used in Donald Trump‘s and Joe Biden‘s inaugural speeches to influence audiences and achieve their political goals. These studies demonstrate how a critical discourse analysis study can provide insight into speakers‘ ideologies and how they use language to achieve certain political goals. CDA was chosen as the approach for analyzing Biden‘s speeches for two main reasons.
Firstly, CDA is suitable for the analysis of political discourse by not only analyzing the language itself, but also the use of language in social contexts. Secondly, CDA has been used frequently in previous studies that investigated the ideologies expressed by political speakers. By applying CDA, I could identify the beliefs of Joe Biden as expressed in his speeches, examine the linguistic constructions of those beliefs, and investigate the reasons behind the expression of those beliefs. Research aims and questions This study aims to critically analyze the discourses of Joe Biden during his political campaign.
In particular, I aim to determine Joe Biden‘s ideologies and the use of discursive resources to communicate these ideologies. His ideologies expressed in his presidential speeches are understood as his beliefs. Additionally, this study examines how Joe Biden expresses power in his discourse. Based on these aims, I have determined the following research questions: 1.
What are the beliefs of Joe Biden? 2. How are they (Biden‘s beliefs) linguistically constructed? 3. Why did Joe Biden express such beliefs in the speeches? 1. Significance of the study This study is expected to provide insight into how presidential candidates like Joe Biden use language strategically during political campaigns to empower themselves and promote their ideology.
By examining Joe Biden‘s discourse using Fairclough‘s 3 approach to CDA, the linguistic resources used to communicate his ideologies can be revealed. This is important because language is a key tool that candidates use to shape their image, discuss issues in their favor, and gain the approval of voters. Scope of the study This study examines two of Joe Biden‘s speeches during his 2020 presidential campaign. These speeches are his Democratic National Convention address on August 20 (CNN, 2020) and his Gettysburg address on October 6 (Biden, 2020).
Since Joe Biden was not only one of the main candidates, but also won the election, he is a suitable example of the successful implementation of linguistic techniques to establish influence and power. Moreover, since he is the current president of the U., it is important to be aware of his ideologies as they can greatly impact the future of America and its people. Structure of the thesis This thesis will be divided into five main chapters. This is the introduction chapter.
This chapter introduces the thesis by presenting a background of the study along with a statement of the problem. Following, the research aims and questions are presented. The significance and scope of the study are also ed. This is the literature review chapter.
This chapter reviews concepts such as the American politics and critical discourse analysis. This chapter also reviews previous studies that critically analyzed the discourse of political figures. This is the methodology chapter. This chapter presents the research method of the study, including the research approach, sample, data collection procedures, and data analysis techniques.
This is the findings and discussion chapter. This chapter shows the results of the analysis of the speeches and consequently discusses the findings in the context of the research questions. This is the conclusion chapter. This chapter summarizes the main findings of the thesis, describes the implications of the study, and recommends 4 further action for researchers.
5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, I review literature related to the research topic. There are four parts. The first part is a review of the American political and social context. The second part is a review of critical discourse analysis, including its properties, frameworks, and connections with ideology, power, and discourse.
The third part presents the theoretical framework of the study. The last part states the research gap. American political and social context 2. Presidential election cycle The American presidential election takes place every four years on the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November.