A Critical Discourse Analysis on U.S President Barack Hussein Obama''s State of the Unions

THE UNIVERSITYOFDANANG UNIVERSITYOF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ NGỌC ÁNH A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ON U S PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA’S STATE OF THE UNIONS Major ENGLISH LINGUISTICS Cod[.]

UNIVERSITYOF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES

NGUYỄN THỊ NGỌC ÁNH

A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ON U.S PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA’S

STATE OF THE UNIONS

Major: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS Code: 822 02 01

MASTER THESIS IN LINGUISTICS AND CULTURAL STUDIES

OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES (A SUMMARY)

Da Nang, 2020

This thesis has been completed at University of Foreign Language

Studies, The University of Da Nang

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Lưu Quý Khương

Examiner 1: Assoc Prof Dr Nguyễn Quang Ngoạn

Examiner 2: Ph.D Dr Lê Tấn Thi

The thesis was orally defended at the Examining Committee

Time: June 2020

Venue: Tay Nguyen University

This thesis is available for the purpose of reference at:

- Library of University of Foreign Language Studies, The University

of Da Nang

- The Center for Learning Information Resources and

Communication, The University of Da Nang

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE

Critical linguistics is also called Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) For Fairclough (1995a, p 133), CDA is a

“discourse analysis which aims to systematically explore often opaque relationships of causality and determination between (a) discursive practices, events, and texts, and (b) wider social and cultural structures, relations and process” The main focus

of CDA is public speeches, such as political speeches, advertisements, newspapers, official documents and so on

In the past, Barack Obama, the first African-American president in American history, captured the world’s attention when he applied his rich language expressions, impassioned speeches and whole hearted attitude to try to gain the public’s support Through analyzing his speeches, the readers can have

a better understanding about the political purpose of the

selected speeches

In fact, there have been quite a variety of researchers working on language and power connection through the addresses of President Obama However, most of them tended

to study a single speech and there are still few studies of the

language used in political speeches according to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of Norman Fairclough In order to discover the ideology which is hidden within the discourses, thereby, to serve a better understanding of these famous political discourses, so I decide to conduct the thesis entitled:

“A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ON U.S PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA’S STATE OF THE UNIONS”

1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1.2.1 Aims

This study aims at analyzing the discourse features of Barack Obama’s States of the Unions in order to explore his underlying and ideologies in general Besides, the author hopes that the findings of the study enable to recommend implications in English learning and teaching, and researching speeches of President Barack Obama in the future

1.2.2 Objectives of the study

This study is intended to examine the textual description in terms of vocabulary analysis, grammar analysis and textual structure

in SOTUs of President Barack Obama from critical discourse analysis viewpoints and then find out the ideology manifested in the discourses

Barack Obama in terms of vocabulary, grammar and textual structure analysis in CDA perspective?

2 How is ideology manifested in the SOTUs by President Barack Obama?

1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study is confined to written aspects of the speeches and

to some characteristics of the United State context at the time speeches were given In this critical discourse analysis, I am just concerned especially with the transcripts of speeches, neglecting the spoken version (including non-linguistics features, voice, stress, intonation, etc.) although the author is very much aware of its importance in comprehending of the whole speaker’s message

The study analyzes seven addresses delivered by President Obama from 2010 to 2016 During studying, the researcher conducts the analysis based on Fairclough’s framework for CDA The texts are systematically analyzed by looking at linguistic features such as choices in vocabularies (wording and metaphors), grammatical properties (pronouns, modality) and text structure (macro-structure, rhetoric techniques) In order to unravel the hidden meaning or the speaker’s ideology in the speeches, these linguistic properties should

be interpreted with a critical mind In other words, the researcher should answer why the speaker choose choices on his addresses

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study of President Obama’s SOTUs is expected to be a valuable contribution to find out the role of language in expressing political purposes effectively The findings of the research will help Vietnamese learners aware and achieve the beauty of using language

in political speeches and understand why President Obama is

considered as one of the great orators in American history

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICALBACKGROUND 2.1 LITERATUREREVIEW

CDA approach has been applied in the analysis of the most SOTUs of President Obama Recently, Ameen (2019) carried out a linguistic study to investigate the pragma-rhetorical devices and strategies utilized by Obama in his speech to the Americans on

“chemical weapons” claimed to be used in Syria Kazemian and Hashemi (2014) focused on the investigating and analyzing Barack Obama’s 2012 five SOTUs from the point of frequency and functions of Nominalization, Rhetorical strategies, Passivization and Modality Based on the critical discourse analysis viewpoints, Bui (2014) analyzed the speech by President Barack Obama on the death

of Osama Bin Laden on May 1st, 2011 in order to find out the ideology embedded in the discourse, an uncovered the relationship between language and power Wudie (2013) studied the adequate exploitation of language manipulation politics could grant a political benefit an d firmly control (regulate) people against their interests (Machiavellianism) or totally emancipate to be vibrant citizens in their own through Obama’s SOTU regarding the Middle East and (North) Africa Wang (2010) studieds Barack Obam’s presidential SOTUs (Obama’s Victory Speech 2008 and Obama’s Inaugural Address 2009) mainly from the point of transitivity and modality based on Critical Discourse Analysis theory and Systematic

Functional Linguistics In another study, Munday (2012) explores the use of the potential of appraisal theory of evaluation (Martin & White, 2005), centering on the realization of interpersonal meaning, for the uncovering of translator decision-making The analysis is applied to a case study of two of President Obama's SOTUs, including the subtitles of President Obama's SOTU of 25 January

2012

In this research, by collecting seven transcripts of SOTUs

of President Omama, which were delivered from 2010 to 2016, the author uncovered discourse features including the use of vocabulary, grammar and discourse structures with experiential, relational, expressive values according to questions framework by Fairclough (2001) The main focus of research analyzing seven SOTUs is to clarify what the ideology of the President is and how ideological loading had been manifested in these discourses From the results of this analysis, the author hopes that the readers can have a better understanding of the political purposes of president Obama and the talent of the President of the United States, who is considered as one

of the greatest political orators

2.2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.2.1 Theory of Critical Discourse Analysis

2.2.1.1 Definition

2.2.1.2 Some concepts of CDA

2.2.1.3 The development of CDA

2.2.2 Fairclough CDA Model

2.2.3 Principles of CDA

2.2.4 Difference between Traditional Discourse Analysis and CDA

2.2.5 Fairclough’s analytical framework of CDA

2.2.6 Definition of State of the Union

2.2.7 A brief profile of Barack Hussein Obama

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY

3.1 METHODOLOGY

In order to achieve the set goal, the method of this study was both qualitative and quantitative methods The qualitative method would used to analyze discourse description features including vocabulary, grammar, and discourse structure with experiential, relational, expressive values in the discourse within the framework of CDA Qualitative method was necessity in the way that the frequency of key words in each word domain counted and the frequency of items featuring grammatical value determined

length of each speech varies from 6044 to 7304 words

Table 3.1 List of seven SOTUs transcripts of Barack Obama’s SOTUs from 2010 to 2016

Name of speech Delivery data Total words

3.2.3 DATA ANALYSIS

The speeches were analyzed in these following steps: First, the collected data were examined so as to uncover discourse features including the use of vocabulary, grammar and discourse structures with experiential, relational, expressive values according to questions framework by Fairclough (2001)

Next, the statistics were displayed in via tables From this calculation, distinctive features of SOTUs of President Barack

Obama could be finally were determined, discussed and evaluated to clarify the using of language of president Obama and how effectively Obama employs these discourse features to convey his ideology and messages to the audiences

The software WordSmith 5.0 was employed to support partly in figuring out the analysis results to meet the aims and objectives of thethesis

3.2.4 RESEARCH PROCEDURE

The study was done as follows:

• Revising previous researches and studies that related

• Synthesizing and discussing the findings

• Drawing conclusion and putting forward some implication

3.3 RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY

The data collection of this study was done with the major sources which were the samples collected from an official website

In addition, the author analyzed the samples basing on Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis approach that be considered as an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse It was important

that these speeches should be carefully read and that examples should be cautiously analyzed so as ensure the results

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 REALIZATION OF OBAMA’S IDEOLOGIES THROUGH HIS USE OF VOCABULARY IN THE STATE OF UNIONS 4.1.1 Using overwording

Obama’s message of unity is reworded on speeches, becoming one of the most salient linguistic features Some his

repetition of “America”, “American”, “Americans”, “country”,

“United States/ states”, “nation” refer to America, which express the

spirit of patriotism, of social responsibility for each other not just oneself Unity is also instantiated repeatedly by many phrases with

“together” such as work together, make together, come together, get together, do together, act together

Besides, by repeating some key words in the address such

as “economy”, “jobs/job”, “taxes/tax”, “education”, “health”,

“world”, the ideology of President was presented Those repeated

words helped to speak out what he thought, what he concerned about and what the United States was contorting the world According to Obama’s strategy, Americans will only provide support for the building of democracy in the target countries, while this task should

be performed by the locals themselves

4.1.2 Using metaphor

Firstly, In Obama’s SOTUs, he used construction metaphor The words like “create”, “plan”, “form” or “build” are used many times his speeches to refer either to the economy or clean energy as in the following examples:

(4.4) A strong, healthy financial market makes it

possible for businesses to access credit and create new jobs (line

176, 2010)

(4.5) In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs (line 56, 2012)

Secondly, Obama framed the American reality as if it was

“a dream”– a perfect country to live where everything is possible in

the speeches According to Obama, American Dream is defined as

“what drove the Allen Brothers to reinvent their roofing company for

a new era It's what drove those students at Forsyth Tech to learn a new skill and work towards the future And that dream is the story of

a small business owner named Brandon Fisher” (line 472, 2011) In

the given example, Obama did not speak of the basic meaning of a

dream “something that you experience in your mind while you are sleeping” Instead, he maked a reference to the future that can be improved: “something good that you hope you will have or achieve

in the future” All of Obama’s metaphors representing the concept of

the American Dream conveyed to illustrate strength of America It is

a belief that life can always be improved, and anything depends on one’s individual ambitions regardless ethnicity and social

in Tucson are not so different than those of our own children, and that they all deserve the chance to be fulfilled (lines 19-23, 2010)

President Obama used the metaphor in this case to express

a belief that Americans are connected as one nation who shares common values and visions Also, Obama regularly declares that all Americans are equal

Next, in order to serve his point of a strong and powerful America, he used Americans are strong leaders metaphor In the

sentence “We sustain the leadership that has made America not just

a place on a map but the light to the world” (2011) The most basic

definition of light defines it as brightness from the sun or from a light, which allows you to see things, while another meaning is to show a person eminent in a particular sphere of activity His use of metaphorical expression refers to the Americans as the eminent leaders in any field

Then, in 2010 SOTU, he said “Despite our hardships, our union is strong” The most basic sense of the word strong refers to the physical capabilities “physically powerful and healthy”, whereas

the context in which it was used requires understanding the metaphorical meaning to refers to someone who is strong, has confidence, determination and emotional strength These metaphorical expressions were used with the implication that Americans as extremely important and influential people in the world, Americans as the highest authority for the rest of the world, Americans as people who can survive any life hardships and Americans lead in every aspect of life such as economy, science or lifestyle