VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ HÀ A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF HILLARY CLINTON’S INTERVIEWS ON THE UKRAINE-RUSSIA CONFLICT Phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán các bài phỏng vấn của Hillary Clinton về xung đột Ukraine-Nga M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201.01 Hanoi, 2024 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES BÙI THỊ HÀ A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF HILLARY CLINTON’S INTERVIEWS ON THE UKRAINE-RUSSIA CONFLICT Phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán các bài phỏng vấn của Hillary Clinton về xung đột Ukraine - Nga M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201. Nguyễn Hòa Hanoi, 2024 DECLARATION I hereby certify that the thesis entitled ―A Critical Discourse Analysis of Hillary Clinton‘s interviews on the Ukraine-Russia conflict‖ is an original report of my own research work for the Degree of Master of Arts at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University. This thesis has not been submitted in whole or in part in any previous applications for a degree or used for any other purposes. Hanoi, 2024 Bùi Thị Hà Approved by SUPERVISOR (Signature and full name) Prof.
Nguyen Hoa Date:. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Nguyễn Hòa, who has helped me complete this thesis. This paper would not have been comprehensively conducted without his profound expertise and invaluable guidance. Theoretical constraints had prevented me from properly analysing the data.
He is the person who gave me advice and suggested useful theories to patch those gaps. I would also like to express my appreciation to all my lecturers at the University of Languages and International Studies for their lectures in Research methods, Critical Discourse Analysis, Language Culture and Society, Systemic Functional Grammar, International Communication, and other interesting subjects related to Academic Writing and Linguistics. Those informative lectures gave me a lot of theoretical background, which helped me build methodological frameworks for my thesis. In addition, help from my learning partner, Ms.
Đỗ Nguyễn Thị Thanh Lương, who helped me validate the findings, is also significant in the completion of the thesis. Her enthusiastic support ideologically inspired me to constantly evaluate data. Her discipline gave me significant motivation to finish the thesis. Finally, I would like to give myself a huge appreciation for my efforts in doing research and completing the thesis, even though it was not submitted during the time that I expected.
ii ABSTRACT Employing a critical discourse analysis framework, this qualitative research aims to delineate Hillary‘s views as expressed in the selected interviews on the involvement of two main actors, Ukraine and Russia, and her perceptions of the world‘s reactions to the conflict during 2022. It also seeks to analyse her persuasive strategies in calling for support for Ukrainian people. The findings reveal that Hillary strategically criticises President Putin‘s actions and his political moves while portraying President Zelenskyy and the national unity in Ukraine in a positive light. Furthermore, Hillary leverages her influence and authority to assert a commanding influence on global politics.
This study offers some potential pedagogical implications inspired by the findings to enhance educational experiences for students. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.vi LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES. Significance of the study.
Scope of the study. Aims and objectives of the study. Design of the thesis. Hillary Clinton‘s background.
Overview of the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Discourse and political discourse. An overview of CDA. Critical discourse analysis and its fundamental concepts.
Critical discourse analysis and its fundamental tenets. Different approaches to CDA. Fairclough‘s three-dimensional framework. Positioning theory and CDA.
Systemic functional grammar (SFG). Research questions revisited. Data analysis procedure. Analytic framework of the study.
Ensuring credibility of the findings. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Hillary expresses three views in the three interviews. Positive representation of the Ukrainian and negative representation of Putin and the Russian troops.
A sharp weapon of persuasion: it is right for all people to stand and protect Ukraine people. Profiling of personality. Discourse as text. Discourse as Discursive Practice.
Discourse as a social practice. Summary of the key findings. Limitations and suggestions for future research. I APPENDIX 2: TRANSITIVITY SYSTEM.
IX v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CDA – Critical Discourse Analysis CL – Critical Linguistics DHA – Discourse-Historical Approach MCDA – Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organisation SFG – Systemic Functional Grammar vi LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Figure 1. Three stages of CDA (Fairclough, 1992). Metafunctions of meaning (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004:61). Open, Axial, and Selective codes in Hillary‘s discourse.
Three dimensions of meaning: Experiential, Relational, and Expressive. Four aspects of grammar. Frequency of occurrence of words and phrases in Hillary‘s discourse. Words to portray President Putin, President Zelenskyy, and NATO .33 Table 8: Frequency of personal pronouns.
Summary of modes of the sentences. Summary of modality types. Summary of transitivity system. Situational context of the discourse.
INTRODUCTION This chapter presented the rationale, significance, scope, aims, objectives and research questions, and the structure of the thesis. Rationale CDA is one of the most effective approaches to discourse analysis, which enables linguistic researchers to conduct their studies in a variety of discourse in different fields. It could provide enormous analytical power that helps reveal underlying ideologies embedded in language, particularly in political discourse. Typically, politicians are skilled spokespeople with engaging language strategies by using linguistic features that are deployed in order to persuade audiences and imply their ideologies and points of view.
In other words, language in political discourse is immensely complicated and reveals a plethora of hidden meanings inside it. Therefore, political discourse is frequently targeted by linguists who hold a great passion for CDA. Those smart politicians provoke my interest in CDA in political discourse. One of the prominent politicians in the twenty-first century is Hillary Clinton, whose political discourse has been chosen for analysis.
According to Kanwal and García (2019), she is likely the voice and choice of most Americans with her very tactfully and strategically used language. Her use of language often reveals her presentation of gender identity, ideology, and power. The presence of Hillary Clinton‘s speeches in CDA research is continuing even though her power and authority in politics have somewhat decreased. However, Clinton‘s linguistic prowess still significantly attracts my attention.
In addition, the world is now keeping their eyes open to the political issues between Ukraine and Russia, and I am not an exception. The acceleration of political tension between these two nations triggers deep curiosity about the reaction of superpowers to the situation. There has been a myriad of speeches and interviews conducted by European countries and members of NATO. Nevertheless, I suppose the response of 1 the US is at the centre of political interest at present.
During 2022 and 2023, Hillary Clinton has participated in several interviews about the political issue by different press agencies. These interviews could provide precious data for those who desire to employ CDA to decode the language use of Clinton. The convergence of these elements—CDA's analytical power, Clinton's linguistic prowess, and the urgent geopolitical landscape motivates this thesis. It aims to reveal how an excellent politician could use words as weapons in political games and the power circle.
I wonder how language could draw a politician‘s portrait and a picture of those who are involved in the tension, whether these pictures are created based on reality or merely by language strategies. Significance of the study I hope my MA thesis could bring value to three spheres, namely academic, teaching, and social. In terms of academics, the study might be a reference for those who are confused with the theoretical frameworks used in CDA and what frameworks should be applied in their analysis since I had spent one month in total reading, synthesising, and comparing different approaches to CDA from various domestic and foreign authors. Regarding the significance in teaching English as a second language in Vietnam, the application of the examples in the research paper might provide a realistic view of the context and use of many lexical and grammatical elements.
Finally, I hope that the investigation could provide timely insights into the communicative strategies of influential political figures in the face of international crises. Thus, it would partly help those who are subjected to manipulation by fake news to have a more multi-dimensional view. Scope of the study The current study employed a CDA framework, with data being the three selected interviews by CNN, NBC News, and MSNBC broadcast in 2022 during the accelerating tension between Ukraine and Russia. The academic objectives are to identify Clinton‘s views on the conflicts between Ukraine and Russia.
All of Hillary Clinton‘s parts were considered a single discourse, and interviewers 2 were ignored because the study did not highlight the media support for each particular party in the US. Clinton‘s views were examined in relation to only Russia, Ukraine, the involvement of NATO, and the responses of the world. Other political issues mentioned by the interviewers were excluded from the analysis. Moreover, paralinguistic features such as intonation, body language, gestures, facial expressions, tone, and pitch of voice were excluded because the study was conducted under Fairclough‘s three levels of CDA.
Text structure was also ignored since the author sorted different parts of the interviews into a single discourse. Aims and objectives of the study The overarching aim of this study is to find out what ideologies are presented in Hillary Clinton‘s participation in interviews with different media presses about the Ukraine-Russia tension, and how she practises her power over Russia and emphasises her significant influences on the change of political corridors. Then, language use is analysed with a view to identifying Hillary‘s communicative strategies in her talks about Putin and his military force, Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians, and her call for support for the Ukrainians. The aim is to provide an insight into how words could act as weapons in political discourse, which contributes to the application of CDA in language teaching and learning.
Specifically, there are three main objectives: (i) Decode the hidden ideologies of Hilary Clinton presented in the interviews; (ii) Identify the intertwined relation between her use of language and her ideology as represented; (iii) Explain how the social contexts at the time could influence the representation of her views. Research questions To fulfil these aims, three research questions are posed for exploration: 1. What are Hillary Clinton‘s views embedded in the interviews with the press about the Russia and Ukraine conflict? 2. How are Hillary Clinton‘s views linguistically represented? 3.
Why are those views represented the way they were in the interviews? 3 1. Design of the thesis The thesis comprised five chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction This part presented the rationale, significance, scope, aims, objectives, research questions, and structure of the thesis. Chapter 2: Literature review In this chapter, the author gave background information about Hillary Clinton, a brief explanation of political discourse, an overview of CDA, different approaches to CDA, the use of SFG in CDA, and a review of typical studies using CDA. Chapter 3: Methodology In this part, the research methods, data collection, and analysis procedures of the study were explained.
Chapter 4: Results and discussion This chapter focused on the analysis of data with the purpose of answering the three research questions in three stages: Description, interpretation, and explanation. Chapter 5: Conclusion This chapter summarised the key findings, identifies some limitations, and suggests some future research topics and implications. LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, the author gave background information about Hillary Clinton, a brief explanation of political discourse, an overview of CDA, different approaches to CDA, the use of SFG in CDA, and a review of typical studies using CDA.