ANALYSIS OF TRANSITIVITY INAUGURAL SPEECH 2000

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PART 1: INTRODUCTION

Modern society has observed the rise of visual images used indifferent types of media which drives language at the risk of losingits primary role in social communication In fact, there have been

fears by writers of post-modernism that language may have been

totally outweighed by visual images However, the truth is far frombeing so Many scholars have recently been successful in uncoveringthe power of language in the belief that ‘exercise of power isincreasingly achieved through ideology, particularly through theworkings of language’ (Fairclough, 2000)

Ever since its emergence several decades ago, Critical DiscourseAnalysis (henceforth CDA) has attracted interest not only from theinternal sections of the linguistics field but also from other relatedones such as politics, cultural studies, media studies, etc It isbecause discourse has been seen now as not only social practice butalso reflection of reality The shift has, to a great extent, given rise

to the enhancement of awareness of language and its power,especially how it helps people to gain power over the others throughideology, which is underlied in the language

This is particularly the case of politics, where language is the tool ofauthority holders to gain, to represent and to realize power andideology A specific issue regarding politics and public opinion canbest exemplify this As we may know, presidential policy-makingbehaviour is of paramount importance to both the president himself

and his fellow citizens in almost any countries This is common sense

in a democratic society like the U.S where it is the citizens whochoose their own president, the Chief Executive The president isunderstandably the convergence of great many public expectations,one of which is evident in the public expectation toward his publicspeeches

Although a generalization of people’s expectation proves to beimpossible, it is widely accepted that there are usually two aspects

to the expectations of the presidents: the personal behaviour andthe policy performance which result in two purposeful criteria of thespeech: the fellowship and the leadership (Cohen, 1997) That is, to

be considered successful and popular, a presidential speechgenerally has to show the leadership of the speech-maker while itcan maintain the responsiveness of the public opinion Theintegration of these two features into the speech poses quitechallenging job of the president Some scholars (Cronin, Rockman,cited in Cohen, 1997) even refer to this as ‘presidentialcontradictions, conflicts or paradoxes.’

It could be estimated then each and every presidential speech has toundergo a long and stringent process of revising and editing beforebeing officially publicized This is because presidential address is animmediate channel of passing on policies and conveying politicalideology of the president and his administration to the commonpeople Undoubtedly, the analysis of the texts of the addresses - theprocess of decoding assumptions and thinking embedded in it-promises to unearth potentially interesting findings about thepresident, his/her administration and to a large extent, the politicslife of a country This very inspiration has urged me to conduct astudy on the presidential speeches made by the incumbentpresident of the United States of America

Undoubtedly, this research enables the fulfillment of my two-folddesire First, it stands me an opportunity to try myself in a quite newyet promisingly fascinating linguistics branch Second, it satisfies mycuriosity of investigating the politics of one of the world’s mostpowerful countries as well as the ideology of the head of the power

Given that CDA is a quite new research area in linguistics in Vietnam,and little about CDA has been known in deed, (except for, to myknowledge, a recently published article by Nguyen H., (2005) andsome graduation theses in CDA), this study is intended to at leastenhance the consciousness of how power and ideology areembedded in language in particular, and the relation betweenlanguage and society in general It thus raises a voice in approval ofapplying and advancing Critical Discourse Analysis in doinglinguistics research

Hopefully, CDA will soon be introduced into curriculum in Vietnamand more linguists will find interest in it, thus making CDA a popularchoice for linguists when the relation between language and society

is in question

The study is also expected to be of benefit for English languagelearners, as it is common that they usually find authentic discoursesdifficult to comprehend fully Usually, this is due to their failure tointerpret the author’s underlying assumptions (or to be more exact,the ideology that drives the discourses) The awareness of theideological meanings of the discourse will, to a certain extent, enablethe comprehensive understanding of the authentic discourses,especially political ones

3 Scope of the study

In this research, I would give spotlight on the written text (i.e thelinguistic features) of the two speeches made by G.W Bush.Nevertheless, the limitations of time and the author’s capabilitypreclude this from covering all the features available in the data.Instead, only salient features relevant to the aims of the thesis aregiven focus on The paper also excludes all non-verbal aspects(intonation, posture, etc,) from the analysis procedure though theauthor is fully aware that they do have some role in representing thespeaker’s ideology

As required by CDA’s principles, I have gathered relevant politicaland economic data (including speeches, statistics, politicalreferences and so forth) with a view to deciphering the discourse inquestion in the most proper way they may allow I have no intention

of yielding an in-depth insight into political science with theassumptions and comments proposed in the research It is purelinguistic research and hence, should be exempted from judgments

on the basis of politics

Context, as integrated by knowledge, situation and text, is generallyregarded as a must in almost all approaches to discourse In CDA,context plays an ever-important role It is consequently necessary togive some brief background information of the data before statingthe questions guiding my study (More detailed account of thepresidential and the inaugural speeches will be found in chapter 1and chapter 2)

The data speeches, though by the same author, George W Bush,were produced four years apart and in two periods of substantially

different socio-political contexts of the U.S country When George W.Bush took over presidency from Bill Clinton in 2000, the U.S wasthen in at peace with a prosperous economy and facing hardlypotential threat domestically and internationally The case wasconsiderably opposite when Mr Bush retook the oath of office in

2004 nevertheless Some unprecedented and unexpected eventshad happened to the country during Mr Bush’s four years in office,threatening the domestic and international security Hereinafter I amreviewing some of these events and briefly discussing the

aftermaths and effects they produce (Appendix 2 will provide more detailed year reviews of all related events)

First, it was the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in NewYork and the Pentagon in Washington on September 9/11 whichkilled nearly 3,000 people and caused the collapse of threeskyscrapers In an attempt to ‘hunt down’ the terrorists and all thosewho ‘harbor’ (G.W Bush) them, the Bush Administration decided towent war against nations which were supposed to have links withterrorism In October 2001, the U.S troops (in coalition with someothers) launched war against Afghanistan This brought victory tothe U.S and his coalition at the expense of well over 200 deaths tothe American side but the efforts to capture Osama bin Laden (theprime suspect behind the attacks) and many of his top aides were invain In March 2003, the U.S-led coalition attacked Iraq reasoningthat Iraq were storing weapons of mass destruction and maintainingthe alleged link with Al Qaeda, the international network ofterrorism Again, US –led coalition won but bloodshed has beencontinuing and so far (November 2005) this war has claimed morethan 2,000 Americans

Second, the U.S suffered an economics downturn and went intorecession in almost all sectors with the largest job losses in 21 years

recorded in 2000 Until 2004, the U.S remained in time ofcontroversial war, and was recovering but had yet recovered fromeconomics recession by the time the second presidency of G.W.Bush commenced.

In short, the USA can be said to be in two periods of radicaldiscrepancy: one in peace and the other one in war, as Mr Bushonce acknowledged in an address in 2005 Presumably, these arethe prime factors that would create remarkable changes in thesecond speech More specifically, they will get the key persons of theU.S to adopt a different dominant ideology and to re-outline thevision for his new period in office It is this very point that invitesanalysis and interpretation in the light of CDA

In studying the two inaugural speeches by G.W Bush in thepresidential election 2000 and 2004, I would like to find out therelationship between language and ideology My contrastive textualanalysis of the two texts (and social political background clarificationwhere necessary) is to give focus to some aspects as follows:

+ The first is the way socio-political context influences hisstrategic ideology representation in the speeches, especially inthe 2004 one;

+ The second is the way President Bush deals with theconventional paradoxes in the political speeches linguistically

to live up to the public expectations

These attempts, though done on only a particular case, are hoped toserve as a vivid instance of how power and ideology are achieved vialanguage Also, it is expected to enhance the awareness the role oflanguage in general, and of Critical Discourse Analysis in particular.Specifically, I purport to answer the following research questions:

+ What and how are ideologies reflected lexically and syntactically in each speech?

+ What are the differences and similarities in the realization of ideologies in the speeches?

+ What linguistic strategies does the speaker employ to solve the paradoxes of fellowship and authority in the speeches?

The study bases itself on the common sense assumptions that thereare ‘implicit conventions according to which people interactlinguistically’ (Fairclough, 2001) Regarding the presidentialspeeches, there exist some aspects influencing the lexical andsyntactical choice of the speaker It then follows the inductiveapproach, that is all underlying patterns and principles are drawnfrom description of data and generalization of findings

In carrying out this research, the author relies on the followingprocedure:

Firstly, several approaches to CDA are reviewed so that anappropriate theoretical framework suited to the aims and subject ofthe study could be mapped out The study is not based on aparticular approach; rather, it is drawn upon a combination of twomost outstanding approaches proposed by two CDA practitioners,Fairclough and van Dijk

Secondly, qualitative data related to the U.S presidentialelection 2000 and 2004, particularly the speeches by G.W Bushmade on two Inauguration days are assembled for the analysis,which is done in two phases:

1, General textual description of the speeches is made interms of lexis and syntax towards the uncovering of underlyingideology in the speeches;

2, Comparative analysis of the speeches is made on thebasis of elements discerned in the earlier part This is to findout the similarities and differences of the two speeches interms of how ideology is linguistically realized Although thestudy is examining two speeches at the same time, it is notpure contrastive analysis that is the purpose of the research.Instead, this serves as the underpinning for the interpretationand explanation of the findings later on

The study consists of three parts and two chapters, which are

organized as follows:

Part 1: Introduction states the reasons of the study, its

significance, its scope, aims and research questions, its

methodology

Part 2: Development

Chapter 1: Theoretical Background & Literature review

reviews CDA history, approaches, Systemic Functional Grammar and some background information of the data speeches

Chapter 2: Methodology and analysis procedures describes the

data collection and the procedure of analyzing data

Part 3: Conclusion: summarizes the findings in the previous

sections, discusses the findings of the research, provides concluding remarks and implications and suggestions for further studies

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND & LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Background to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

1.1.1 Brief overview of CDA evolution

The emergence of Critical Linguistics (CL) in late 1970s marked aconsiderable change in doing social linguistics research At that time,linguists were busy finding ways to give insights into technical

spheres of language such as ‘language variation, language change and the structures of communicative interaction’, while neglecting

‘issues of social hierarchy and power’ (Labov: 1972; Hyme: 1972,

quote after Wodak: 2002) As Chomsky (1957) saw it, much researchwas focused on the language aspects which had to do with thecompetence of speakers (i.e: form and content, system, process, useetc.,) rather than the aspects of the contexts The birth ofpragmatics then helped create a space for investigating theinterdependence of language and social contexts though theattempts were limited In pragmatics, ‘sentences and components ofsentences were still regarded as the basic units’ (Wodak) Moreover,pragmatics is limited in having mainly developed with reference to

“single invented utterances rather than the real extended discourse”

(Fairclough: 1989) As a consequence, the analytical tools aredevoted to disclosing discrete pieces of language rather than

‘placing them in a wider political and social contexts’’ and

discourage linguists from understanding the world properly

The birth of CL was originally attributed to the seminal work of Rogerand his colleagues based at the University of East Anglia in 1979 Itsconcern was reading the meaning in texts as the realization of socialprocesses, seeing texts as functioning ideologically and politically inrelation to their contexts Its main assumptions, principles andprocedures can be found in a lot of work such as those by Kress andHodge (1979), Fowler at al (1979), Trew (1979) van Dijk (1985) andWodak (ed.) (1989).

During the 1980s, CL merged with similar approaches in socialsemiotics and pragmatics It was Norman Fairclough who initiatedthe term Critical Discourse Analysis, along with its abbreviation CDA

to denote a distinct and substantial body of work (Billig: 2003) Eversince, CDA has been more systematic as it focuses more on thecritical, socio-political and socio-cultural issues By the end of thedecade, almost all the cornerstones for doing CDA such as aims,research interests, perspectives and methods of CDA were muchmore specifically and rigidly defined

The radical ground for doing CDA was Michael Halliday’s functional of language Most CDA protagonists were aware that anunderstanding of the basic claims of Halliday’s grammar and theapplication of his approach to linguistics was essential for a goodperformance of CDA Halliday had asserted the relationship betweenthe grammatical system and the social and personal needs thatlanguage is required to serve (Halliday: 1970, in Wodak: 2001).Following him, CL practitioners see language use as simultaneously

systemic-performing three macro-functions: ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions The first function refers to the experience of the

speakers of the world and its phenomena The interpersonalfunction, which constitutes relationships between the participants,has to do with the insertion of speaker’s own attitude and

evaluations about the phenomena in question, and establishing arelationship between speakers and listeners The third function, alsothe key one, constitutes coherence and cohesion in texts This is theone by which speakers are able to produce texts that can makethem understood by others The grammar, according to him, isstructured as three major ‘networks’ of grammatical systems thatare transitivity, mood and modality, and information - includingtheme-rheme and given-new (Halliday:1994) These are believed to

be corresponding to these three macro-functions of languageaforementioned

1.1.2 Formation of theory of and some key concepts in CDA

1.1.2.1 Formation of theory

Ever since its beginning, CL has focused on the process of theoryformation and specially stressed the interdisciplinary nature of itsresearch In fact, it was quite impossible to attribute CDA theory to

any particular single theory, as Meyer claims that ‘there is no such guiding theoretical viewpoint that is used consistently within CDA, nor do the CDA protagonists proceed consistently from the area of theory to the field of discourse and then back to theory’ (Meyer:

2002) Among many experts, Foucault and Habermas are twophilosophers who undoubtedly had a strong influence on the theorydevelopment of CDA Foucault’s tool is used on both theepistemological level and the level of discourse theory while that ofHabermas is applied as a general social theory, a microsociologicalinteraction theory and a discourse theory It would be inherent thatthe theoretical framework of CDA was eclectic and unsystematic.Attentions therefore, need to be paid on the different levels andtypes of theories Nevertheless, the plurality of theories can beconsidered as one strength of it, to which CDA owns its dynamics

The ground for setting up such theory, according to Chouliaraki and

Fairclough (1999), was ‘the meditation between social and the linguistics’ It was the complex interrelation that linguistics and

sociology need to combine with each other To date, no such uniformtheoretical framework of meditation has been created in CDA.However, approaches or efforts to reach approaches by CDAprotagonists have showed great concern they spared for CDA

1.1.2.2 CDA and some key concepts

Before going on with CDA in more details, it is necessary to give anexplanation of one of the most controversial issues which is subject

to quite a lot discussion among CDA and even non-CDA practitioners.According to Fairclough, CDA or Critical Discourse Analysis is simply

the critical study of language At this very point a question is raised

‘what does it mean by ‘critical’?

Wodak (2001) holds that ‘critical is having distance to the data’ This

is quite vague as one may not work out how one can keep distance

to the data The definition by Fairclough (1992) that ‘critical implies showing connections and causes that are hidden’ (and in so doing,

‘decoding the operations of ideology’) visualizes a clearer vision of

what task a CDA protagonist has to do, given that ideologies arealways embedded in linguistics

With Billig (2003), however, sufficient and quite satisfactoryjustification of “critical” has been made

Firstly, critical approaches mean to be critical of the present socialorder CDA is seen to be a means of criticizing the social order, it isnot because of a technical or methodological discrepancy from otherapproaches that CDA claims itself to be critical Rather, it is because

it is rooted in a radical critique of social relations

Secondly, CDA and critical approaches in general, distinguishthemselves from other whose theoretical and methodologicalassumptions seem to exclude direct political or radical analyses This

advocated Fairclough in his claims that ‘critical approaches not just describe discursive practices but also show how discourse is shaped

by relations of power and ideologies’ (1992a)

Thirdly, in critical approach, academic work is related to the socialconditions of domination By that, CDA implies that the traditionalways of dealing with linguistics is insufficient, narrow and CDA has to

go beyond the boundary set up Critical endeavours, thereforerequire that analysts’ knowledge is to be grasped from other relateddisciplines such as sociology, social theory, history and so forth That

is why critical approach is characterized as multidisciplinary/Interdisciplinary since it cannot accept the disciplinary structure ofthe approach that it is criticizing

To sum up, I strongly advocate Nguyen H in his brief conclusion that

‘critical is substantially includes the unearthing of ideological nature

or unequal relations implicit in discourses.’ (Nguyen: 2005) By this,CDA differentiates itself from the traditional Discourse analysis- DA(even though they both have the discourse as a subject) in thatwhile CDA concerns a series of issues such as culture, sociality,power, ideology etc., DA centrers solely on discourse as aninteractional process

I would now like to quote, for convenience, some key concepts inCDA (agreed by many CDA followers) on which this paper bases

Discursive event: instances of language use, analysed as text,

discursive practice, social practice

Text: the written or spoken language produced in a discursive

event

Discourse practice: the production distribution and

consumption of a text

Interdiscursivity: the constitution of a text from diverse

discourses and genres

Discourse: way of signifying experience from a particular

perspective

Genre: use of language associate with a particular social

activity

Order of discourse: totality of discursive practices of an

institution, and relations between them

Members’ resources (MR): are accumulated knowledge

structures which ‘people have in their heads and draw upon when they produce or interpret texts- including their

knowledge of language, representations of the natural and social worlds they inhabit, values, beliefs, assumptions and so on’

(Fairclough: 1995a; 2001)

1.2 CDA-Theories and practice

1.2.1 Overview of the approaches to CDA

As mentioned above, CDA has never tried to establish one single orspecific theory It would be comprehensible why there exist differentapproaches in doing it According to Fairclough and Wodak (1996)there are about eight approaches to CDA which are:

1.The rather vaguely termed French Discourse Analysis

(referring to the work of Foucault);

2.The critical linguistics, particularly the work of Fowler,

Kress, Hodge and Trew (1979) and Kress and Hodge(1979) which uses the Systemic Functional Linguistics ofMichael Halliday (1978);

3.The Social Semiotics of Hodge and Kress (1988) which

emphasizes the analysis of text in interrelating with othervisual representations and their functioning as a complexvisual semiotic spaces (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1990);

4.Sociocultural change and change in discourse referring to

Fairclough’s interests in the ways in which changes in thebroader social and cultural domain are reflected inchanges in discursive practices;

5.Sociocognitive studies, of van Dijk, which accounts for the

relation between language use (discourse) and socialrelations;

6.The discourse – historical methods of Ruth Wodak and her

colleagues which has emerged in the interdisciplinarywork on anti-semitic discourse in Australia;

7.The Reading Analysis (Leseartenalyse of Utz Maas) which

combines Foucauldian and hermeneutic analysis and haslooked particularly at the discourses of Nazism;

8.The Duisburg School which refers to the Fouculdian –

influenced work of Siegfred and Margret Jager (Jager andJager, 1993) that has focused particularly on thediscourses of the new right in Germany

(quote in Pennycook: 2001)

It can be seen that these approaches are not clearly distinct fromeach others as they are mostly developed from a particular researchand therefore, can hardly be regarded an approach on its own right

In the next part, I am reviewing three most principal approaches

among these and following Wodak (2003) in terming them schools

in CDA.

1.2.2 Three main schools of CDA

1.2.2.1. Ruth Wodak’s school - The discourse – historical approach

Basing on the assumption that CDA must be ‘multitheoretical and multimethodical, critical and self- reflective’, Wodak (2002) et al has devised the so-called discourse - historical approach This analysis

involves the social critique which consists at least three aspects

namely text or discourse immanent (internal structural) critique, socio-diagnostic (contextual and interactional) critique and prognostic (toward the transformation and improvement of

communication) critique One of the most salient features of this

approach, as Wodak claims, is its ‘endeavour to work interdisciplinarily and multimethodically and on the basis of a variety

of different empirical data as well as background information’

(Wodak: 2002) In an attempt to demystify the relationship betweenthe power and language, she systematically includes the historical,

political and sociological and/or psychological dimension in theanalysis and interpretation of a specific discursive occasion.

Besides, she takes into consideration the historical dimension ofdiscursive actions by exploring the ways in which particular genres

of discourse are subject to diachronic change, that is, theintertextuality and interdiscursivity Also, it integrates the socialtheories when necessary in explaining the context

The overall framework of this approach is seen in the four levels ofcontext as follows:

1 The immediate, language or text internal co-text

2 The intertextual and interdiscursive relationships betweenutterances, texts, genres and discourses

3 The extralinguistic social/sociological variables ad institutionalframes of a specific ‘context of situation’ (middle-rangetheories)

4 The broader sociopolitical and historical contexts, which thediscursive practices are embeded in and related to

(Wodak: 2003)

To sum up, historical context of discourse is the most distinguishingfeature in Wodak’s analysis tool This sets it apart from the school ofvan Dijk and Fairclough, which are to be mentioned in the followingsections

1.2.2.2 Van Dijk’s school – Socio-cognitive approach

With a variety of critical works on media discourse, van Dijk isbelieved to have set out a framework which was distinct from that ofFairclough (as we will see later) and Wodak Not only did he call for

analysis of the textual and structural level of media discourse butalso for analysis and explanation at the production and ‘reception’ orcomprehension level (Boyd- Barett: 1994) In essence, he followsaspects of knowledge and social cognition, knowledge andrepresentation, comprehension and discourse processing.

Van Dijk’s early involvement in text linguistics and discourse analysisespecially media discourse has enabled his development of cognitivemodel of discourse which was later termed social cognition mode In

his words, social cognition is “the system of mental structure and operation that are required, used or changed in social contexts by social and shared by members of social groups, organizations and culture (in Wodak: 2003).

He introduced basic concepts such as macro, micro, power, control access context and so forth, on which the theoretical framework was

devised This brings discourse, cognition and society together in acritical way The feature setting van Dijk’s mode apart lies in the way

he views discourse analysis, i.e not only at textual and structurallevel but also explanation at the production andreception/comprehension level (Boyd-Barrett, 1994)

With textual and structural analysis, he emphasizes thegrammatical, phonological, morphological and semantic and higherproperties namely coherence, overall themes and topics and thewhole schematic forms and rhetorical dimensions of texts However,this analysis would be inadequate unless analysis on production and

reception processes is conducted as in his belief ‘discourse is a complex communicative event that also embodies a social context, featuring participants (and their properties)’(van Dijk :1988,p2)

The production process is crucial in not only the making of mediadiscourses but also its structure Reception processes meanwhile

have to do with the comprehension, memorization and reproduction

of news information These processes can be condensed in twolevels of analysis, macro and micro The former consists of languageuse, discourse verbal interaction and communication and the laterembodies power, dominance and inequality between social groups.(van Dijk: 1998)

According to him, there do exist gaps between micro and macroapproaches; thus only by bridging these gaps can we reach a unifiedcritical analysis He goes on to suggest four ways of doing so namelymembers- groups, actions- process, context – social structures andpersonal and social cognition

Van Dijk especially pertains to the belief that discourse analysis is

essentially ideology analysis in that ‘ideology analyses are largely expressed and acquired by discourse, whether spoken or written communication interaction and that the relation between ideologies and discourse is complex and is quite often indirect.’ (van Dijk:

2004)

The process of ideology is realized in three aspects: social, cognitiveand discourse Social analysis centres on the overall societalstructures or the context/ context models, while the discourseanalysis concerns the text’s properties such as syntax, lexicon, localsemantics topics, schematic structures, etc By incorporating the twotraditional approaches, interpretative (text based) and social(context based), into one analytical framework, van Dijk hascontributed considerably in creating an effective tool for analysingmedia discourses

One notable thing in his ideological structure analysis is the groups and out-groups polarization, which, if applied, would affectboth forms and meaning They are pronouns (US and THEM), or

in-possessives and demonstratives (such as OUR people and THOSEpeople, respectively), other strategies in ideological discourse likepositive self-presentation (boasting: emphasizing our good things)and negative other-presentation (derogation: de-emphasizing badthings) and vice versus for Others On that basis, he suggests aprocedure in making transparent such ideological dichotomy indiscourse, namely:

• Examining the context of the discourse: historical, political or socialbackground of a conflict and its main participants;

• Analysing groups, power relations and conflicts involved;

• Identifying positive and negative opinions about US versus THEM;

• Making elicit the presupposed and the implied;

• Examining all formal structure: lexical choice and syntactic structures

in a way that helps to (de)emphasize polarized group opinions

(van Dijk: 1998b)

In short, the socio-cognitive model has brought to attention thediscourse –knowledge base which helps bridge the radical gap(traditionally ignored in linguistics) between knowledge anddiscourse meaning and thus discourse and society and discourse andculture (van Dijk: 2003)

1.2.2.3 Fairclough’s school - mass media

Fairclough is among the most salient CDA practitioners who sets outthe social theories underpinning CDA His variety of textualexamples, especially those on mass media, has helped specify theaims and method of analysis, thus making CDA a more feasibledirection of analysis for those interested in it His work (later in

collaboration with Chouliaraki, 1999) gives insights into how theanalytical framework for doing CDA develops and how useful CDA is

in demystifying the discursive nature of contemporary social andcultural changes He sees language as socially constitutive andsocially formed Language use therefore, constitutes socialidentities, social relations and system of knowledge and beliefs

By pointing out the shortcomings of traditional ways in approachinglinguistics, (which, according to him, fail them to properly decipherthe world) he shows how powerful CDA is in addressing thoselimitations He holds that traditional linguistics have generally tried

to ‘describe prevailing socio-linguistic conventions in terms of how they distribute power unequally; but not to explain these conventions as the product of relations of power and struggles for power’ Thus, they overlook one important aspect in this dual relationship between language and power, that is ‘socio-linguistic conventions also arise out of and give rise to particular relations of power’ (Fairclough: 2001).

One of the distinctive CDA features that distinguish it from the

traditional approaches is the integration of ‘critical social science and linguistics within a single theoretical and analytical framework’

but it does not simply mean the combination of two spheres toachieve one Rather, it involves using techniques to harmonize them,

or in his words, ‘setting up a dialogue between them’ (Fairclough:

2001) The linguistics theory that Fairclough resorts to as the basicfoundation for his framework is the Systemic Functional Linguistics

by Michael Halliday (1978) This is for the analysis of texture, thestructure and organisation of texts In fact, he saw intertextualanalysis, rather than Halliday’s original theory of social semiotic, as acrucial way of linking texts and contexts That is, he goes further toanalysis of structure beyond sentence and conversational analysis

(Threadgold 2003) In addition, he extents to theories such as

concepts of orders of discourse by Foucault, hegemony by Gramsci, colonization of discourse by Habermas and so on (Fairclough: 2001,

Given that, CDA is established as a ‘three dimensional’ framework

(Fairclough 1995b) with three separate analyses namely analysis of(spoken or written) language text, analysis of discourse practice,(processes of text production, distribution and consumption), andanalysis of discursive events as instances of sociocultural practice

This threefold framework (text, discourse practice and socio-cultural practice) to a large extent, equals to that developed by van Dijk (discourse, socio-cognition and social analysis) What distinctive

between the two lies in the second dimension While van Dijk seessocial cognition as mediating between discourse and the social,Fairclough attributes the mediation role to discourse practice (i.e.text production and text consumption) He goes further in classifyingthe analysis into three kinds: description, interpretation andexplanation The second notable discrepancy is the focal point ofeach van Dijk is more concerned with the macro structure analysiswhile Fairclough relies more on SFL of which the focus is on multi-

functional aspects The other CDA representative, Wodak, however,

is more in favour of the historical context

In essence, the three reviewed representatives may differ oneanother in the emphasis but all originate in a theory from which thelinguists develop their schools This theory is simply determined bypractical research goals Put it differently, they are not bound in ‘theformulating scientific-theoretical results’ (Wodak: 2003 p2) Anotherremarkable aspect, as pointed by Boyd-Barrett (1994), is that theyare all based on the overall context for challenging linguistic socialjudgments, not just the test alone This certainly makes theseanalysis tools distinct from the traditional ones which merelyemphasize texts

1.2.3 Fairclough’s framework of CDA

One of the most successful achievements in his pursuance of CDA byFairclough (2001) is the practical framework in which hedistinguishes three dimensions or stages (description, interpretationand explanation) corresponding to the three dimensions ofdiscourse, text interaction and context respectively

• Description is the stage which is concerned with the formal

properties of the text;

• Interpretation is concerned with the relationship between text

and interaction with seeing the text as the product of a process

of production, and as a resource in the process ofinterpretation;

• Explanation is concerned with the relationship between

interaction and social context – with the social determination of

the processes of production and interpretation, and their socialeffects.

(Fairclough: 2001:pp21-22)

Stage 1: Description

For this stage, Fairclough lists as many as ten questions under thecategory of vocabulary, grammar and textual structures It should benoted at this point that not all the questions are to be employed inanalysing the texts as different this particular text may have somemore or less prevailing features than others

A Vocabulary

1 What experiential values do words have?

 What classification schemes are drawn upon?

 Are there words which are ideologically contested?

 Is there rewording or overwording?

 What ideologically significant meaning relations (synonym,

hyponymy, antonymy) are there between words?

2 What relational values do words have?

 Are there euphemistic expressions?

 Are there markedly formal or informal words?

3 What expressive values do words have?

4 What metaphors are used?

B Grammar

5.What experiential values do grammatical features have?

 What types of process and participant predominate?

 Is agency unclear?

 Are processes what they seem?

 Are nominalizations used?

 Are sentences active or passive?

 Are sentences positive or negative?

6.What relational values do grammatical features have?

 What modes (declarative, grammatical question, imperative)

are used?

 Are there important features of relational modality?

 Are pronouns ‘we’ and ‘you’ used, and if so, how?

7.What expressive values do grammatical features have?

 Are there important features of expressive modality?

8.How are (simple) sentences linked together?

 What logical connectors are used?

 Are complex sentences characterized by coordination or

subordination?

 What means are used for referring inside and outside thetext?

C Textual structures

9.What interactional conventions are used?

 Are there ways in which one participant controls the turns ofothers?

10 What larger-scale structures does the text have?

(Fairclough: 2001)Description necessarily entails interpretation in the second phase as

it provides the medium for the real representation of textualfeatures Interpretation is made possible via a combination of thetextual features (the cues) and what is ‘in” the interpreter (or themember’s resource (MR) i.e the background knowledge) In thisregard, the interpretation process can be described as a process inwhich the cues activate elements of the MR (such as phonology,grammar, vocabulary, semantics, pragmatics, cohesion, etc,.) As ameans for so doing, the MR is called interpretative procedures

The overall process of interpretation is summed up in the figure asfollows

Figure 1: Interpretation

Interpretative procedures Resources Interpreting

(MR)

Social orders Situational context

Interactional history Intertextual context

Phonology, grammar

Vocabulary Surface of utterance

Semantics, Meaning of utterancePragmatics

Cohesion, Local coherence

The interpretation of texts is further done in four phases 120):

(pp119-• Surface of utterance which relates to the process by which

interpreters convert strings of sounds or marks into words,phrases and sentences This requires the knowledge ofvocabulary, grammar and phonology

• Meaning of utterance has to do with attributing meanings to the

constituent parts of a text, which requires the knowledge ofsemantics and pragmatics

• Local coherence sets up meaning connections between

utterances to make coherence The interpreter now has to drawupon their knowledge of cohesion

• Text structure and point is actually the insight into the global

coherence It involves matching the text with one of a repertoire

of schemata or representations of characteristic patterns oforganization associated with different type of discourse

The interpretation of context consists of situational and intertextualcontexts The former is done on the basis of external cues such asthe features of the physical situation, properties of participants and

on aspects of their MR in terms of how they interpret these cues.The latter bases on the assumptions about the previous discourse(s)

to which the discourse in question links with (international history).The central part, containing boxes and arrows (single-headed ordouble-headed) indicates that interpretation is a flexible process: forexample the ‘previous interpretation can return to constitute onepart of the recourses for interpretation’

Fairclough then comes up with a summary list of the questions ininterpreting a particular discourse, that are

• Context: what interpretation(s) are participants giving to the

situational; and intertextual contexts?

• Discourse type(s): what discourse types(s) are being drawn

upon (hence what rules, systems of principles of phonology,

grammar, sentence cohesion and pragmatics; and thatschemata, frames and scripts)?

• Difference and change: are answers to questions 1 and 2

different for different participants? And do they change duringthe course of the interaction?

by those with power In this vein, the emphasis will be on the socialdetermination of discourse and on the past

Both social effects of discourse and social determinants of discourseshould be investigated at three levels of social organization: thesocietal level, the institutional level, and the situational level, whichare shown in the diagram:

Figure 2: Explanation

Societal Societal

Institutional MR Discourse MR Institutional Situational Situational

Determinants Effects

(Fairclough: 2001:122)

Like what he has suggested for the interpretation stage, another threequestions are recommended for the explanation of a particular discourse(p 138):

1 Social determinants: what power relations at situational, institutional

and societal levels help shape this discourse?

2 Ideologies: what elements of MR which are drawn upon have an

ideological character?

3 Effects: how is this discourse positioned in relation to struggles at the

situational, institutional and societal levels? Are these struggles overt orcovert? Is the discourse normative with respect to sustaining existingpower relations, or transforming them?

1.2.4 Principles in doing CDA

Although practitioners like Fairclough (1995a) Kress (1991) Hodgeand Kress, (1993) van Dijk (1998a) Wodak (1996) may follow theirown approaches, they all adhere to general principles in doing CDA

 Texts acquire their meanings by the dialectical relationshipbetween texts and the social subjects: writers and thereaders, who always operate with various degrees of choiceand access to texts and means of interpretation;

 Linguistic features and structures are not arbitrary They arepurposeful whether or not the choices are conscious orunconscious;

 Power relations are produced, exercised and reproducedthrough discourse;

 All speakers and writers operate from specific discursivepractices originating in special interests and aims whichinvolve inclusions and exclusions;

 Discourse is historical in the sense that texts acquire theirmeanings by being situated in specific social, cultural andideological contexts, and time and space;

 CDA does not solely interpret texts, but also explains them

(Sheyholislami: 2001)What remarkably notable from these principles is the ever-increasingrole played by context With discourse analysis in critical way, notonly do we have to analyse the text, but the process of making suchtext, and the socio-political and economical condition of the society,which are integrated under the label of context In that respect,these principles set aside CDA from other critical sciences in that it isbased on linguistics, or the text of the discourse

1.3 Review of Critical Discourse Analysis of Political

Discourse

Political discourses are undeniably of great importance of which theroles is seen in the ‘enactment, reproduction and legitimation ofpower and domination.’ (van Dijk:1998b) Hence, one would expectnumerous discourse studies of political text and talk Yet, not manyCDA studies have been carried out in the light of politics science to

date Accounting for this phenomenon, van Dijk states: ‘political science is among the few social disciplines in which discourse analysis has remained virtually unknown, although there is some influence of ‘postmodern’ approaches to discourse’ However, it does

not mean that there is no correlation between political science andthe critical studies of linguistics Instead, studies on such an aspectonly confine to the isolated words and concepts, not systematicallyand thus fail to reflect the true hidden iceberg behind linguistics andpolitics

Hereinafter I am reviewing some main studies conducted in the fieldwith a view to sketching the current picture

Geis (1987) is interested in the interface between politics and themedia, and particularly in how politics is covered by the U.S media.With the assumption that political language does have an impact onpeople’s political thought, he shows that the more normal thelanguage is, the stronger its impact becomes Most interestingly,Geis points out three useful means in making political speech,namely the use of unnamed sources, questionable quotes and thefailing to identify hearsay Although the research barely touchesupon the larger parts of discourse i.e underlying structures ofpolitical and media discourse it is of considerable value for havingraised the awareness of the relation between politics and the press

Another work in a clearer CDA direction is the one by Ruth Wodak etal., which was conducted in Austria This work consists the ones onanti-Semitism, nationalism and some others By integrating socialand cognitive theories including psychology, socio-linguistics andhistory in the multi-theory approach, they highlight the necessity of

analysing ‘full social and historical context in the production of discourse and its structures and strategies’ (van Dijk, 1998b) The

biggest achievement, according to van Dijk, can be seen in thebroad application by Wodak and her colleagues in dealing with avariety of discourses

Fairclough is believed to have set up a quite clear CDA frameworkespecially in working with political discourses through hiscontribution of a great many articles and books focusing onnumerous dimensions He is particularly concerned with therealization of power and inequality in political discourse, such aspolitical speeches He arrives at the categorizing of analysis intothree levels, description, interpretation and explanation In an

attempt to illustrate that, his study titled ‘Blair’s contribution to elaborating a new ‘Doctrine of international community’ gives

insights into the way political speeches contributed to the making of

a politics doctrine

These attempts, though show considerable efforts towards a clearervision of the reflection of media in politics, are far from portrayingthe real relationship between politics science and CDA This research

is done in the hope that understanding of this relation will bepractically enhanced, which would give way to more insights into thefield in question

1.4 Systemic Functional Grammar and CDA

Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) was developed during the past

45 years which, according to Young and Harison (2004), centers onfunctions that language has evolved to serve in society It seesgrammar as shaped by, and as playing a significant role in the waypeople interact with each other in life Put it another way, it viewslanguage in its social interaction, which differs the traditional way oflooking at only the formal features of texts, and thus almost takingaway the right to having insights into how language functions insocial interactions

One essential concept of this theory is the argument that each timelanguage is used, regardless of situations, the user is makingchoices These choices are mainly about meaning but are expressedvia formal linguistic aspects Hence, it arrives at the conclusion that

by using language, people not only construct reality but alsosociality It is at this very point the SFL and CDA meet each other,and that is the reason why SFL is employed in doing CDA As Youngand Harison (2004) claim, there are factors explaining the co-occurrence of the two:

First, they share a view of language as a social construct, looking atthe role of language in society and at the ways in which society hasfashioned language The second commonality, to which the firstleads, is their shared dialectical view of language in which particulardiscursive events influence the contexts (in which they occur) andthe contexts are, in turn, influenced by these discursive events.Third, as Phil Graham notes in his papers in this collection, ‘both [SFLand CDA] emphasize the cultural and historical aspects of meaning’.The similarity hence gives rise to the application of one in doing theother without difficulty

In the same vein, Nguyen H (2005) expresses his advocacy of thepossible employment of SFL in doing CDA by pointing out that SFLallows justification of the CDA in terms of social reality, both internaland external, i.e inside one social reality and among various ones M.A.K Halliday is usually attributed to the development of this

theory with his book An Introduction to Functional Grammar (1994),

serving as the manual to people interested in SFL According to him,language is structured towards three kinds of functions/meaningssimultaneously: experiential, interpersonal and textual which arerespectively realized by choices of Transitivity, Mood and Modalityand Theme/Rheme systems of the language These are to beexplained in further details as we move to data analysis in thefollowing chapter

1.5 Background to the U.S presidential elections of 2000

and of 2004

1.5.1 Background to the U.S presidential election procedure

The election for the U.S presidency, as stipulated by The UnitedStates Constitution, is a national event held on a four-year basis Theprocess of electing a president and vice-president, however, beginslong before the Election Day When the process of nominating(commencing in February of the election year) finishes, there comesthe Election Day, the first Tuesday following the first Monday inNovember of the election year (i.e November 7 in 2000 andNovember 2 in 2004) On that day, all citizens meeting the votingrequirements will go to poll in the indirect popular election to votefor electors The Electoral College, a name given to a group ofelectors who are nominated by party members within the states, willthen directly cast ballots for the president and vice-president inDecember 270 electoral votes are the required number of

presidency It is not until the 20 January of the next year,nevertheless, that the new president officially takes the oath ofoffice and takes over the power from the predecessor

As part of the election campaign, presidential candidates are tomeet face-to-face in three televised debates (discussions involvingtwo or more opposing sides of an issues) to present their own andtheir party’s views in response to questions from the media ormembers of the audience In fact, president candidates have quitemany chances to promote their policies among the public via massmedia before and during the election and the inaugural speechmarks the official turning point as the presidential candidatereceives the power of president

Ever since 1789, there have been 155 elections taking place, whichmarked the inaugurations of 43 presidents Documentation of theprevious presidencies shows that the election usually involves thecompetition between two major parties, the Democratic and theRepublic

1.5.2 The U.S presidential election of 2000

The election of 2000 was one of the closest elections in the U.Shistory between two the Republican candidate George W Bush, aformer Governor of Texas and the Democrat candidate Al Gore, thethen incumbent vice president Mr Bush’s victory over his rival wasdecided by only 527 votes in the ‘swing state’ of Florida Bush wonFlorida’s 25 electoral votes by a razor-thin margin of the popularvotes in this state, and thereby defeated Al Gore This is the forth (orfifth?) time in the history that a candidate had won the Presidency bythe electoral vote while losing the nationwide popular vote

During the election campaign, foreign policies were not the focalpoints of the two rivals since the U.S was then prosperous and atpeace (In fact, it was a quite rare case when the two majorpresidential candidates, Bush and Gore proposed the same foreignpolices, which concern the impact of globalization and the China’sissue- TTXVN 11-2000) Rather, both focus more on domestic issuesnamely measures to maintain the country’s ‘fastest growing of anymajor industrialized nation’ and the prosperity of the people

1.5.3 The U.S presidential election of 2004

The presidential election of 2004 was won again by the incumbentPresident, who defeated his main rival, Democratic Senator John F.Kerry of Massachusetts Among the most important events of theelection was the occurrence of Election Day in November 2 when thepopular vote election took place, but it was not until the next daythat the winner was determined The election hinged on Ohio, acontroversial battleground state, but at midday the day after theelection, Kerry conceded that he had lost the Buckeye State, and theelection along with it Though there were legal challenges to theresults in some states and allegations of problems with the results inOhio, none had an effect on the final outcome Bush had won overKerry by 35 votes

Prominent concerns of the candidates in this election seem to beequal shares between foreign issues and domestic ones Regardingthe former, the war on terror, particularly the war in Iraq which haskilled thoundsands of U.S soldiers bore most criticism from theopposing sides Mr Bush defended the actions of his administration,while Kerry contended that the war had been fought incompetentlyand that the Iraq war was ‘a distraction from the war on terror, not apart of it’ The latter involves the mapping out the orientation of the

economy which tends to go downward and the measures to ensurethe nations’s security and prosperity.

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY AND ANALYSIS PROCEDURES 2.1 Data collection method

Inaugural speech, the address made by the new president on theInauguration Day actually is not a must by the US constitutionthough it stands the successful candidate a propitious chance toecho many of his previous themes Inaugural addresses date back toGeorge Washington but it was not until 1949 when Harry Trumancarried it live on television It has ever since become part of thepomp of the inauguration ceremony which reflects the state of thepresidency and the nation over the years in office

Inaugural speech is undoubtedly of the most importance amongdozen others made along election campaign as it draws attention ofmillions of people not only at home but also abroad, particularlyjournalists, who have been long for the final outcome Journalistssuppose it to be the tone of the new administration (It comes as nosurprise that the text of the speech made on the 155th inaugurationceremony early this year underwent as many as 21 times ofrevision!)

It is for these reasons that I choose the inaugural speeches ratherthan those made during the campaign process (as I initially intended

to use) as the data for my analysis

Particularly, I shall draw upon two of President Bush’s speechesmade on the two inauguration occasions of four years interval (2001-2005) for the main data for the research Indeed, they weredelivered on January 20 2001 and 2005; yet, for the sake ofconvenience and in conformity with the media coverage, they are

referred to as (inaugural) speeches of 2000 and of 2004 respectively

in this study

As aforementioned, the study is based on the assumption thatcountry performance under Bush’s leadership and major eventshappening during this four years considerably influence the newpresident’s ideology and thus the tone of the latter speech;therefore, some other Bush’s related speeches are also taken intoconsideration for clarification when necessary Some of them are

The State of the Union Address (January 29 2002), the Address to the United Nations General Assembly (September 2004), the Address to a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union (February 2 2005), the Speech on The Second term Accomplishments and Priorities (August 2005) etc.

I also resort to a series of related articles and news stories/ analysisboth in English and Vietnamese to ensure an objective and all-rounded analysis on the issue The American websites I turn to arethe International Herald Tribute and CNN; the UK BBC while the DailyNhandan and the monthly reference document by Vietnam NewsAgency (TTXVN) are my Vietnamese choice

2.1.2 Data analysis procedure

The analysis procedure applied in this research is an integrated onefollowing the one employed by one of the most prominent CDApractitioners, Fairclough on the basis of SFG The core texts are twoinaugural speeches made by George W Bush, a former Texasgovernor who repeated his swearing-in to the White House early thisyear Apart from the formal salutation at the beginning and farewell

at the end, the body texts are broken up into sentences and thennumbered Each speech is analysed individually in some suggested(and selective) aspects of values such as experiential, relational,

experiential, and expressive under major categories of lexicalization,modality (and pronouns), transitivity and thematization I willdescribe the analytical tool used for particular part of the analysis inthe following parts where relevant The procedure of the eachanalysis generally experiences the threefold stage recommended byFairclough, namely description of data, interpretation of therelationship between text and interaction and explanation of therelationship between interaction and social context.

The analysis outcomes are then brought together for contrastivecomparison from which the differences and similarities, and otherrelevant conclusions are drawn out

2.2 Data analysis

2.2.1 Over - lexicalization

As regarding the vocabulary used in discourse, Fairclough maintainsthat ‘a text’s choice of wording depends on and helps create socialrelationships between participants’ (2001) By this, he purports that

an insight into vocabulary choice can unveil the ideology hidden inthe discourse This is especially true to the ‘over-wordingness’ which

is generally understood as ‘an unusually high degree of wording,often involving many words which are near-synonyms.’(Fairclough2001)

Fowler (et al 1979) is also in favour of this, though under the label of

‘over-lexicalization’, which he defines as ‘a pragmatic strategy ofencoding ideology in news discourse’ Approvingly, Teo (2000) holdsthat ‘over-lexicalization results when a surfeit of repetitious, quasi-synonymous terms is woven into the fabric of news discourse, givingrise to a sense of ‘over-completeness’ in the way participants in thenews discourse are described.’