(Luận văn thạc sĩ) a critical discourse analysis of hillary clinton’s speech after her presidential election defeat in 2016

VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

PHẠM THỊ NHƯ

A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF
HILLARY CLINTON’S SPEECH AFTER HER
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION DEFEAT IN 2016

MA THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

HA NOI, 2021

Luan van


VIETNAM ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
GRADUATE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

Phạm Thị Như

A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF
HILLARY CLINTON’S SPEECH AFTER HER
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION DEFEAT IN 2016

Field: English Language
Code: 8.22.02.01
Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Việt Nga, Ph.D.

HA NOI, 2021

Luan van


DECLARATION BY AUTHOR

Except where reference has been made in the text, this thesis contains
no material previously published or written by another person.
I, Phạm Thị Như, hereby state that this thesis is the result of my own
research and the substance of the thesis has not, wholly or in part, been
submitted for any degrees to any other universities or institutions.
Author’s Signature

Phạm Thị Như

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The completion of this thesis is credited to many people’s contributions and
support. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all most sincerely,
knowing that my thanks are never adequate.
First of all, Thanks to Assoc. Prof. Võ Đại Quang introduced the whole new
realm of Critical Discourse analysis to me. I would like to express my sincere
gratitude and deep appreciation to Mr. Đặng Nguyên Giang, PhD and
Department of Foreign Languages, Graduate Academy of Social Sciences,
Mrs.Nguyễn Thị Việt Nga, PhD, my supervisor, for her helpful and warm
encouragement as well as her insightful comments on my work from the beginning
to the end of the study.

In addition, I would like to thank all of the lecturers who gave me interesting
lessons, dedication and advice during my study at Graduate Academy of Social
Sciences.
I also offer my special thanks to my beloved pupils and friends whose support and
encouragement help me to have this thesis accomplished.
Last but not least, I must express my gratitude to my family. It is their endless love
and expectations that have motivated me to complete this thesis. I am immensely
thankful for all the assistance they have given me.

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Luan van


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
DECLARATION BY AUTHOR………………………………………….

i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………….

ii

ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………….

vi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS…………………………………………...

vii

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES……………………………………...

viii

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION…………………………………………..

1

1.1. Rationale……………………………………………………………...

1

1.2. Aims of the study

…………………………………………..

3

1.3. Research questions……………………………………………………

3

1.4. Scope of the study…………………………………………………….

3

1.5. Significance of the study……………………………………………...

4

1.6. Methodology………………………………………………………….

4

1.6. 1. Research approach …………………………………………………

4

1.6. 2. Analyticalframework ………………………………………………

5

1.6.3. Research Method……………………………………………………

5

1.6.4. Research procedure…………………………………………………

6

1.7. Structure of the study…………………………………….…………...

6

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………..

8

2.1. Overview Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) ………..……………...

8

2.1.1 History of CDA …………………………………………………….

8

2.1.2 Definitions of CDA ………………………………………………..

9

2.2. Three main approaches to CDA ……………………………………..

10

2.2.1. The socio-cognitive approach by Teun van Dijk……………………

10

2.2.2 The discourse - historical approach by Ruth Wodak ……………….

11

2.2.3. The Systemic Functional Grammar approach by Norman Fairclough

13

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2.3. Ideology and power in CDA …………………………………………

18

2.3.1. Ideology ……………………………………………………………

18

2.3.2. Power ……………………………………………………………….

19

2.4. Review previous studies…………………………………………......

20

2.5. Chapter summary……………………………………………………..

23

Chapter 3: POWER AND IDEOLOGIES IN HILLARY CLINTON’S 24
2016 SPEECH ………….…………………………………
3.1. Optimism……………………………………………………………...

25

3.2. Friendliness.…………………………………………………………..

27

3.3. Patriotism …………..…….…………………………………………..

29

3.4. Inspiration ………………………...…………………………………..

30

3.5. Chapter summary ………………………...…………………………..

32

Chapter 4: REALIZATION OF POWER AND IDEOLOGIES IN 33
HILLARY CLINTON’S 2016 SPEECH………………………………..
4.1. Description…………….…………………….………………………..

33

4.1.1. Description of vocabulary use……………….……………………..

33

4.1.2. Description of grammatical features ……….……………………..

39

4.1.3. Description of macro-structure…. …. ……….…………………….

47

4.2. Interpretation………….…………………….………………………..

48

4.2.1. Interpretation of vocabulary use……………….……………………

50

4.2.2. Interpretation of grammatical features ……….……………………

51

4.3. Explanation………….…………………….………………………….

52

4.3.1. Explanation of vocabulary use……………….……………………..

53

4.3.2. Explanation of grammatical features ……….…………………….

55

4.4. Chapter summary ………………………...…………………………..

56

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION…………….………......................................

58

5.1. Recapitulation………………………………………………………...

58

5.2. Concluding remarks…………………………………………………..

59

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5.3. Implications…………………………………………………………..

61

5.4. Limitations and suggestions for further studies………………………

62

REFERENCES……………………………………………………………

64

APPENDIX

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ABSTRACT

The purpose of the study is to point out power and ideologies embedded in
Hillary Clinton speech after her presidential election defeat in 2016 in the light of
CDA framework suggested by Norman Fairclough (2001). Descriptive qualitative
and quantitative methods are collaboratively employed to find out how power and
ideologies are realized in terms of vocabulary, grammar and discourse structure.
The thesis follows three steps of description, interpretation and explanation as
well as set of questions suggested by Fairclough (2001), which proves to be
appropriate to find out answers to the research questions. The analysis reveals
optimism, friendliness, patriotism and inspiration in Hillary Clinton’s speech.
Moreover, her tactful and flexible use of vocabulary, grammatical properties as
well as the well-organized structure of her speech have illustrated her implicit
power and ideologies, making this speech a successful discourse that can
effectively convey what the speaker means to express. Hillary Clinton has also
succeeded in depicting herself as a brave, strong-willed woman who is not
discouraged by failure but always heads forward the brighter future instead. The
research contributes to the understanding of CDA as an approach in linguistics,
enhance the awareness of CDA, of how power and ideology are embedded in
language and of the relationship between language and society in general. It also
makes a certain contribution to English language education, specifically to
English learners, English teachers as well as translators.

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LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS

CDA: Critical Discourse Analysis.
U.S: United States
CL: Critical Language
SFL: Systemic Functional Linguistics.
MR: Members’ Resources.
CLS: Critical Language Study
SFG: Systemic Functional Grammar.

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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

FIGURES AND TABLES

Page

Figure 1: Analytical framework of the current study

5

Figure 2: Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework for analysis of 13
discourse
Figure 3: Interpretation. (Fairclough, 2001, p.119)

14

Figure 4: Explanation (Fairclough, 2001, p.136)

15

Table 1: Words with positive meaning in Hillary’s 2016 speech

34

Table 2: Words with negative meaning in Hillary’s 2016 speech

35

Table 3: Number of active and passive sentences in Hillary Clinton’s

40

2016 speech.
Table 4: Frequency of pronouns “I” and “We” in Hillary Clinton’s

41

2016 speech.
Table 5: Modes of sentences in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 speech.

43

Table 6: Relational modality in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 speech

44

Table 7: Expressive modality in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 speech

45

Table 8: Conjunctions in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 speech

47

Table 9: Macro-structure of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 speech

48

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
Since its advent, language has been considered as an effective
communication tool, enabling human beings to express themselves and
communicate with one another. Language, in this way, is also addressed as a
social phenomenon which reflects the world and expresses the way we apprehend
and perceive the world. Moreover, language also is a personal representation

attitude in interaction. In this context, language is used to generate particular
purposes, in the other words, to produce particular discourses. Thus, any study of
language should focus on language in use. Language is much more than just
‘means of communication’. It is a “medium of domination and social force; it
serves to legitimize relations of organized power” (Habermas, 1977, p.259 cited
in Wodak and Meyer, 2001).
Fairclough (1989) regards language as a socially conditioned process.
According to Wareing (2004), language has the affective function which refers to
who is allowed to say what to whom and which is “deeply tied up with power and
social status” (Wareing, 2004, p.9). Therefore, how language is chosen depends
much on the speakers, the listeners and also the situation.
With its significant role, language has been taken advantage of by different
experts from various fields including politics. In political situations, it is widely
acknowledged that language can serve as a weapon for politicians to achieve their
goals. Chilton and Schaffner (1997, p.206) stated that ‘‘It is surely the case that
politics cannot be conducted without language, and it is probably the case that the
use of language in the constitution of social groups leads to what we call ‘politics’
in a broad sense’’. Insisting that the study of language extends beyond the
domains of literature and linguistics, Pelinka (2007, p.129) affirmed that
‘‘language must be seen (and analyzed) as a political phenomenon’’ and that
politics must be conceived and studied as a discursive phenomenon. In other
words, there is no doubt about the tight relationship between language and

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politics, and political speeches are typical examples for the application of
linguistic practice to illustrate power and ideology.

Analyzing the messages and the speaker’s embedded ideology and power is
the focus of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). CDA, according to Fairclough
(1996, p.287), is “a perspective which is concerned with showing up often opaque
connections between language and other aspects of society and culture”. Besides,
Van Dijk (1993) suggests understanding the style, rhetoric or meaning of texts
will help figure out social power relations and the exercise of power. CDA will
deeply analyze the text to conceal the relationship between texts, processes and
the social context, as well as the connection between language, power and
ideology.
Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State in Obama's administration, and
Senator from District of New York. As a former First Lady of the United States, a
lawyer, an activist and a volunteer, she has always kept in mind what and who she
needs to fight for. Hillary Clinton always shows a strong passion and
determination to bring social justice, which constantly consolidates the love and
admiration that all people give to her. Her dedication and positive spirit have
contributed to the development of national politics and has greatly influenced the
progressive ideology of women. In her career path, Hillary Clinton made a great
number of speeches but her concession speech after her failure of 2016 US
Presidential Campaign is one of the most outstanding ones. Although she did not
succeed in the 2016 election, she left a good impression in the hearts of
Americans and the people around the world.
Analyzing her speech in the light of CDA is needed to understand her
character, the power of her message and the embedded ideologies she wanted to
disseminate to all the audience. With all of the above-mentioned reasons, the
researcher chooses the topic “A critical discourse analysis of Hillary Clinton’s
speech after her presidential election defeat in 2016” as the title of her MA
thesis.

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1.2. Aims of the study
The study is aimed at identifying the relationship between discourse,
ideology, and power expressed in Hillary Clinton’s concession speech in 2016.
To achieve that goal, two particular objectives are as follows:
+ Find out the power and ideologies embedded in Hillary Clinton's 2016
concession speech
+ Analyze how the power and ideologies are realized via linguistic features.
1.3. Research questions
In order for the above-mentioned aims to be achieved, the research attempts
to answer the following questions:
1. What ideologies and power are embedded in Hillary Clinton’s speech after her
presidential election defeat in 2016?
2. How are ideologies and power realized linguistically in Hillary Clinton’s
speech?
1.4. Scopes of the study
There are two types of communication: verbal and nonverbal one. The
researcher is fully aware of the fact that such factors as paralinguistics (i.e.
intonation, volume, speed, etc.) and extra-linguistics (eye contact, facial
expressions, etc) are so important to understand the speaker's ideology, power and
identity. However, this current CDA research of Hillary Clinton's speech relates
to vocal aspects of the speech only, and also is confined to the specific social
contexts in which the speech was delivered. Hillary Clinton has made a lot of
speeches in her life but the author only analyzes her speech in 2016 after her
presidential election defeat.
As this research merely serves academic purposes, the author does not
intend to express any personal political viewpoint. Also, the study does not mean
to support any parties, or to change people’s political stands.

In addition, this current study follows Fairclough’s (2001) CDA framework
which contains three main properties of language including vocabulary, grammar
and textual structures. However, the research will only focus on vocabulary and
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grammar to identify how power and ideologies are realized in Hillary Clinton’s
speech. Moreover, though it is well-aware that power and ideologies may be
hidden behind language, the study just focuses on the verbal cues.
1.5. Significance of the study
CDA has received increasing attention in the world as well as in Vietnam
for the past decades. Nevertheless, the number of studies on CDA among
Vietnamese researchers remains limited. With this research, I would like to have a
small contribution to the understanding of CDA as an approach in linguistics.
This study is aimed at, to some extent, to enhance the awareness of CDA, of how
power and ideology are embedded in language and of the relationship between
language and society in general.
Practically, this study is also expected to make a certain contribution to
English language education. It is frequently seen that English learners find
political discourses difficult to fully comprehend, mainly due to their failure to
interpret the authors’ implicit ideologies. This research is expected to be useful
for foreign language teachers as well as translators because they will have a better
awareness on how power and ideologies are realized linguistically.
1.6. Methodology
1.6.1. Research approach
CDA approach will be applied in this thesis to uncover embedded power and
ideologies. Three following stages of CDA given by Norman Fairclough (2001)
will be applied.

Description: This stage describes lexical and syntactic features so as to find
out embedded ideologies and power in Hillary’s speech.
Interpretation: It is involved in the relationship between the text and
interaction, looking at the speech as a product of a process of production and a
resource in the process of interpretation.
Explanation: In this stage, Hillary’s speech is put in the social context to
see how it is affected by social structures and vice versa.

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Besides, quantitative and qualitative methods are also employed through
three stages with qualitative as a more prominent ones.
1.6.2. Analytical framework
Basing on the above-mentioned Fairclough’s framework, the researcher
builds up her analytical framework for this current study as follows:
The analytical framework illustrates that description, interpretation and
explanation will be intertwined in the whole process. They are used to look at
three aspects: Vocabulary, Grammar and Macro-structure to uncover power and
ideologies in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 speech.

Figure 1: Analytical framework of the current study

1.6.3. Research method
This study primarily employs descriptive, qualitative content analysis
methods which, as Hsieh and Shannon (2005) affirms, are appropriate for
subjective interpretation of the context of the text data through the systematic
classification process of coding and identifying patterns. In addition, quantitative

methods will be employed to see the number of words and grammatical patterns
or to find the most frequent and remarkable words. The combination of qualitative
and quantitative methods is likely to be effective to reach the research’s goal.
These methods are utilized in the first stage of description to analyze the
speech’s lexicalization, grammar and macrostructure. Lexical choices, the use of
voice or personal nouns are the main focus of the stage. The macrostructure of the
text is also analyzed.
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The next step is related to the situational context which will be put under
analysis to interpret proposition and coherence in Hillary Clinton’s speech. Then
in the final stage, explanation, the text is portrayed as a part of social practice for
analysis at both situational and societal levels. Ideologies and power embedded in
Hillary Clinton’s speech will then be revealed.
1.6.4. Research procedure
The study is attached to the CDA approach and is carried out following
some basic stages.
The first stage is to conduct a literature review which contains theoretical
background (which serves as foundation and understanding of the issues relevant
to the research topic) and review of previous studies to find out the scientific gap
for the thesis
In the second stage, the speech of Hillary Clinton is collected and analyzed
via Norman Fairclough’s framework to give in-depth and detailed description on
vocabulary, grammar, macro-structure used in the speech.
Then the information is interpreted to help reveal power and ideologies
hidden in Hillary Clinton’s speech.
The final stage is an explanation of the selected discourse to identify the

relationship between the speech and its social practice as well as the impact of the
discourse on its context and vice versa.
1.7. Structure of the study
This thesis includes the following parts:
Chapter 1: Introduction. This part shows the rationale, aims of the study,
research questions, scope of the study, significance of the study. This chapter also
provides a detailed description of the methodology, including analytical
framework, rsearch approach, research methods applied for data collection and
procedure of data analysis.
Chapter 2: Literature Review.
This chapter gives the definition of CDA, its approachable methodologies, and a
review of previous studies.
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Chapter 3 analyzes power and ideologies embedded in Hillary Clinton’s 2016
speech after her defeat in the presidential election
Chapter 4 examines and Hillary Clinton's speech after her presidential election
defeat in 2016 to show how power and ideologies are linguistically realized,
based on CDA procedure addressed by Norman Fairclough (2001).
Chapter 5: Conclusion.
It summarizes the major findings of the study, some concluding remarks,
limitations and offers some suggestions for further research.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. Overview of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)
2.1.1. History of CDA
CDA, first known as Critical Linguistics (CL), was developed by a group
of linguists and literary theorists at the University of East Anglia in the 1970s
(Fowler et al.1979). Based on Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL),
they associated a method of linguistic text analysis with a social theory of the
functioning of language in political and ideological processes.
According to Chomsky (1957), linguistic research before the 1970s was
mostly related to the formal aspects of language, which are believed to be
theoretically isolated from specific examples of language use.
The attention was shifted when the relationship between language and
context was taken into consideration as in pragmatics, focusing on the speaker's
pragmatic or sociolinguistic competence. In the 1970s, texts and discourse
analysis, which emphasize on language’s role in structuring power relations in
society emerged and flourished with many famous linguistic research by Kress
and Hodge (1979), Van Dijk (1985,1993), Fairclough (1995a, 1995b), Fairclough
and Wodak (1997). They made great contributions to the theories, principles and
procedures of what then became known as Critical Linguistics (CL). In 1984
Teun van Dijk published a book named Prejudice in Discourse, which was
followed by Ruth Wodak’s Power and Ideology (1989), Fairclough’s Language
and Power (1989), and van Dijk’s journal Discourse and Society (1990). These
publications together formed the foundation for what is currently known as
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA).
By the 1990s, the name Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) formally came
into existence after Teun van Dijk, Norman Fairclough, Gunther Kress, Theon
Van Leeuwen, and Ruth Wodak shared opinions about this issue in a small
symposium hosted by the University of Amsterdam (Wodak and Meyer,

2001).The term rapidly became popular as “a distinct theory of language, a
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radically different kind of linguistics” (Kress 1990, quoted in Wodak& Meyer,
2001, p.5). Two terminologies CL and CDA are still sometimes interchangeably
used by some linguists (Wodak and Meyer, 2001)
2.1.2. Definitions of CDA
Because each linguist holds a different viewpoint, there are a variety of
definitions of CDA.
According to Leeuwen (1993), CDA relates to discourse as the instrument
of social reality. Meanwhile Rogers (2004)’s viewpoint agrees that CDA not only
includes a description and interpretation of discourse in context, but also offers
and explanation of why and how the discourse works.
Fairclough (1995) looks at CDA as a type of ideological analysis. He
considers CDA as discourse analysis whose aim is to systematically discover
hidden “relationships of causality and determination between (a) discursive
practice, events and texts, and (b) wider social and cultural structures, relations,
and processes (Fairclough, 1995, p.132). According to him, CDA will find out
how linguistic practices take place and are “ideologically shaped by relations of
power and struggles over power, and to explore how the opacity of these
relationships between discourse and society is itself a factor securing power and
hegemony”(Fairclough, 1995, p.132).
Fairclough and Wodak (1997, p.55) shows their viewpoints about CDA as
follows: “Critical discourse analysis sees discourse-language use in speech and
writing-is a form of social practice. Describing discourse as social practice
implies a dialectical relationship between a particular discursive event and
situation(s), institution(s) and social structure(s) which frame it. A dialectical

relationship is a two-way relationship: the discursive event is shaped by
situations, institutions and social structures, but it also shapes them”.
Meanwhile, Wodak& Meyer (2001,p.2) views CDA as “fundamentally
concerned with analyzing opaque as well as transparent structural relationships of
dominance, discrimination, power control as manifested in language. In other

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words, CDA aims to investigate critically social inequality as it is expressed,
signaled, constituted and legitimized and so on by language use or in discourse”
Scollon (2001, p.140) echoed this opinion by defining CDA as “a program of
social analysis that critically analyzes these discourse- that is to say, language in
use- as a means of addressing social changes”.
Despite the variety of viewpoints on CDA, all of them share one thing in
common: the goal of CDA. CDA aims at clarifying and uncovering the opaque
links between discourse, social practices and social structures. This approach
expects to address social problems from a linguistic standpoint. CDA dugs into
the relationship of language and discourse in the construction and representation
of the social world, describing, interpreting and explaining such relationships.
More specifically, CDA relates its coverage to the social and cultural matters of
society. It does not only talk about the linguistic forms but tries to associate them
with the society in general.
Therefore, CDA approach plays an important role in social scientific
research. It is distinctive compared to other discourse analysis methods as it
provides not only a description and interpretation of discourse in context, but
gives an explanation of why and how discourses work as well.
2.2. Three main approaches to CDA

Wodak and Meyer (2009, p.5) noted that “CDA has never been and has
never attempted to be or to provide one single specific theory. Neither is one
specific methodology characteristic of research in CDA. Quite the contrary,
studies in CDA are multifarious, derived from quite different theoretical
backgrounds, oriented towards different data and methodologies”. This explains
the existence of various approaches in conducting CDA research. In this part,
three most principal approaches to CDA will be introduced.
2.2.1.The socio-cognitive approach by Teun van Dijk
Teun van Dijk is one of the most famous researchers and the leading
pioneer in the domain of CDA.

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