A critical discourse analysis of michelle obama’s speech on international women’ s day 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ------ NGUYỄN THANH NGA A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF MIC

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

- -

NGUYỄN THANH NGA

A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF MICHELLE OBAMA’S

SPEECH ON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2016

(Phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán bài diễn văn của Michelle Obama

vào ngày Quốc tế Phụ nữ năm 2016) M.A THESIS PROGRAMME I

Field : English Linguistics Code : 8220201.01

Hanoi - 2019

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

- -

NGUYỄN THANH NGA

A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF MICHELLE OBAMA’S

SPEECH ON INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2016

(Phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán bài diễn văn của Michelle Obama

vào ngày Quốc tế Phụ nữ năm 2016)

M.A THESIS PROGRAMME I

Field : English Linguistics Code : 8220201.01

Supervisor : Prof NGUYỄN HÒA

Hanoi - 2019

DECLARATION

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report

entitled “A critical discourse analysis of Michelle Obama’s speech on International Women’ s Day 2016”submitted in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of Master in English Linguistics Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis

Ha Noi, 2019

Nguyễn Thanh Nga

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For the fulfillment of this study, first and foremost, I would like to express my high appreciation to my supervisor, Prof Nguyễn Hòa, the lecturer at Faculty of Post- Graduate, ULIS, VNU for his valuable

instructions, comments as well as his advice

I also would like to send my thankfulness to all the lecturers of Faculty of Post- Graduate, ULIS, VNU for their training and assistance that help me to accomplish this M.A thesis

Last but not least, my deep gratitude is towards to my family and my friends for their valuable support and encouragement

ABSTRACT

This study aims at investigating and figuring out the ideologies embedded in the speech delivered by First Lady of the 44th U.S president, Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017 on International Women’s Day 2016 in Washington D.C.’s Union Market in front of dozens of adolescent girls in the Let Girls Learn from Critical Discourse Analysis (for short CDA) perspective

In this study, the main dialectical – relational framework provided by Norman Fairclough is used to achieve its objective According to Fairclough’s CDA framework, the study conducts three major steps The analysis interprets data

in three different levels: text analysis (description), processing analysis (interpretation) and social analysis (explanation) Each above phase can be sub- divided into three categories (experiential, relational, expressive) The conclusion supports her ideology that it is necessary that there be an equality for women in education across the globe, and she therefore calls for the approval and support from all corners of the world It also confirms the relationship between language and ideology in CDA and suggests some

implications in language research and pedagogy

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

1 CDA: Critical Discourse Analysis

2 SFG: Systemic Functional Grammar

3 MR: Members’ Resource

TABLE OF CONTENT

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

TABLE OF CONTENT v

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES vii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Scope of the study 2

3 Aims of the study and research questions 2

4 Methodology of the study 2

5 Design of the thesis 2

CHAPTER 2THEORETICAL BACKGROUND& LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Definitions of CDA 5

2.2 Principles of CDA 6

2.3 Some key concepts in CDA 6

2.4 Approaches to CDA 8

2.5 Review of previous studies 16

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 19

3.1 Reasons to choose the speech 19

3.2 Context of the speech 20

3.3 Data analysis procedure 21

3.4 Fairclough ’s CDA framework 21

4.1 Textual description and Analysis 26

4.1.1 Appreciating women’s achievements 26

4.1.2 Sympathizing with women’s inequality 28

4.1.3 Supporting with women’s equality in education 32

4.2 Interpretation of the relationship between the productive and interpretative processes 41

4.2.1 Interpretation of situational context 41

4.2.2 Intertextual context and presupposition 43

4.3 Explanation of the relationship between discourse processes and social processes 43

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 47

1 Recapitulation 47

2 Conclusion 48

3 Implications 49

4 Limitations 51

5 Recommendations 52

REFERENCES 53 APPENDICES I APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 X APPENDIX 3 XXX APPENDIX 4 XXXVIII APPENDIX 5 XL

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 2.1 Discourse as text, interaction and context (Fairclough, 2001, p.21) 10 Table 2.1 Overview of process types (adapted from Halliday, 1994) 13 Table 2.2 Basic speech role (Thompson, 1996, p 40) 14 Table 2.3 Components of a multiple theme (adapted from Halliday,

1994, p.54) 15 Figure 3.1 Interpretation (Fairclough, 2001, p 119) 23 Figure 3.2 Explanation (Fairclough, 2001, p 36) 25

on International Women’s Day 2016 in D.C The speech provokes a

significant effect on public opinion; hence, it may lead to the change in women’s awareness about their own rights In the procedure of conducting the study, I want to demonstrate how social issues are underlying in language It

is also expected to provide some suggestions about critical reading of any texts to researchers and some implications for teaching and learning a foreign language as well

2 Scope of the study

This study explores the First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech on International Women’s Day 2016 in Washington D.C.’s Union Market in front of dozens of adolescent girls in the “Let Girls Learn” from CDA

perspective

3 Aims of the study and research questions

The study is carried out for the purpose of exploring ideologies of the First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech on International Women’s Day 2016 based on Fairclough’s CDA framework

In order to achieve the above mentioned aims, the following research questions need to be found:

- What are the messages that the speaker created in her speech?

- How are these messages highlighted and constructed linguistically?

4 Methodology of the study

This study uses CDA framework, particularly Fairclough’s three- dimensional framework The analysis interprets data in three different levels: text analysis (description), processing analysis (interpretation) and social analysis (explanation) Each above phase can be sub- divided into three categories (experiential, relational, and expressive)

5 Design of the thesis

Apart from references and appendices, the study is divided into five

main chapters as below:

Chapter 1: Introduction

This part includes rationale, scope, aims, methodology and design of the thesis

Chapter 2: Theoretical framework and literature review

This chapter presents an overview of the history of CDA and mentions some definitions of CDA that give knowledge in understanding of CDA as a discipline Some key concepts in CDA, including identity, power and ideology and some approaches to CDA are also presented in this part Furthermore, it summarizes some previous researches from CDA perspective

to provide the thorough knowledge in CDA

Chapter 3: Research methodology

This chapter mentions the reasons to choose the topic and the context

of the given address Additionally, it provides information about the organization “Let Girls Learn” Also, the dialectical– relationalapproach by Norman Fairclough and the data analysis procedure of Michelle Obama’s speech on International Women’s Day 2016 are presented

Chapter 4: Findings and discussion

This chapter explores critical discourse analysis of Michelle Obama’s speech on International Women’s Day 2016, mainly based on Fairclough’s CDA three-dimensional framework.It is an illustration and demonstration for what ideologies Michelle conveys and how they are expressed linguistically

in her speech Also, it interprets the relationship between the productive and interpretative process and explains that between discourse processes andsocial ones

Chapter 5: Conclusion

This is the very last part of the thesis that gives a brief summary of the

main findings of the study, draws some significant conclusions and makes some further research suggestions as well

CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND& LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter presents an overview of the history of CDA and mentions some definitions of CDA that give knowledge in understanding of CDA as a discipline Some key concepts in CDA, including identity, power and ideology and some approaches to CDA are also presented in this part Furthermore, it summarizes some previous researches from CDA perspective

to provide the thorough knowledge in CDA

2.1 Definitions of CDA

Critical discourse analysis, abbreviated CDA, is a fairly new branch of

linguistics CDA is “a type of discourse analysis research that primarily

studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in social and political contexts”

(Van Dijk, 2004, p 352)

From another perspective, Fairclough (1995) proposes a definition of CDA, accepted and commonly used among CDA practitioners He defines CDA as discourse analysis that aims to systematically explore causal relationships and fuzzy decisions between practice, facts and text, and structures, relationships and too wider cultural and social agenda; to investigate how these practices, events and texts arise and are ideologically shaped by power relations and power struggles; and to explore how the opacity of discourse and social relations is itself a factor to ensure power and

hegemony He also puts CDA as “viewing language use as social practice

implies, first, that it is a mode of action, in a dialectal relationship with other facets of the social (its social context) – it is socially shaped, but is also socially shaping, or constitutive” (Fairclough, 1995, p.131)

Personally, in this thesis, I totally agree with Van Dijk’s definition

2.2 Principles of CDA

Principles of CDA, outlined by CDA practitioners (Fairclough, 1995; Kress, 1991; Van Dijk, 1998; Wokak, 1996) can be summarized as follows:

- Language is social practice through which the world is represented

- Discourse/ language use as a form of social practice in itself not only presents and signifies other social practices but it also constitutes other social practices such as the exercise of power, domination, prejudice, resistance and so forth

- Text requires their meanings by the dialectical relationship between texts and the social subjects: writers and readers, who always operate with various degree of choice and access to texts and means of interpretation

- Linguistics features and structures are not arbitrary They are purposeful whether or not the choices are conscious or unconscious

- Power relations are produced, exercised, and reproduced through discourse

- All speakers and writers operate from specific discursive practices originating in special interests and aims which involve inclusions and exclusions

- Discourse is historical in the sense that texts require their meanings by being situated in specific social, cultural and ideological contexts, and time and space

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

2.3 Some key concepts in CDA

Language and power

As Van Dijk (1993), power is related to control, particularly by a group compared to other groups Such control may be related to action and

awareness: that is, a strong group can limit the freedom of action of others, but also affects their minds And he comes to the conclusion that, managing the minds of others, it is basically a function of writing and talking.According

to the relationship between power and language, it can be affirmed

that“language actually creates power, as well as being a site where power is

performed” (Wareing, 2004, p.10)

Fairclough agrees at the point where there is a close relationship between language and power Fairclough argues that strength can be seen in discourse where participants are disproportioned

Language and power exist in a close relationship, in which language indexes strength, demonstrates power and also challenges power Power does not come from language but can be challenged by language A textual power

is signaled not only by grammatical forms but also by the type of text a person uses to control a social goal

Language and ideology

Ideology plays an important role in CDA Ideology is the set of belief’s

underlying an utterance or discourse Irvine (1989) redefines ideology as “the

cultural system of ideas about social and linguistics relationships, together with their loading of moral and political interests” (p.255) According to Van

Dijk, “ideologies” are considered as “interpretation frameworks” that

“organize set of attitudes” towards other elements or modern society Consequently, ideologies provide the “cognitive foundation” for the attitudes

of different groups in society, as well as promote their own goals and interests

Fairclough (1995) argues that there is an important relationship between the features of text and ideology, which lies in the ideological investment of the factors created in the production or interpretation of a text

version, and in such a way that these elements are articulated together and the discourse orders are rearranged in discourse events

It can be seen the relationship between language and power and language and ideology The similarity, a close relationship is found to exist between power and ideology Power and ideology are tied together in the sense that ideology helps to secure power, and vice versa, power makes ideology predominate

2.4 Approaches to CDA

Socio-cognitive approach (Van Dijk)

Van Dijk is a pioneer who developed a method of social cognition in which an important aspect is incorporated into the human mind His contribution to CDA has been in developing a sociocognitive model, with a focus on the discursive reproduction of racism, in particular, by politicians, journalists, scholars and writers, and in printed news media His sociocognitive approach attempts to bridge the gap between society and discourse Working from a metal models approach, he sees discourse, processed via long- and short-term memory, as shaping our perceptions and understandings By analyzing the structure, he gives an analysis of the structures on different levels of description, which means not only at the

grammar, phonological, morphological and semantic levels but also “higher

level properties”, such as coherence, overall theme and the theme of new

stories It is that inductively oriented approaches do not sufficiently imbue the analysis with a comprehensive and holistic understanding of the dialectical relationship between discourse and social practice What it does mean is that they are better incorporated into other deductively oriented approaches, as is the case in the current study and its focus on the socio-cognitive level As aforementioned, this approach can offer more insights into the wider context

beyond the textual level

Discourse-historical approach (Ruth Wodak)

The discourse-historical approach emphasizes the cornerstones of CDA, such as critique, power and ideology, and their intricate and multidimensional relationship with discourse (Reisigi & Wodak, 2009) As

indicated by its name, it understands context as being “mainly historical”

(Wodak & Meyer, 2009, p 26), thus it is necessary to examine the historical context in order to offer interpretations and further critiques Being mainly focused on the field of politics, it makes a strong emphasis on the historical context and takes it as part of interpreting a discourse During the analysis process, both theory and actual documentation are required Additionally, recontextualization plays an important role in exploring the relationship between genres and the topic of a discourse In general, Wodak’s approach is much more ethnographic than Fairclough’s She is also interested in the role

of history in discourse (Martin & Wodak, 2003), labeling her approach the approach the discourse historical method (Wodak, 2001b)

Dialectical- relational approach (Norman Fairclough)

Norman Fairclough is considered as the most impressive and influential practitioner in CDA as he has contributed to the field most significantly His

main objective in his approach is “to help increase consciousness of how

language contributes to the domination of some people by others, because consciousness is the first step for emancipation” (1989, p.1)

Fairclough systematizes discourse in terms of social structure, which is represented in more abstract element of languages Fairclough develops a dialectical theory of discourse and a trans-disciplinary approach to social change Social practices are represented in orders of discourse, and social events are realized in texts His works focus upon social conflicts and try to

detect their linguistic manifestations in discourses, in particular elements of dominance, difference and resistance Discourse analysis, in this view, has a doubly relational character: it is concerned with relations between discourse and other social elements (i.e., text analysis), and relations between texts as

discoursal elements of events and “orders of discourse” as discoursal

elements of networks of social practices In his approach, every social practice has a semiotic element Productive activity, the means of production, social relations, social identities, cultural values, consciousness and semiosis are dialectically related elements of social practice Semiosis incorporates discourse analysis into social and organizational research that includes the claim that such research should include detailed analysis of texts He understands CDA as the analysis of the dialectical relationships between semiosis (including language) and other elements of social practices

Therefore, once CDA sees language as discourse and as social practice, not just analysis of texts, productive and interpretative processes is needed, the relationship between texts, processes and their conditions are to be considered Figure 1 below provides an illustration of this relationship

Figure 2.1 Discourse as text, interaction and context (Fairclough, 2001, p.21)

A three-dimensional method of discourse analysis includes “linguistic

description of the language text, interpretation of the relationship between the (productive and interpretative) discursive processes and the text, and explanation of the relationship between the discursive processes and social

Social conditions of production Process of production

Text

Process of interpretation

Interpretation Context

Context

processes” (Fairclough, 2013, p.132) In recognition of the dialectical

relationship between text, discourse practice and sociocultural practice, it is

understood that “the nature of the discourse practice of text production

shapes the text, and leaves traces in surface feartures of the text; and the nature of the discourse practice of text interpretation determines how the surface features of a text will be interpreted” (Fairclough, 2013, p.132)

Fairclough’s approach draws upon a particular linguistic theory Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) by Halliday (1985) – which analyses language as shaped (even in its grammar) by the social functions it has come

-to serve The focus of this method is on the semiotic characteristics of

discourse.In his book Language and Power (2001), Norman Fairclough

supplies a more meticulous and clear method In his opinion, the systemic- functional theory of language is especially useful in text analysis because not only is its approach to studying grammar and other aspects of language form

a functional one but it is also systematically orientated to studying the relationship between the texture of texts and their social contexts Besides, it

contains “through a systemic relationship between the social environment on

the one hand, and the functional organization of language on the other”

the ongoing experience of its use and by its constant extension into new areas

of research (Halliday, 2009)

Norman Fairclough (1991) suggested in the study of Discourse &

Society that “Systemic-functional linguistics also has a view of texts which is

a potentially powerful basis not only for analysis of what is in texts, but also for analysis of what is absent or omitted from texts” As a result, Halliday’s

functional grammar is also our focus

The Systemic Functional Grammar is the main foundation of Critical Discourse Analysis and other theories in pragmatics as well The SFG says that we perform functions through language, i.e what we intend to do with a piece of language Clearly, speakers have reasons for saying something and for saying it in the way they do Therefore, speakers have to make choices SFG sets out to discover what various relevant choices are, not only in the kinds of meanings that we might want to express (or functions that we might want to perform) but also in the kinds of wording that we use to express these meanings

According to Thompson (1996), within SFG, three kinds of meaning (or functions) have been identified:

- We use language to talk about our experience of the world, including the worlds in our own minds, to describe events and states and the entities involved in them (experiential meaning)

- We also use language to interact with other people, to establish and maintain relations with them, to influence their behaviors, to express our own viewpoint on things in the world, and to elicit or change theirs (interpersonal meaning)

- Finally, we organize our message in ways which indicate how they fit

in with the other messages around them and with the wider context in which

we are talking or writing (textual meaning)

The three above metafunctions of language are realized at the

Lexico-Grammar at the unit called clause A clause is defined as “(potentially) any

stretch of language centred on a verbal group” (Thompson, 2004, p 17)

Experiential meaning is expressed through the System of Process

Types (or Transitivity system) The system of transitivity consists of different process types, participants and circumstances Processes are expressed by verbal groups, participants by nominal groups, and circumstances by adverbial groups or prepositional phrases The process centers on that part of the clause that is realized by the verbal group, but it can also be regarded as

what “goings-on” are represented in the whole clause (Bloor and Bloor,

1995) In English, SFG linguists divide process types into six types: material process, behavior process, mental process, verbal process, relational process, and existential process

Table 2.1 Overview of process types (adapted from Halliday, 1994)

The mayor resigned

The boy loved the girl You can imagine his reaction

Verbiage, Recipient

I explained to her what

Identifier/ Value, Token

other darker pattern

Interpersonal meaning makes attempts to answer the question “How

do we use language to exchange?” This type of meaning is encoded under

the headings of the roles of addressers and audience, mood, modality and evaluation According to Thompson (1996),interpersonal meaning is analyzed

in terms of personal perspective (modality and evaluation) and interactive one (enacted roles and projected roles)

The most fundamental purposes in any exchange are giving or demanding a commodity of some kind In a communicative exchange, the commodity is information In these cases, speech roles are realized Thompson (1996) provides a table to characterize the primary speech roles as follows with some adaptations from that of Halliday’s (1994)

Table 2.2.Basic speech role (Thompson, 1996, p 40)

One concept that may be useful of understanding of modality is

polarity Polarity is the choice between positive and negative, as in is/ isn’t,

do/ don’t, ect However, the possibilities are not limited to a choice between

yes and no There are intermediate degrees that are collectively known as modality

In discussing interpersonal meaning, it is important to note that evaluation is central part of the meaning of any text, any analysis of the

interpersonal meaning of a text must take it into account According to

Thompson (1996), “Evaluation can be simply defined as the indication of

whether the speaker thinks that something (a person, thing, action, event, situation, idea, ect.) is good or bad.”

Textual meaning finds outa respond to the question “How the content

of the text organized?” In terms of textual meaning, thematic structure is

under investigation The textual meaning deals with creating relevance between parts of what is being said and between the text and the context Lexico-grammatically, it is expressed through the system of theme and information focus Relevant to the realization of the system of theme are two elements: the Theme and the Rheme The Theme serves as the point of departure of the message, which in English is initial elements of the clause; and the Rheme is the remainder of the message Theme may be unmarked or marked Theme may be either marked or unmarked An unmarked theme is one that usual whereas a marked one is one that unusual to express the communicative purpose Also, the theme is multiple when owning further internal structure

Table 2.3 Components of a multiple theme(adapted from Halliday, 1994, p.54)

(participant, circumstances, process)

Medium, Circumstance in the clause

It now can be seen that both CDA and SFG approach functionally to textual analysis through studying grammar and other aspects of language form, and they are systematically orientated to studying the relationship between the texture of texts and their social contexts

Thus, from the above one can see that SFG theory firstly, fits well with

Fairclough’s understanding of language and discourse as having a making potential and secondly, that SFG is applicable for this study to help identify as well as tackling the problem of the debate on development aid

meaning-2.5 Review of previous studies

In order to develop and complete this thesis about Critical Discourse Analysis concerning female issues, here are several related previous researches

The first research is written by Frida Ekerlund (2013), “Gender

Equality” and “The Empowerment of Women” – A Critical Discourse Analysis on UN Women’s Policy Mandate It reveals how women need to

change in order to accomplish “equality”, how the policies are sometimes

contradictory, but advocating women’s integration into formal economy, which in itself is rendered apolitical

The second previous one “A Critical Discourse Analysis on Hillary

Clinton’s speech American for Marriage Equality” by Rifki Nugraha (2014)

is a research that uses Van Dijk’s CDA method to not only discuss text structure of the speech, but investigate the ideology of Hillary Clinton also

The third one “The Construction of Career Women in Cleo: Critical

Discourse Analysis” by Che Nooryohana Zulkifli (2015) uses the framework

of Fairclough’s three- dimensional one (1995, 2001) to analyze 12 articles

from Cleo about career women, published between August 2007 and August

2008 The analysis shows how the identities of career women in Malaysia are constructed according to the modern and globalised system of management discourses, by means of empowering them in terms of job skills, knowledge, actions and personalities

The fourth research related to this issue is “A Critical Discourse

Analysis of Social Change in Women-related Posts on Saudi English –

Language Blogs Posted between 2009 – 2012” by Shrouq Hamad Al

Maghlouth (2017) This is conducted with special focus on the cognitive approach as the main framework adopted in the analysis and its emphasis on cognitive context models and their role in the change/ status quo struggle to examine the discourse on social change in women-related posts on Saudi English-Language blogs written between 2009 and 2012

socio-One another“A Critical Discourse Analysis of Women’s Portrayal in

News Reporting of Sexual Violence” (2018), Risdaneva explores and

compares the portrayal of women in the news reporting of crimes of sexual violence against women between two newspapers from different cultures, the Jakarta Post and the Guardian through using naming analysis of social factors that is aimed at probing the representation through the choice of lexical items

in representing the main new factors

Generally, these above researches are of the same topic about female issues but they are investigated from different CDA theoretical frameworks Clearly, the field of language and gender in the scope of CDA (Fairclough, 2013) has been mentioned in various researches since this social practice is closely related to the transfer of ideology However, the certain ideological value embedded in the discourse cannot be easily identified because it is not explicated expressed Hence, critical linguistics suggests that linguistic analysis can make it possible to reveal the hidden ideology This is what most CDA’s work is concerned about, including this study This study explores the language of representation to the use of lexical items in expressing Michelle Obama’s ideologies in her speech on International Women’s Day 2016

Briefly, an overview of the history of CDA, some definitions and principles of CDA, some key concepts in CDA, including identity, power and ideology and some approaches to CDA are presented in this chapter

Additionally, it also summarizes some previous studies from CDA perspective to provide the thorough knowledge in CDA

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter mentions the reasons to choose the topic and the context

of the given address Additionally, it provides information about the organization “Let Girls Learn” Also, the dialectical - relational approach by Norman Fairclough and the data analysis procedure of Michelle Obama’s speech on International Women’s Day 2016 are presented

3.1 Reasons to choose the speech

It is important that there be an equality between men and women in the society Gender equality is a top priority of UNESCO Furthermore, it is indispensable to offer quality and universal education to young girls to promote progress for society as a whole As President Obama said while

addressing the United Nations General Assembly in 2012, “The future must

not belong to those who bully women It must be shaped by girls who go to school and those who stand for a world where our daughters can live their dreams just like our son” According to Education 2030 agenda, it

is recognized that gender equality requires an approach that “ensures that

girls and boys, women and men not only gain access to and complete education cycles, but are empowered equally in and through education” Poverty, geographical isolation, minority status,

disability, early marriage and pregnancy, gender-based violence, and traditional attitudes about the status and role of women, are among the many obstacles that stand in the way of women and girls fully exercising their right

to participate in, complete and benefit from education As a result, this topic was chosen in the study; in detail, I choose one speech in women equality in education provided by Michelle Obama as Presidential First Lady of the USA, the first African-American First Lady; therefore, that she raises her voicemeans that she is on behalf on all women throughout the world

3.2 Context of the speech

First Lady Michelle Obama made the speech on International Women’s Day 2016 in Washington D.C.’s Union Market in front of dozens of adolescent girls in the “Let Girls Learn” More than 200 women with different classes attended the celebration Before Michelle’s speech, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, expressed her own thoughts about gender gaps in various fields After that, Michelle owned the stage, celebrated all of the success “Let Girls Learn” has achieved around girls’ education throughout the world in the past year and called for the support in the coming years

“Let Girls Learn” is a new whole-of-government initiative with a view

to ensuring adolescent girls to get the education they have a right to get access

to Based on USAID’s initial “Let Girls Learn” funding and education programs, the incentive promotes existing programs in areas of crisis and conflict, develops public-private partnerships and challenges organizations and governments to commit resources to support adolescent girls across the globe USAID works in cooperation with the White House, the Peace Corps and the Department of State USAID’s Let Girls Learn approach includes three major objectives: increasing access to quality education, reducing barriers, and empowering adolescent girls It is clear that quality education for girls is considered as the most pivotal pillar on account of its superior importance When girls are exposed to education, they own healthier and more beneficial lives They achieve knowledge, skill and self-confidence to run away from the cycle of poverty They become better citizens, parents and breadwinners An educated girl has a positive ripple effect on her health, family, community and society as a whole To improve access to equality education, they attempt to develop programs and campaigns educating girl

literately, provide access to attend school and ensure girls living in crisis or conflict places to have access to education Also, the duty of reducing barriers concentrates on a variety of vulnerabilities adolescent girls endure in their lives and aims at the security to ensure gender-based equality Additionally, empowering adolescent girls is to enhance girls’ rights, leadership and opportunity through broader skills in various different areas, including technology, finance and digital literacy

3.3 Data analysis procedure

CDA is to find out the relationship between language and ideologies; in turn, reveal ideologies hidden behind the discourse Therefore, I want to employ CDA to see how the relation between ideologies and language are manifested linguistically in Michelle’s speech, and what her ideologies are constructed

Additionally, CDA in all of its various forms understands itself to be strongly based on theory There are many theories which are applied in analyzing CDA; however, I employ Fairclough’s dialectical-relational approach because it is seen as the most linguistic

3.4 Fairclough ’s CDA framework

In this study, I mainly use Fairclough’s CDA framework The analysis interprets data in three different levels: text analysis (description), processing analysis (interpretation) and social analysis (explanation)

Description is concerned with formal properties of the text In

description stage, there is a list of ten main questions provided by Fairclough (1989, p.110)

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 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?

What metaphors are used?

B Grammar

4 What experiential values do grammatical features have?

What types of process and participants predominate?

Is agency unclear?

Are processes what they seem?

Are normalizations used?

Are sentences active or passive?

Are sentences positive or negative?

5 What relational values do grammatical features have?

What modes are used?

Are there important features of relational modality?

Are the 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 the text?

C Textual structures

9 What interactional conventions are used?

Are there ways in which one participant controls the turns of others?

10 What larger scale structures does the text have?

Each above phase can be sub- divided into three categories (experiential, relational, and expressive)

Interpretation is concerned with the relationship between text and

interaction

Interpretative procedures (MR) Resources Interpreting

Social orders Situational context Interactive history Intert Textual context

Phonology, grammar,

vocabulary Source of utterance Semantics, Pragmatics Meaning of utterance Cohesion, Pragmatics Local coherence

Schemata Textual structure and Point

Figure 3.1.Interpretation (Fairclough, 2001, p 119)

In interpretation stage, it is concerned about the discourse processes and its dependence on background consumptions It mediates between the dimensions of discourse as text and social context Interpretations are generated through a combination of what is in the text and what is in the interpreter, in the sense of the members’ resource (MR) which people have in their heads and draw upon when they produce or interpret texts- including

their knowledge of language, interpretations of natural and social world they inhabit, values, beliefs, assumptions and so on; which the interpreter brings to interpretation (Fairclough, 2011, p.118) From the point of view of the interpreter of a text, formal features of the text are cues which activate elements of interpreters’ MR, and that interpretation are generated through the dialectical interplay of cues and MR In generating interpretations, we may refer to MR as interpretative procedures, these are cognitive processes of participants.The automatic and non-conscious nature of such processes makes

up a determinative factor of their ideological effectiveness

Explanation is concerned with the relationship between interaction and

social context The aim of the stage of explanation is to explain such properties of the interaction process by referring to its social context.The MR which people use to produce and interpret texts are not only cognitive, but they are also social and ideological, in the sense that they have social origins They are socially generated, transmitted and distributed, and even the conditions of their use are socially determined (Fairclough, 2001) Therefore, the analysis of the social dimension of the discursive event may refer to three levels of social organization: it may involve the immediate situational context

of the communicative event, the wider context of the situational practices the event is embedded within, or the still wider societal and cultural context enwrapping the event (Fairclough, 1993, p.137; 1995, p.62; 2001) Several aspects of the socio-cultural practice are of interest to CDA: the economic, political (concerned with issues of power and ideology) and cultural concerned with questions of value and identity (Fairclough, 1995b) This figure below demonstrates clearly the procedure of explanation in CDA provided by Fairclough (2001)

Societal Societial

Institutional MR Discourse MR Institutional

Situational Situational

Determinants Effects

Figure 3.2.Explanation (Fairclough, 2001, p 36)

In this thesis, I choose the framework of Fairclough (1989, 1995) because in CDA, there may be no prefect framework used to analyze any texts Why Fairclough’s dialectical- relational framework is useful is because

it provides multiple points of the analytic entry It does not matter which kind

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter explores critical discourse analysis of Michelle Obama’s speech on International Women’s Day 2016, based on Fairclough’s CDA three-dimensional framework It is an illustration and demonstration for what ideologies Michelle conveys and how they are expressed linguistically in her speech Also, it interprets the relationship between the productive and interpretative process and explains that between discourse processes and social ones

4.1 Textual description and Analysis

In her speech, there are three main ideologies expressed in Michelle’s speech through vocabulary and grammar as well According to Fairclough (2001), the analysis of linguistic characteristics in the text is the first step in CDA As suggested by Van Dijk (Wodak, R and Meyer, M., 2001), linguistic features show the speaker’s ideologies This also reflects relational, experiential and expressive values and connective ones

4.1.1 Appreciating women’s achievements

In the very first theme of the speech, Michelle highly appreciates the success women across the globe have achieved

Formality expresses relational values through vocabulary In the position of the US’s Presidential First Lady, Michelle shows the formality of the social relationship in a formal circumstance: She is the presenter, on behalf of all those who support female rights in education across the globe This formality is clearly demonstrated through the use of vocabulary Thanks

to the relation values of vocabulary, vocabulary plays an important role in expressing the formality It is easily seen that in the text, the author uses formal language to express relational value effectively instead of informal words in the following instances:

Line 6-7 “the momentum we’re seeing around girls’

education across the globe”

Line 10-11 “she was a passionate advocate”

Line 15-16 “the value of mentoring”

When these formal words are used effectively in the text, it not only demonstrates the politeness and the importance of the event but reveals the speaker’s awareness of the presence of both her and her audience also This intentionally reflects Michelle Obama’s ideology

The two other values induced by the use of language are expressive values and experiential values The expressive values are about how the speaker’s judgments are conveyed The other one concerns how textual characteristics demonstrate the speaker’s viewpoint about the issues in the world According to Fairclough (2002), classification schemes are defined as systems of evaluation, in regard to which vocabulary is used In the text provided by Michelle, the classification schemes are drawn to her respect for the female achievements

This shows the intensive degree of preoccupation with reality to some extent Clearly, the purpose of using these above words makes emphasis on the speakers’ female success

In terms of relational values of grammatical features, Fairclough refers

to the use of pronouns “I”, “you”, “we” To express this ideology, in the text, the speaker makes use of the pronoun “I” with 11 times with a view to

describing her own gratitude and pride for women’s attainment.Thanks to using this pronoun, the speaker creates an influential impact on her audience

that she is confident in what she is presenting

Clause 15 “I am so grateful for her kindness and generosity

to me and my family over the years”

Clause 24 “I’m thankful to have them as partners in this

effort”

Clause 29 “I’m so proud”

The most frequent transitivity in this ideology is relational process, the

process of “being”, “having” and “being at”, proved to be an important mean

to express the speaker’s ideology There are 13 cases with relational process

of all 31 clauses, accounting for 41.94% In her address to American women, Michelle Obama illustrates the truth or the reality from her own experiential life To emphasize the relationship among entities in her speech, she resorts to relational process with a view to recounting experiences into a systemic organization Furthermore, with the most common occurrence of the verb

“be”, it is her intention that the things have a correlation with each other

strength and grace, and she was a passionate advocate for so many important issues.”

According to Fairclough (1997, p.404), it is suggested that there are three main modes of sentences such as declarative, grammatical question and imperative However, it is interesting to note that almost all sentences in this ideology are declarative to confirm how women are strong and what they can do themselves

4.1.2 Sympathizing with women’s inequality

The second theme underlying in her speech is that she wants to express her deep sympathy with the obstacles and challenges women across the globe

Michelle conveys her sadness towards the adversity many women

have endured through using the first singular pronoun “I” with the most

occurrence It can be seen in some following examples:

Clause 47 “I’ve never face anything like the horrors that many of

these girls endure, like most women”

Clause 48 “I know how it feels to be overlooked, to be

underestimated, to have someone only half listen to your ideas at a meeting”

When the speaker use the pronoun “I”, Michelle Obama puts herself as an

individual, First Lady of the US President, who has a higher political position than her audience In other words, Michelle wants to make herself distinctive from the audience Also, it reflects her identity, her own believability and confidence, in front of a large number of audience at the ceremony

Additionally, Michelle uses modal verbs “should” to express her

compassion for inequality between men and women in 2 cases This means that women should be deserved to get equality in life

Line 61 “that women should have no role outside the home”

Line 63 “their voices simply shouldn’t be heard”

Clearly, declarative is mainly used to give or confirm information In her address, Michelle uses mainly declarative sentences in order to recount the events conducted by women across the globe This also reflects the efforts women throughout the world attempt to approach the female equality

at present As a result, the relational values are also conveyed to information receivers

To express this ideology, Michelle also uses mainly relational process

in 14 clausesof all 31 clauses (45.16%) to make emphasis on how they get inequality and how they tolerate in their lives

Clause 36 “For me, it was the drumbeat of horrifying stories”

Clause 52 “it was perfectly legal for employers to discriminate

against women”

Clause 54 “In my lifetime, domestic violence was seen as a private

matter between a man and his wife as the horrific crime that it is”

Furthermore, in this theme, the speaker intentionally uses some mental verbs,

in clause 32, 34, 41, 48, 49, 50, 54 to express her own profound concern about this issue As a result, it can be seen that there must be her deep sympathy with trouble women across the globe have endured In other words, the more she concerns, the more female events she can remember

Clause 32 “And I know”

Clause 34 “when we realized”

Clause 41 “the more I realized”

Clause 48 “I know how it feels to be overlooked, to be

underestimated, to have someone only half listen to your ideas at a meeting”

Clause 49 “And I’ve seen how these issues play out not just on a

personal level, but on a national level in our laws and policies”

Clause 50 “You see”

Clause 54 “In my lifetime, domestic violence was seen as a

private matter between a man and his wife rather than

as the horrific crime that it is.”

According to Fairclough (2001) and Van Dijk (Wodak, R and Meyer, M., 2001), active and passive voice are of importance in showing the messages indirectly such as current emotion or mood, intention, opinion or outlook on the issues, and this indicates expressive values of the text Compared to the

popularity of passive voice, that of active voice overweighs This makes audience easily understand and clearly recognize what the speaker wants to share with them It may be assumed that through active voice, the listeners would understand the messages conveyed because the speaker aims at clear actor or senser of events

transportation or school bathrooms”

Line 65-66 “While I’m thankful that I’ve never faced anything

like the horrors that many girls endure, like most women,”

fundamental decisions about their bodies”

However, the speaker also makes use of passive voice to focus on the occurrence of the event without concerning the agent of the action However, there is no ambiguity regardless of the listeners’ different perception of the context and background knowledge By crossing out the agent, the speaker intentionally attracts the audience to the message and the ideology underlying the discourse in some instances:

make fundamental decisions about their bodies”

just for speaking the simple truth that girls should