Persuasive strategies in political discourse

The findings of this study are to figure out the sole operation and mutual combination of persuasive strategies presented as logos, ethos, and pathos to reassure the close relationship b

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



NGUYỄN THỊ HUYỀN

PERSUASIVE STRATEGIES IN POLITICAL DISCOURSE

(Chiến lược thuyết phục trong diễn ngôn chính trị)

MA THESIS – TYPE 1

Field : English Linguistics Code : 8220201.01

HANOI - 2021

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES



NGUYỄN THỊ HUYỀN

PERSUASIVE STRATEGIES IN POLITICAL DISCOURSE

(Chiến lược thuyết phục trong diễn ngôn chính trị)

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this MA thesis namely Persuasive Strategies in Political Discourse is my own original work and has not been submitted before to any institutions for assessment purposes

Further, I have acknowledged all sources used and have cited in the reference section

Nguyễn Thị Huyền

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Firstly, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my thesis supervisor - Prof Nguyễn Hòa of the University of Languages and International Studies at Viet Nam National University for his patience, motivation, and immense knowledge His guidance helped me in all the time of doing the research and writing this thesis I could not have imagined having a better advisor and mentor for my MA study

Secondly, I am also grateful of my fellow MA friends for their friendship and mentally constant support during the time of studying and writing my thesis

Last but not the least; I express my very profound gratitude to my parents, to

my husband and to my sisters for providing me with unfailing support and continuous encouragement throughout years of my studying and through the process of researching and writing this thesis This accomplishment would not have been possible without them

Author

Nguyễn Thị Huyền

ABSTRACT

Hillary Rodham Clinton has been known as an American politician who has served as the First Lady of the United States, an U.S senator, the Secretary of State, and a Democratic party’s nominee for President Hillary became one of the most prominent First Ladies, who has championed Women and Children’s rights Among her passionate finest speeches, the speech on women’s rights in 1995 for me is the most significant and meaningful

This research investigates the persuasive strategies used in the speech and how those strategies worked to bring people around to the speaker’s ideas The specific aims of this paper are to reveal the persuasive strategies used in the political speech identifying the prominent linguistic features used in Hillary’s speech to impact the audience’s minds

This research adopts Aristotle theory of persuasion, CDA, and Toulmin’s model of argument Lexis, grammar and structure are three linguistic prominence analyzed in the thesis The findings of this study are to figure out the sole operation and mutual combination of persuasive strategies presented as logos, ethos, and pathos to reassure the close relationship between language and ideology

ABBREVIATIONS

DA : Discourse Analysis CDA : Critical Discourse Analysis SFG : Systemic Functional Grammar

LISTS OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Relationship between approach, method, technique and strategy (Anthony,

1963) 8

Figure 2: Toulmin’s argument pattern (Toulmin, 1958) 13

Figure 3: Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework for analysis of discourse 18

Figure 4: Summary of transitivity analysis 25

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

ABBREVIATIONS iv

LISTS OF FIGURES v

CHAPTER I 1

INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Scope of the study 2

1.3 Aims of the study 2

1.4 Structure of the thesis 3

1.5 Significance of the study 4

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Brief overview of CDA 5

2.2 Definitions of some key terms used in the study 6

2.3 Classifications of persuasive strategies according to Aristotle’s theory 10

2.3.1 Logos as the ideational function of discourse 11

2.3.2 Ethos and pathos as interpersonal function of discourse 11

2.4 Toulmin’s model interrelates with textual function of discourse 12

2.5 Some previous studies related to the thesis 14

2.6 Summary 15

CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY 16

3.1 The data 16

3.2 The methodological approach and analytical framework 17

3.3 The procedures 19

CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 21

4.1 Findings 21

4.1.1 Ideational function of language-Logos 21

4.1.2 Interpersonal functions- ethos and pathos 30

4.1.3 Macro-structure as textual function of language 41

4.1.4 Metaphor 44

4.2 Discussion 46

4.3 Explanation 49

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 51

5.1 Recapitulation of the main findings 51

5.2 Limitations of the study 52

5.3 Implications and suggestions for future research 52

REFERENCES 53 APPENDICES I

APPENDIX 1 I

APPENDIX 2 XIX

on the other hand plays a vital role of determining speaker’s personalities and revealing his or her political and critical views

A great number of researchers have just been interested in political discourse analysis which draws on Critical Discourse Analysis However, studies in communication strategies used by a female politician from the perspective of CDA based on Aristotle’s approach have only been carried out in a small number of areas Although there are studies which focused on political speeches from a perspective of CDA and in terms of how linguistic resources are employed in the process, this research is an attempt to combine Aristotle’s theory of persuasion, CDA, and Toulmin’s model of argument By describing linguistic features, observing the application of ethos, logos, and pathos, and finding the textual structure of the speech, the ideology of speaker’s and the way the speaker delivers the speech, how the audience’s mind is influenced will be explored

During the initial stage of her political career, Hillary’s most prominent accomplishments are centered around military, health care, women and children It

can be seen that she marked her independence in politics apart from her husband when she undertook the responsibility of presenting women’s rights violations in the UN Fourth World Conference in 1995 Therefore, it is noteworthy to conduct research on this speech event to help discover persuasive strategies which partly affirm her to be a champion in the fight for gender equality

1.2 Scope of the study

The study explores a kind of political discourse from critical discourse analysis However, the speech on women’s rights delivered by Hillary R Clinton when she was the First Lady of the United States Her speech will be analyzed and circumscribed to verbal language to examine the use of rhetoric and persuasive strategies and some contextual features at the time of the speech The explanation for this bounded selection is due to the scope and focus of CDA which deeply analyzes some purposeful aspects of language in reach of the modest variety of data; therefore, paralinguistic and extra-linguistic features which are also important, are excluded in this study Within the scope of this study, the author only expects to identify persuasive strategies which Hillary R Clinton used in her speech in the UN Fourth World Conference in 1995 This exactly serves CDA’s main purpose that the in-depth study with an exiguous amount of data will be more effective than a perfunctory analysis of plentiful data

The political discourse analysis focuses on gender equity-a topical phenomenon which has existed for decades but still becomes one of the world’s most controversial issues The research field and subject are familiar with the readers and researchers; however, the author realizes the importance of refreshing the issue to raise people’s awareness of the problem’s urgency

1.3 Aims of the study

The study aims to investigate the use of persuasive strategies in the chosen speech delivered by Hillary Clinton from a perspective of combination of Aristotle’s theory

of persuasion, CDA and Toulmin’s model of argument Further, it offers the significance of applying persuasive strategies for English language learners and

users in communication evaluating the effects of the speech and raising learners’ awareness of language power and how to take full advantages of persuasive strategies in achieving communicative goals

In addressing these above aims, the research question is formulated:

What are persuasive strategies used in Hillary Clinton’s speech on women’s rights?

1 4 Structure of the thesis

The thesis consists of five main chapters They are briefly illustrated as follows:

Chapter One: Introduction: This part comprises the rationale, scope, aims,

organization, significance of the study, and definitions of some key terms used in this study

Chapter Two: Literature Review: This chapter aims to identify the gap of the

study by offering a brief overview of CDA, examining the persuasive strategies according to Aristotle’s theory, Toulmin’s theory of argumentation, defining such key terms as political discourse, strategy, and persuasive strategies and finally a review of some related previous studies was given

Chapter Three: Methodology: This chapter comprises the context of the study, the

context of the speech, the brief description of the analytical framework, and data analysis procedures

Chapter Four: Findings and Discussions: This chapter brings into two sections

Section 4.1 includes the findings of the speech’s linguistic features using Fairclough’s analytical framework on the base of Halliday’s SFG theory In this section, Ethos, Logos and Pathos and Toulmin’s model of argument are investigated according to three meta-functions of discourse to formulate persuasive strategies Section 4.2 is the discussion which is sub-divided into two components The first component is the interpretation of what has just been analyzed in the previous sections within the situational and inter-textual context The next one will explain that how discourse - a social practice, is determined by social structures and what effects the discourse has on them

Chapter Five: Conclusion: This chapter summarizes the major findings,

limitations, and suggestions for speaking skills and further research in the field

1.5 Significance of the study

The study focuses on investigating how frequently persuasive strategies were applied in Hillary R Clinton’s speech It will also evaluate Hillary’s political public identities in terms of the ways political language, rhetoric and public relations intersect to produce the particular strategies in a persuasively political discourse and some patterns of persuasion to public relations

The investigation of persuasive strategies in political public speaking not only helps English speakers master their communication skills but also has a lot of meaningfulness in contributing to the research reference for further studies Practically, teachers may apply the findings of the study in teaching English language, especially English speaking skills

persuasive strategies, and finally a review of some related previous studies is given 2.1 Brief overview of CDA

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is generally defined as a type of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by texts and talks in the social and political context It is a changeable system and it never relies on single or specific theories It is characterized differently in terms of two main paradigms: structural and functional (Fairclough, 2001)

Structurally, discourse which is above sentences in the construction of linguistic units, concerns with language forms: vocabulary, grammar, cohesion and text structure In respect of this paradigm, text that is determined as instances of linguistic interaction in which people actually engage is then known as the written and spoken forms of language (Halliday, 1978)

Functionally, Wodak (2001) describes that CDA takes a particular interest in the relationship between language and ideology, especially the struggles and conflicts

in society and language in order to create enlightenment and emancipation in society Besides, CDA focuses on analyzing relationships of dominance, discrimination, social power abuse and social inequality by language use One of the greatest interests of CDA is to investigate social inequality performed and expressed by language Thus, it tends to focus on issues of groups, communities and organizations It becomes an approach for scholars to study language units beyond texts as the basic units of communication Halliday (2006) sees discourse as the

whole process of social interaction including the social process of producing text, and the social process of interpretation, in which context is a part of discourse Discourse from this point of view is explained as a part of society and a social process In this work and in related references, it is obvious to witness that CDA sees language, particularly language in speech as a social practice determined by social structures while focusing on the importance of context in carrying out research of CDA (Fairclough & Wodak, 1977)

To sum up, CDA not only analyzes texts to help three meta-functions of discourse visible and accessible but evaluates the way of using power in delivering ideology

to persuade people as well On the path of seeking for the functions of discourse, it

is necessary for an analysis of ethos, logos, pathos, and macro-structure to be unwrapped

2.2 Definitions of some key terms used in the study

Political Discourse

Political Discourse is a form of texts and talks taking place in political forums such

as debates, speeches, and conferences Its primary purpose is persuasion rather than information or entertainment Political Discourse, especially political speeches can

be viewed as a purposeful interaction between the speaker and the audience, in which the speaker’s communicative interaction addresses the audience to accept his

or her views and/or support a particular idea, a point of view or a recommendation

A political discourse consists of utterances within the context of political outputs which are solely grammatical issues These utterances operate within historical frameworks and are frequently associated with other related utterances or texts In a political discourse, a single word or phrase plays a genuinely important role in defining a term; however words and phrases are not all the elements to draw upon ideological schemas in confirming particular views of the world but sets of collocation relationships Political discourse contains some features that must be constant in them to be recognized and understood by the audience At the same time, it must fulfill the purpose of persuading the audience

Political discourse analysis (PDA) is an interdisciplinary study approach both about political discourse and critical discourse Research in PDA focuses on the discursive conditions and consequences of social and political inequality in a specific society PDA concentrates on its audiences, participants, political actors and contexts as approaches to analyzing a political discourse Once we have analyzed the particular properties of political contexts, political discourse analysis in many aspects will be like any other kind of discourse analysis The specifics of political discourse analysis therefore should be searched in the relations between discourse structure and political context

Strategy

Some scholars have defined strategy in various fields through time In terms of communicative purposes referred to the previous points of view, strategy is similar with the ways speakers use communication aims and objectives as guides together with information and background knowledge about issues and the participation of audience The combination between communicational aims, personal understandings and typical audience creates various configurations of communication As a result, speakers find it accessible to decide which one will

be the most effective in an effort to reach the target audience and deliver desired ideas

Although there exist no clear cuts between strategy, technique, method, and approach, they are sometimes used synonymously and interchangeably To the best of my knowledge, I will take a closer look at these terms and find the dissimilarities to differentiate them in this paragraph According to Anthony (1963), it is clearly shown that an approach is the way of doing for the purpose of achieving long-term objectives A method is a series of systematic and sequential actions in accordance with a definite plan and could be described steps by steps to obtain a short-term objective A method consists of an overall plan (strategy) and

a detailed procedure (technique) A strategy requires some planning when a new situation is being faced It is a pre-plan of action of selecting approaches, methods,

techniques, and activities to achieve an overall goal A technique is a step or skill

to fulfill the overall method for completing the task Referring to Anthony’s, a model is adapted as shown below:

Figure 1: Relationship between approach, method, technique and strategy

(Anthony, 1963)

Generally, previous points of views about strategy all have some common senses showing that strategy in any fields relates to plans of action of organizations in the long-term phases and issues they are facing One more common theme is that strategy determines objectives of the activities and allocates resources in order to achieve those objectives

Persuasive strategies

Persuasive strategies are based on theories of human psychology They are obviously defined as the tactics used to influence people to believe, act, and think differently To find out persuasive strategies used, it is necessary to clarify the use

of vocabulary, grammar, and structure of language used in the discourse They are usually used in business issues, political matters, and interpersonal relationships Fogg (1998) signifies that the key element of persuasive strategies requires intentionality to change attitudes or behaviors He studies the nature of persuasive strategies and successfully applies in persuasive computer technology to persuade users Accordingly, mastering the employment of persuasive strategies is necessary

to achieve the goals or interests of political elites when addressing and debating policy issues

Technique Strategy

Approach

Method

Orji et al (2014) in the era of computer development, indicates that persuasive strategies are applied to alter human behaviors or attitudes using various technologies From their research, they claim that persuasive strategies are carried

by friends, families, politicians, salespeople and the like to make people agree to ones’ requests Consequently, he and his partners have conducted further studies to develop lists of persuasive strategies to the receptiveness of participants in motivating their behaviors

In discourse, language is used socially to convey meanings and is identified by the social conditions, by who is using it and under what conditions (Henry and Tator, 2002) In CDA, Fairclough assumes that language is dialectically interconnected with other elements of social life Both of those theories share a common view of language as a means of social construction that language both shapes and is shaped

by society In Aristotle’s theory, speakers strengthen their arguments by providing their main points supported by experts or important people By adding logic, statistic facts, and data, the arguments become more objective and reliable Then, speakers appeal to the audience’s emotions by various ways in combination of making themselves trustworthy and believable before and during their argument

deployment for the reason that “effective public speakers must consider their audience” (Richard West and Lynn H Turner, 2010) Afterwards, speakers may

choose to build a sense of urgency or to prove their arguments using convincing studies and information or combine these two purposes to effectively influence the audience’s minds and create social changes

Systemic Functional Grammar

In the first stage of data analysis, Fairclough’s framework is embedded Halliday’s systemic functional grammar which takes a look at how language acts upon social practices It influences and receives influence from the social context In combination with CDA, SFG helps publish the relationship between language and social context Thus, SFG is a close accompaniment with the operation of CDA Language relates to things happening in our minds To understanding what people

think in their mind, we need to analyze the language they use The ideational function of language is concerned with clauses represented by transitivity system which includes processes, participants, and circumstances There are normally six process types which comprise material, relational, mental, verbal, existential, and behavioral processes Each process has their correlative participants Despite being not enough, a transitivity system is adapted thanks to Canning (2017) which summarizes Halliday’s theory of transitivity

2.3 Classifications of persuasive strategies according to Aristotle’s theory

There are three different artistic proofs, which are known as means of ethnic proof (ethos), emotional proof (pathos), and logical proof (logos) presented in Aristotle’s rhetorical theory These proofs are three major means of persuasion and sometimes overlap in the sense that they often work together in persuasive oratory The ways the orator flexibly combines and properly uses ethos, pathos, and logos to persuade the audience are persuasive strategies Indeed, persuasive strategies are literally processes aiming at changing the audience’s attitude and/or behavior towards some events, ideas or other persons by using written or spoken communication to convey information, influence feelings and express personal ideologies Thus, persuasive strategies become important elements in public communication, especially persuasive speeches In his seminal work, “The Art of Rhetoric” (1967) then translated by many rhetoricians and translators, Aristotle focuses on the three pillars

of persuasive strategies- ethos, logos, pathos In the theory, Aristotle demonstrates logos as the speaker’s argument (the speech per se), ethos as the speaker’s nature and credibility, and pathos as the speaker’s ability to control the audience’s emotions In comparison with three meta-functions of discourse, logos plays the important role of an ideational function of discourse while ethos and pathos serve the interpersonal function of discourse

Although logos, ethos, and pathos respectively represent CDA’s ideational and interpersonal functions of discourse, the study needs to analyze macro structure to evaluate the textual function of the discourse For that reason, the Toulmin’s

argument model will be applied in pointing out the textual relationship between units of text in the speech

2.3.1 Logos as the ideational function of discourse

Ideational function concerns the external world such as ideas, ideologies, and theories It implies that language serves as an instrument for the encoder to express and articulate the speaker’s idea and experience and it is known as the experiential function of words and grammar

Logos emphasizes on the messages that the speaker potentially delivers by giving the speech Logos, according to Aristotle (1967) refers to the logical means of

proving an argument This concept is often called a “logical appeal” or “an appeal for reason” or “sound argument” as well It also points out internal consistency and

clarity with its argument The argument supports the ideas and purposeful statement that the speaker gives beforehand An argument begins by making an assertion that requires a logical leap based on available evidence This process consists of three elements declared by Toulmin (2003) called claim, data, and warrant which will be made clear in the next section of the chapter Although there are three elements respectively mentioned in Toulmin, speakers tend to provide the first and occasionally the last components in their normal utterances However, it becomes more various in different situations, especially in the case that speakers are politicians handling with convincing states of affairs They will make use of every single approach and follow persuasive processes carefully by offering examples, statistics, or different sources of information which further substantiate their argument The argument may be illustrated inductively, deductively, or causally, which mainly depends on the speaker’s claim

2.3.2 Ethos and pathos as interpersonal function of discourse

Ethos deals with analyzing characteristics of speakers who intend to appear incredible in front of audience It is one of the key elements to let speakers know how much the audience take their interest into the topic Ethos is clearly expressed

by speaker’s competence of using hand gesture, facial expression, posture, body

language, and movement Moreover, ethos is generally recognized with regards to speaker’s intention and trustworthiness Sometimes, speakers’ reputation and fame are considered as the foundation of honesty and faithfulness that the audience pays for the speech The purpose and expectation of speakers are implicitly expressed by their language use and their performance Speakers will show their “ethos” by using their tone, volume, and pitch variety Another component of ethos is the empathy This element has an interrelationship with another appeal – pathos in this part They support and complement for each other Politicians who are in need of getting full

of ethos effects in their speech should know how to show empathy for the audiences and establish empathy from the audiences to themselves

Pathos focuses on the values, needs, sensibilities and beliefs of the intended audience It draws on the emotions, sympathies, and prejudices of the audiences to appeal to their non-rational side which includes the capacity for empathy to exemplify logical appeals It pleases the audience’s imagination and feelings and helps the audience grasp an argument’s significance in terms of how it takes effects

on the world around them Human beings sometimes live on their emotional state, which means that tapping into audience’s emotions can be helpful in persuading them to accept one’s idea One of the most effective ways to fascinate audiences’ emotions is illustrating a particular point with clear and trustworthy facts This can

be done by several modes of illustration such as verbal, nonverbal, or visual

2.4 Toulmin’s model interrelates with textual function of discourse

According to Aristotle’s theory, the ethos, pathos and logos represents for ideational and interpersonal function of discourse However, the textual function which is concerned with clause as message and deals with the organization of information and with the text as a whole is also important but not mentioned in his theory Therefore, Toulmin model of argument will be applied in analyzing the macro-structure of the text because it is generally used for evaluating the alignment of arguments in essays, reports, proposals and especially speeches According Toulmin (2003) particularly consists of six parts which are described by data, claim,

warrants, qualifiers, rebuttals, and backing The relationships and vital roles of all six components are illustrated in the following diagram:

Figure 2: Toulmin’s argument pattern (Toulmin, 1958)

In the diagram, data or sometimes being called support includes of facts or evidence used to provide the argument Claim is synonymous with thesis, proposition or main point which is sometimes stated in a sentence or sentences called statements of claim being argued and measured by qualifiers Qualifiers are statements that limit the strength of the thesis and propose the conditions under which the argument is true They reject using the absolute language like always, never, etc One more important element is warrants which are usually general, hypothetical and logical statements that serve as bridges between claims and data In other words, the connection between the data and the conclusion is created by a warrant It may be implicit or explicit but in either case it is not the same as a premise The warrants which are often unspoken assumptions become more authorial with the assistance of backing To avoid making the claim extreme, Toulmin prefers using modality to indicate the degree of certainty with which the advocate makes the claim In the case that the claim is false, the rebuttal becomes the truth He tries to bring the theory into practice by proving that the theory is to come close to the truth or

realistic and feasible solutions for the claims The model also reminds that arguments are often expressed with qualifiers and rebuttals rather than asserted as absolutes

On the way of analyzing the text using Toulmin model, the textual function will be determined by the investigation of information organization within separate clauses and within the text as a whole

2.5 Some previous studies related to the thesis

Critical discourse analysis has been studied from functional grammar perspective and developed to different approaches since 1973 Recently, there are researches carried out in the field in order to explore persuasive strategies used in communication Some of the most lately studies about CDA in various aspects such

as in advertisements, in movies and selected president speeches In his speech, Joko Widodo, the president of Indonesia in the Economic Forum in 2015 used all types

of persuasive to have a great influence on the audience He took full advantage of ethos, pathos and logos by showing his reputation, rising up emotion of the audience and providing some factual numbers, examples and statistic during his

speech Additionally, Flowerdew and Richardson (2017) in “The Routledge handbook of critical discourse studies” pointed out that the apparatus theory is

probably the most far reaching of associations between film and ideology Persuasive strategies are not only used in oral speeches but also in written form of messages Moreover, Chakorn (2006) clarified functions of ethos, pathos and logos

in persuading people By using contrastive analysis to point out the similarities and differences in use of persuasive strategies in Thai and Non-Thai letters of requests

in business, the findings of the research proved that Thai letters tends to use logos, ethos, and pathos to persuade people more frequently than the other

Persuasive strategies in CDA have received a lot of interest from Vietnamese researchers More recently, Dang Thi Anh Thu (2010) gave an insight into how language interrelates to linguistic features such as transitivity, mood, modality,

schematization, repetition and voice Pham Thi Quynh Nhu (2016) with the title “A

critical discourse analysis on abstracts of education journal articles in English and Vietnamese” has examined the textual description in CDA perspective which has

explained the similarities and differences in abstracts of English journal articles in English and Vietnamese In addition, Du et al (2019) has proved that the cosmetic brand Nivea applied persuasive strategies such as investigating in words used and building the ideal beauty in persuade them to believe and trust the product The strategies contributed in and strengthened theory of persuasion that is the process of impacting audience’s minds and emotions then society will be changed from psychological perspective

In the mentioned research, ethos, logos, pathos were explored in accordance with the analysis of speech acts and some with CDA In addition, the data boundary sometimes is large and data analysis results only show the frequency of ethos, logos, and pathos usage The findings of the research reasserted the characteristics and functions of three persuasion proofs from linguistic perspective

2.8 Summary

To sum up, this chapter presents a brief overview of CDA, examining the classification of persuasive strategies according to Aristotle’s theory, Toulmin’s theory of argumentation Political discourse is characterized as being argumentative

by nature A strategy is understood as a planned course of actions with purposes The ethos, pathos and logos represent ideational and interpersonal function of discourse and finally a review of some related previous studies is given

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

The chapter includes three main sections In the first section, the data collection will

be included In the second section, the analytical framework will be provided Finally, section three will describe the procedure of data analysis process

3.1 The data

The data for this study is the speech delivered by Hillary Rodham Clinton as First Lady of the United States at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995

Context of the speech

First and foremost before I explain why I choose the mentioned study approaches, it

is actually necessary to demonstrate how the author chose data The topic of the speech about women’s rights is considered to be very controversial to speak out in any situations It became even harder than ever when it was given in China- a country with the tradition of the distant gender gap and feudal oppression on women Overcoming all the difficulties, Hillary Clinton affirmed her critical thinking and her eloquence talent in an effective speech This speech expressed her power and the willingness in protecting the weak The speech deserves a lot of studying and high appreciation

Hillary Clinton and her aides worked very hard through days and nights to prepare for the conference, especially studied and investigated the women’s effort and sacrifice around the world They knew how hard the speech was given in such a sensitive area - Beijing in China where the women’s rights are somehow disregarded more than many other parts of the world In the 1990s, the global women’s rights treaty was ratified by a majority of the world’s nations Despite the successes in advancing and empowering women in relation to women’s rights, poverty and decision-making, violence against women as well as other numerous issues have still existed in all aspects of women’s life The author means that there

has been a so-called gendercide enduring for a long time in the world Gendercide refers to the systematic elimination of a specific gender group, normally female It’s most common in India, China, and other regions in Southeast Asia” (GirlsKind Foundation) By addressing her speech in Beijing, where gender-discrimination is prevalent, Hillary expressed her objective effectively not just the United Nations, but to audiences across the world Clinton effectively delivered her speech by portraying her purpose for women to achieve equality and better opportunities, with ethical appeals, emotional appeals, and logical appeals

Women’s rights are human’s rights

The speech which was delivered by Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1995 in Beijing on the occasion of the UN Fourth World Conference on Women Afterwards became one of the top one hundred greatest speeches listed by rank on the American Rhetoric website Through over twenty years, it is still such an amazing and meaningful speech that has been kept its value and superiority until these days Then, some information is selected from Hillary’s Living History to further discuss and answer the research question

3.2 Methodological approach and analytical framework

In order to satisfy the objectives of the thesis, a qualitative was held because the outcomes are not measurable in the interpretation and explanation stages In the description stage, however, quantitative research was applied in the transitivity analysis process to count the numbers of different processes and construct statistic figure

With the development of political and communicational discipline methods, linguistic and rhetoric approaches were not the only perspectives to expose the need

of political analysis of persuasion and influence Besides, the development of CDA seems to replace many previous research methods as a helpful tool for political discourse analysis In this paper, the primary purpose of the study is to find out persuasive strategies and the macro structure of the speech under the light of CDA Hence, this study could not ignore the application of CDA theory and argument

analysis incorporating with three fundamental persuasive appeals of Aristotle’s assumption and Toulmin’s model of argument

In functional grammar, the three meta-functions of discourse will be analyzed in the relation of values of lexical items and grammatical features These two theories are prior to the analytical framework of the study and in this section the author will hereafter follow the three steps of analyzing Taking advantage of Fairclough’s analytical framework (2001), this study tries to evaluate the data through three stages: Description, Interpretation and Explanation which are well displayed in the following figure:

Figure 3: Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework for analysis of discourse

The above figure consists of two columns as the dimension of discourse on the left and the dimension of discourse analysis It was decided that the best procedure for this discourse analysis was to go through stages which relate to text analysis, processing analysis, and social analysis

In the description stage, linguistic features of texts are described accordingly to ten major questions as mentioned in Fairclough (2001) In interpretation stage, it focuses on clarifying the relationship between text and interaction; viewing the text

as the product of a process of production and as a resource in the process of interpretation In these two stages, the ideational, interpersonal and textual functions

of language are demonstrated in the relationship with logos, ethos, pathos and the macro structure of the discourse by describing and interpreting lexical items and grammatical features In explanation stage, the relationship between discursive

practice and social practice is maintained The speech is explained why it is necessary and valuable in the connection with three levels of power relations

“how” of lexical and syntactical use

Argument analysis will be investigated to serve the aim of discovering the structure of the discourse in the second step The procedure of arguments analysis will follow Toulmin (2003)’s argument identification in which the premises accompanied by data and claims and the third group of Fairclough’s ten questions will examine the macro-structure of the discourse As mentioned in Toulmin (2003), the warrant, backing, and rebuttal will be included to get the impartial frames of references from the analysis The author will start analyzing argumentation applied

macro-in the speech by providmacro-ing the facts or evidence and then pomacro-intmacro-ing out the theses being argued In the next step, the general and logical statements known as warrants that serve as bridges of the claim and the data will be analyzed and discussed This step also consists of conditional statements under which the argument is true The counter-arguments or statements called rebuttals that indicate the circumstances when the general argument does not hold true will be evaluated in the next phase of analyzing If the counter-statements are true in this step, then the argument analysis

will be concluded right away Otherwise, backing will be indispensably carried out

as an act of giving statements that serve to support the warrants

The third step in the data analysis will depend on what are analyzed in the second step in combination with additional interpretation and explanation relying on the theory of the Greek rhetorician, Aristotle He included three most significant appeals of rhetoric which are often applied in convincing people, especially in the political field In the study, the author wishes to analyze these persuasive strategies that Hillary Clinton used in her speech about women’s right in the Conference in Beijing in 1995 although it is known that other factors and elements in public speaking are also important and each of them contributed the success of the speech

Drawing upon SFG, Fairclough (2001) discusses three different values of vocabulary and grammar, namely as experiential, relational, and expressive These are three-dimensional concepts which involve at any level – word, grammatical, and cohesive level

4.1.1 Ideational function of language-Logos

In the interrelation of language and persuasion, experiential values of words and grammar play a crucial role of expressing the speaker’s ideas and logical arguments

It deals with the conceptualizing process involved in mental activities

4.1.1.1 Experiential values of words

The use of words reflects the social knowledge and cultural background of a speaker and experiential values reflects the nature, background knowledge and beliefs of the text producer represented through the use of language It is clearly mentioned that experiential value is to do with contents, knowledge and beliefs (Fairclough, 2001) Through the choice of wording, the ideology of the producer is expressed in purpose of showing one’s worldview, personalities, power and influence towards the community In the speech, Hillary uses her typical style of language- straight, simple and clever way of speaking to people around the world

At the very beginning of the speech, the use of repetition “come together” in line

7-8 shows the speaker’s initial determination of unity in society At the same time, the

antonymous pair “unites us” and “divides us” reaffirms the power of “unity” for “a common future” and “common ground” in line 12 Strong of the evidence was found that what women are trying to do is meaningful in helping to “bring new dignity and respect to women and girls, bring new strength and stability to families”

The speech makes use of rewording: using more words than necessary, many of them being repeated and many of them being synonymous to get clear in points of

view (Fairclough, 2001) Hillary’s message about the “rights” of “women” is

reworded throughout the speech, becoming one of the most salient linguistic

features of the speech She uses “women” 62 times, “woman” 3 times and “girls” 8

times to refer the important part of citizens- female Along with the repetition, the

speaker applies the use of the word “right(s)” around the position of the word

“women/ woman” and “human” in the speech to support her speculation that the

equal rights exist both for men and women – so called human rights For evidence,

the speaker uses “right(s)” 27 times, which is instantiated its repetition by using near synonyms and supporting phrases and words “opportunity, chance, voice, freedom, dignity, respect, access” This is in good agreement with the speaker’s

knowledge of women’s rights and benefits that has existed for many years

Hillary prefers using assertive language to covey meaning confidently and positively without upsetting others or being upset It is helpful in expressing her thoughts and attitudes in an open and honest way In contrast to the use of positive words, the speaker straightforwardly uses the high frequency of negation constituents For instance:

“ At this very moment… also are dying from diseases that should have been prevented or treated They are watching their children succumb to malnutrition caused by poverty and economic

deprivation They are being denied ….from the ballot box.”

These above highlighted words assert the truth that what women have all done do not deserve such sufferings and to stress Hillary’s points of view straight forwards

to the issue- this fact is really a gendercide

“It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution for human greed and the kinds of reasons that are used to justify this practice should no longer be tolerated

rights are violated The repetition of the phrase “It is a violation of human rights”

highlights the consistent commitment of women’s rights and the close relation to human rights The quotations that Clinton lists out many human rights violations that women and children face in their daily lives are the most evocative sections of her speech In what she mentions, she expresses her discontented attitude towards the facts that women and girls are valued less than men and boys, which mostly has happened in many countries and has not been detected in countries and religions yet The most common issues and daily states of affair which are marked in the passages exhibit the speaker’s understanding and penetration to the issues being presented

Looking through her speech, it is clearly realized that Hillary often focuses on the

clause “women’s rights are not separate from human rights” It certainly becomes a

slogan about the rights of women and human beings and definitely is an evidence to prove her willingness of struggling for gender equality over the world with an awakening voice The following paragraph is considered as the key concept of the speech that the speaker believes in the vital role of women in every aspect of life to gain effects on women’s rights movements

“What we are learning around the world is that if women are healthy and educated, their families will flourish If women are free from violence, their families will flourish If women have a chance to work and earn as full and equal partners in society, their families will flourish And when families flourish, communities and nations do as well

That is why every woman, every man, every child, every family, and every nation on this planet does have a stake in the discussion that takes place here.”

Although Hillary understands what is being said is demanding to be successful in a few days or months, she still has a strong belief that it may influence and contribute

to change people’s behavior about gender quality and help themselves motivate women’s own passion of being treated equally in communities in the future In the paragraph, the words “women, families, and flourish” are usually put in the same sentences and repeated many times to bring out the important role of women in remaining the flourish of families, communities and nations It may be mentioned somewhere in the speech that what women are doing is not valued in the marketplace; however, it is incontrovertible that the role of women really helps keep every family prosperity and stability

Linking with the speeches Hillary made when she was in office, the most crucial unique is about the consideration to women- an important part of citizens who needs

to be highly regarded The respect to women is implicitly expressed throughout the discourse by acknowledging their contributions to families, children and communities and by directly asking for the equal opportunity to men in homes and society Her sympathy towards women is firmly attached with her warm care to their lives by speaking for them about such a sensitive issue The choice of words must be taken carefully for the purpose of persuading women to aware of the fairness and avoiding seriously engaging to the gender imbalance existing thousands years many countries

4.1.1.2 Experiential value of grammar

Applying Fairclough’s analytical framework, participants, processes, agency, nominalization, active and passive voices will be explored through to figure out experiential value of grammar of the discourse

As transitivity is defined as “the grammar of the clause”, my analysis identified 321

clauses and focused on analyzing the processes and participants in the clauses (Material 168, Mental 57, Verbal 19, Relational 68, Existential 7, and Behavioral 2) Below is the summary:

Figure 4: Summary of transitivity analysis

More than a half of clauses in the speech is expressed by material process- the state

of doing and happening It expresses the notion that some entity “does” something,

which means something may be done to some other entities This can be explained

by the speaker’s intention of describing the reality of what women have done to their families, communities, and the global in order to clarify that women’s rights violations are really urgent The information she provides is her real experience and observation which reveal the truths and facts existing in every corner of the world

By talking about women’s daily tasks, the speaker’s arguments become more reliable and trustworthy Thus, it is easier for the speaker to persuade the audience Relational process is the process of being When describing the picture of a flourishing life if women’s rights are protected She draws the connection between gender equality insurance and the bright future of families and nations

“What we are learning around the world is that if women are healthy and educated, their families will flourish If women are free from violence, their families will flourish If women have a chance

to work and earn as full and equal partners in society, their families will flourish And when

families flourish, communities and nations do as well That is why every woman, every man, every child, every family, and every nation on this planet does have a stake in the discussion that takes

place here.”

Relational processes are intentionally employed to express the reality that a lot of what women have done is not valued:

Material Mental Verbal Relational Existential Behavioral

Material 52.3%

0.6 %

“The great challenge of this conference is to give voice to women everywhere whose experiences

go unnoticed, whose words go unheard Women comprise more than half the world’s population,

70% of the world’s poor, and two-thirds of those who are not taught to read and write We are the primary caretakers for most of the world’s children and elderly Yet much of the work we do is not

valued not by economists, not by historians, not by popular culture, not by government leaders.”

Especially, relational clauses are properly used to criticize the violation of human rights in separation with women’s rights

“ It is a violation of human rights…” (7 times)

Although there is only 21,2 percentage of using relational processes, they plays a crucial role in uniting the audience to manipulate a community whose duty is to protect women’s rights They help relate the rights of women, not only those attending the conference but also the others around the world- and the rights of human In addition, relational processes are in a condensed relation Taking a look through the speech, it is the most predominant of using relational clauses when the speaker characterizes the mutual relationship between human rights and women’s rights to construct the need of protecting and promoting the common rights The resolution for the problem is to not separate women’s rights from human rights

“If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely and the right to be heard.”

Mental processes – the processes of thinking, sensing, feeling and it refers to cognitive states It plays a central role in the discourse In combination with relational processes, they help to identify the speaker’s strong interest, determination, and passion to women’s decency:

“We need to understand there is no one formula for how women should lead our lives That is why

we must respect the choices that each woman makes for herself and her family Every woman

deserves the chance to realize her own God-given potential But we must recognize that women

will never gain full dignity until their human rights are respected and protected.”

This is a substantial paragraph that highlights a must of women’s contribution It claims that women need understanding and sympathy from people all over the

world The speaker uses many emotional verbs like “deserve, respect, recognize” to

express her strong belief in the fact that it is truthfully that women’s rights must be respected In addition, she uses the discursive pronoun “we” to convey the collectivism of a community when focusing on the responsibilities of people in

helping women “gain full dignity” Relational clauses with “is” and “makes” help

to connect the association of mutual rights between “we” and women from every

corner of the planet Moreover, modal verbs she uses help increase the necessity of raising people’s awareness of protecting women’s privilege

Another example indicates the confirmation of women’s rights which are needed to

be extracted:

“… all governments here and around the world accept their responsibility to protect and promote internationally recognized human rights The international community has long

acknowledged and recently reaffirmed at Vienna that both women and men are entitled to a range

of protections and personal freedoms, from the right of personal security to the right to determine

freely the number and spacing of the children they bear.”

The paragraph shows the difficulties of the world’s task in maintaining the global gender equality if there are only a few governments or nations to join their hands

with handling the problem It becomes the eternal mission of “the international community” that “has long acknowledged and reaffirmed” men and women’s rights

and duties

A noticeable example of using mental clause expression to get the audience’s empathy of what is being said is when the speaker talks about the regularities of gender equality that treat boys and girls equally as they are born That is really touching towards every parent The thought of what people are doing today is for

“our children and our grandchildren”, for the new generation of a better world does nothing but perfectly persuades the audience

“… every woman is treated with respect and dignity, every boy and girl is loved and cared for equally, and every family has the hope of a strong and stable future That is the work before you That is the work before all of us who have a vision of the world we want to see for our children and our grandchildren.”

And for the last words of the speech, Clinton prefers using mental clauses to gain

the belief stagnation into the audience by saying “We must move beyond recognition

of problems to working together, to have the comment efforts to build that common

ground we hope to see”, and emphasizing that the life-and-death goals in our lives

are working together, having comment efforts and building stably common ground

Verbal processes- processes of saying which only make up 5.9 % of the speech really serve to indentify the speaker’s ideology of speaking “for women who could not”

“ I want to speak for those women in my own country, …

I want to speak up for mothers who are fighting for good schools,…

Speaking to you today, I speak for them,…”

Or her real experience when she had chance to meet women from different pieces of lands

“I have met new mothers in Indonesia, who come together regularly in their village

to discuss nutrition,…

I have met working parents in Denmark who talk about the comfort they feel”

It is clearly seen that the speaker has done many social activities that relate to women’s daily concerns such as nutrition, child care, and family planning, which helps contribute the speaker’s identities and interest This process only makes up 5.9 % but it greatly contributes the closeness of the informal setting of the speech

4.1.1.3 Logos

This appeal plays an important role in evaluating how logical the argument is and how well-supported it is in terms of evidence Logos focuses on citing facts, examples, and statistics Hillary starts her speech by mentioning one of her important orations in Nairobi ten years before for the purpose of marking the success of the conference in changing international women’s destinies This fact mentions the name of location and time related to the point being discussed takes place It is significantly a powerful evidence of how the speech influences the world

in changing women’s lives

It asserts that the clarification of logos unveils whether the audience believes in the argument Hence, it is necessary to provide a decisive range of evidence To evaluate the appropriateness of evidence, the author takes some evidences to

evaluate how sufficient, typical, accurate, and relevant the evidence is Here is a typical example:

“Tragically, women are most often the ones whose human rights are violated Even now, in the late 20th century, the rape of women continues to be used as an instrument of armed conflict Women and children make up a large majority of the world’s refugees And when women are

excluded from the political process, they become even more vulnerable to abuse I believe that

now, on the eve of a new millennium, it is time to break the silence It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and for the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women’s rights as

separate from human rights.”

In the above example, the claim of the passage is that “women are often the ones whose human rights are violated” Clinton supports her claims by two evidences and one fact of women’s rights violation The first evidence is the continuum of the sexual violence towards women as an instrument in armed conflicts Actually, there

is one American sexually assaulted every 98 seconds (according to RAINN’s statistics) The second evidence is that the majority of the world’s refugees are women and children This is a proof which tells the audience that the speaker carries out many investigations of the number of people prevented from evacuation In fact, the 20th century becomes the century of refugees after the World War II As noted

by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, the 20th century created the refugee framework It is strongly supported by two evidences that the higher possibility of women’s vulnerability to abuse when they are excluded from political process From Clinton’s observations of women’s stereotypes, they are often considered to be home keepers, and gatecrashers who have no voices in any decision-making processes She demands the solution that helps break the silence and ignorance of the world is that women’s rights should be discussed in association with human rights The speaker proves relevant evidence to support the claim and tries to focuses on the possible solution to the problem underlying the claim The speaker with her coherent argument and reliable facts feasibly persuades the audience

4.1.2 Interpersonal functions- ethos and pathos

The interpersonal functions of language enable to project the speaker in a desired way and to represent the speaker The function is to attempt to sway the audience emotionally and evoke the audience a sense of sympathy and understanding, and motivation Moreover, the application of ethos helps to make the speaker trustworthy, faithful These two modes of persuasion consolidate to each other and impulse the function of language

4.1.2.1 Relational values of words

Relational values of words relate to the wording choice of the text’s producer to create the social relationships between participants These kinds of values do not stand alone but it is accompanied by other values of vocabulary Analyzing these values of words, euphemism and formality of language used will be taken into close consideration as devices and strategies of avoidance and social relation identifying Generally, the speaker does not use many political and historic terms in purpose of reaching to as many people as possible The use of words focuses on the familiarities with all people who are both native and non-native to accessibly understand The familiar and easy-to-comprehend language used in the speech helps create the immediate effectiveness on the audience’s feelings, emotions, and attitude In comparison with the language Hillary has used in previous speeches, it

is more transparent and understandable for a majority of listeners This can be inferred as the speaker’s intelligent strategy of using suitable types of language in such public communication It reveals not only the carefulness in word choice for every single speech of hers but her intimate background knowledge about the topic, particularly the women’s domestic status and government’s social status in some countries in which the conference took place That is expressed by mentioning her

participation “in a World Health Organization forum to talk about ways that government officials, NGOs, and individual citizens are working to address the health problems of women and girls” the day before and her attendance in a

“gathering of the United Nations Development Fund for Women” which will

discuss “programs” to give “women access to credit in order to improve their own lives and the lives of their families”.(line 25-29)

Throughout the speech, biblical and poetry expressions could not be found since the speaker has been aware of what being pointed out is absolutely serious and people around the world could not hold their tongue in such a pressing problem, which needs real change and practical partnership of communities

Although the speech is delivered in a very formal setting- the Fourth World Conference, its language is evaluated as informal for many purposes The speaker not only addresses the problems which daily happen to women wherever they come from and whatever languages they speak but also speaks for those whose rights are being violated and helps them recognize their true potential when they are equally treated to men The language is thus strong, expressive, comprehensive and unambiguous It is observed that there is only one case where the formal words appear at the beginning of the speech when the speaker expresses her gratitude to the General Secretary, Mrs Gertrude Mongella- the UN Assistant Secretary General, and all the people attending the conference For instance (my italics):

“Thank you very much, Gertrude Mongella, for your dedicated work that has brought us to this point, distinguished delegates, and guests”

In any discourses especially a political discourse, euphemism and formality are highly recommended to be analyzed Having a look at speeches the speaker had made at that time, these two factors played a very important role in indicating her broad knowledge and identifying her clear political view Nevertheless, these could not be found in the speech in which the speaker tends to use simple and understandable language This proves that the speaker has a deep understanding about the issue and assures that the speech goes under her proper control She notices where not to dig too much in the issue and where to make her point clearer than ever She speaks straight forwards to the pressing and painful issue without any hesitation even she is aware that it is a risky adventure to speak out a sensitive issue

in such a hypersensitive region