US president barack obamas speeches to 2010 and 2014 cadets at the commencement ceremony of the united states military academy a critical discourse analysis

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY
OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL
STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES
*****



*****

BÙI THỊ THU HƯƠNG

US PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S SPEECHES TO
2010 AND 2014 CADETS AT THE COMMENCEMENT
CEREMONY OF THE UNITED STATES MILITARY
ACADEMY: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

(Nghiên cứu bài diễn văn của Tổng Thống Mỹ Barack Obama trong buổi
lễ tốt nghiệp của Học viện Quân sự tại West Point năm 2010 và năm 2014
từ góc độ Phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English linguistics
Code: 60220201

HÀ NỘI – 2015


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY
OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL
STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

*****



*****

BÙI THỊ THU HƯƠNG

US PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S SPEECHES TO
2010 AND 2014 CADETS AT THE COMMENCEMENT
CEREMONY OF THE UNITED STATES MILITARY
ACADEMY: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

(Nghiên cứu bài diễn văn của Tổng Thống Mỹ Barack Obama trong buổi
lễ tốt nghiệp của Học viện Quân sự tại West Point năm 2010 và năm 2014
từ góc độ Phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English linguistics
Code: 60220201
Supervisor: Prof. Nguyễn Hòa

HÀ NỘI – 2015


DECLARATION

I, Bui Thi Thu Huong, hereby state that this minor thesis entitled “US President
Barack Obama’s speeches to 2010 and

2014 cadets at the commencement

ceremony of the United States Military Academy: a Critical Discourse Analysis”
is the result of my own research and all the materials used in this study has been
identified and acknowledged. Moreover, this M.A thesis has not been submitted for
any degree to any other universities or institutions.

Ha Noi, 2015

Bui Thi Thu Huong

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis would not be completed without the support of many people, to all of
whom, I am profoundly indebted.
First and foremost, from the bottom of my heart, I would like to express my special
thank to my supervisor Prof. Nguyen Hoa for his valuable guidance, everenthusiasm, responsibility and whole-hearted encouragement during the time of
doing this thesis. He gave me a lot of support and inspired me to make this thesis
better. Thanks to his critical feedbacks, invaluable suggestions and useful reference
during the research process, I could complete my study.
Secondly, I am greatly indebted to my lecturers at the University of Foreign
Languages, VNU for their contribution to my thesis. Especially, I would like to
express my thanks to Prof. Hoang Van Van, Prof. Nguyen Quang, Assoc. Prof. Le
Hung Tien, Dr. Huynh Anh Tuan and Assoc. Prof Vo Dai Quang because their
valuable lectures laid the foundation for this thesis and their constant assistance as
well as their encouragement helped me a lot in this study.

Moreover, I would like to take this opportunity to give my special thanks to my
classmates who always encouraged, reminded and supported me during the time of
doing this research.
Last but not least, I would like to say a heartfelt thank to my parents and my
husband for their consolation. I am indebted to you all, who gave me energy,
encouragement and inspiration to complete my thesis.

ii


ASTRACT

From a Critical Discourse Analysis perspective, this study is an attempt to exploit and
uncover the underlying ideologies of the President Obama in his two speeches of 2010
and 2014 at the West Point commencement ceremony. The research is strictly based on
the analysis framework proposed by Norman Fairclough (2001) with three stages of
textual description, interpretation and description. Specifically, in order to explore how
linguistic elements manifest the President‟s ideologies, general linguistic features of
two speeches related to vocabulary, grammar and textual structure are put into focus. In
terms of vocabulary, only overwording, antonyms and metaphor are analyzed to reveal
his ideologies encoded through language. Then, grammar features with his use of
pronouns, voices and modality are mainly focused. In terms of textual structure, the
author pays special attention to the larger-scale structure used in both speeches. The
findings of the study are pointed out with some common features and differences in
language use of the President Obama when he reforces his voice, exercise his power
and express his ideologies in his speeches. This study also helps prove the close
relationship between language and ideology and that people can exert their voice and
ideologies on others to change or maintain social relationships by his language. In the
last part of the thesis, some implications of the study are drawn out with the hope of
affirming its contributions to some aspects of our lives.

iii


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Declaration…………………………………………………………….....................i
Acknowledgement…………………………………………………………

ii

Abstract……………………………………………………………..……..

iii

Table of contents……………………………………………….……....….

iv

List of abbreviations……………..…………………………………...……

vii

List of fingures and tables………………………………………….….……

viii

PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale………………………………………………………………

1

2. Aims of the study………………………………………………………

3

3. Scope of the study………………………………………………………

3

4. Significance of the study………………………………………………

4

5. Method of the study…………………………………………..…………

4

6. Design of the study………………………………………..……………

5

PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND.……………………

6

1.1

6

An overview of CDA………………………………………………

1.1.1 What is CDA....................................................................................................................... 6
1.2

Major concepts of CDA……………………………………………

6

1.2.1 Discourse in CDA…………………………………………………

6

1.2.2 Ideology in CDA……………………………………………………

7

iv


1.3

CDA‟s approaches and Fairclough framework

1.3.1

CDA‟s approaches………………………………

1.3.2

Van Dijk‟s socio-cognitive approach……………

1.3.3

Wodark‟s discourse-historical approach…………

1.3.4

Fairclough‟s Hallidayan systemic functional ap

1.4

Norman Fairclough‟s framework for CDA……

1.4.1

Description………………………………………

1.4.2

Interpretation……………………………………

1.4.3

Explanation………………………………………

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY AND ANALYSIS PROCEDURES
2.1

Approach of the study……………………………

2.2

Data collection……………………………………

2.3

Data analysis procedure…………………………

CHAPTER 3: DATA PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION…………
3.1

Context of Obama‟s speeches at West Point in 2

3.2

Ideologies of President Barack Obama in West P
speeches…………………………………………………………………..

3.3

Realization of Obama‟s ideologies through his u
West Point 2010 and 2014 speeches……….……………………..…

3.3.1

In terms of using Overwording …………………

3.2.2.

In terms of using Antonyms……………………

3.2.3

In terms of using metaphors……………………

v


3.4

Realization of Obama‟s ideologies through his use of Grammar in

West Point 2010 and 2014 speeches………….……………….…………
3.3.1

In terms of using Pronouns…………………………

3.3.2

In terms of using Voices……………………………

3.3.3

In terms of Modality…………………………………

3.5

Realization of Obama‟s ideologies through his

Structure in West Point 2010 and 2014 speeches………..………….…..

PART C: CONCLUSION

1. The summary of the findings in the study………………………………
2. Implications of the study………….……………………………………
3. Recommendations for further study……………………………………
REFERENCE…………………………………………………………
APPENDIX I……………………………………………..……………
APPENDIX II…………………………………………………………
APPENDIX III………………………………………...………………
APPENDIX IV………………………………………...………………

vi


CDA

SFL

MR

USMA

U.S

vii


LIST OF TABLES IN THE STUDY

Table

The 10-Question model o

1

2001:92-93)

2

Repetition of vocabulary in

Use of Antonymous phrase

3

and 2014

4

Use of Metaphors in the spe

5

Use of Pronouns in the spee

6

Use of modality in the spee

LIST OF FIGURES IN THE STUDY

Figure

Title

1

Interpretation statge (Faicloug

2

Explanation stage (Fairclough

3

Structure of Obama‟s 2010 and

viii


PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
Critical Discourse Analysis (henceforth CDA) is regarded as a relatively new
research field not only in Vietnam but also in many other countries around the
world. Since its first appearance in Britain in the 1970s, CDA has attracted much
attention from scholars, researchers, linguistics and social analysts. According to
van Dijk (1988), CDA is a field concerned with studying and analyzing written texts
and spoken words to reveal the discursive sources of power, dominance, inequality

and bias and how these sources are initiated, maintained, reproduced and
transformed within specific social, economic, political and historical contexts. In
addition, Fairclough (2001), a founding father of CDA, also asserted that CDA
helps make clear the relationship between the use of language and the exercise of
power and ideologies. Its principal aim is to look at the influence of ideologies and
power relations on the content and structure of discourse. Viewing language as a
form of social practice and focusing on the ways that social and political domination
are revealed in texts, CDA has really become a significant approach to language
analysis. In the light of CDA, ideological assumptions, the relationships between
language, power, ideology and society behind written texts or oral speeches will
therefore be uncovered. Hence, realizing the great importance and the role of CDA
in analyzing discourse in order to explore hidden ideologies in discourses will be
the first reason for the author‟s choice.
Moreover, with the rapid development of many countries in the world today, most of
people have a desire to assert their position and influence on other countries. The
United States is not an exception. As a country with the strongest economic growth, its
position, domination, strength and ideology “America must always lead” have been
obviously revealed in many aspects, especially through presidential speeches using
CDA perspective. Currently, before the extremely complex situation of the world where
America's long war is against core al Qaeda, Russia and China are both flexing their
muscles and a number of al Qaeda affiliates in countries such as Syria are enjoying
something of a resurgence, any move of US attracts great attention from public opinion.
Thus, when President Barack Obama delivered what was touted as a major foreign
policy address on his travel to West Point to congratulate the newest
1


officers at US Military Academy commencement ceremony on May 28

th

2014, it

seemed that all attention was turned to America. Compared to his West Point 2010
address delivered when he had just started his term as the President of the United
States, the 2014 speech, marking the nearly end of his term, is more highly
appreciated. It is supposed to be an important step in outlining his new foreign
policy principles and setting up a new military doctrine as well as his vision for how
the United States should lead in the years to come.
As Fairclough said, people are members of the society and their speeches are a
reflection of a set of experiential, relational, and expressive values (Fairclough, 1992:
110). Therefore, the way Obama used language to express his constant purposes, the
way he exercised power through language cleverly and the way his ideologies were
embedded and encoded in language use in the West Point 2010 and 2014 speeches
prove that language is really a useful social tool. It plays a crucial role for every
political action prepared, accompanied, influenced and played by language.
Accordingly, CDA includes not only a description and interpretation of discourse in
context, but also offers an explanation of why and how discourse works. CDA then
takes us beyond the level of description to a deeper understanding of texts. Therefore,
choosing the suitable theoretical and analytical framework of CDA as the basic one to
analyze Obama‟s West Point speeches of 2010 and 2014 and then discover his
ideologies reflected in discourses will be the main concern of this thesis.

The last reason for choosing CDA approach for the study comes from my own
interest. Through this study, I really hope that it will be a great contribution to
support Fairclough‟s opinion that CDA not only sees “language as a form of social
practice” but also focuses on the idea that social and political dominion is
reproduced by “text and talk” (Fairclough, 1989:20).
In conclusion, all of the above reasons have inspired the author to conduct the
research entitled “US President Barack Obama's speeches to 2010 and 2014 cadets

at the commencement ceremony of the United States Military Academy: a critical
discourse analysis”.

2


2. Aims of the study
The study primarily aims at analyzing President Obama‟s West Point speeches at
the US military academy in 2010 and 2014 to explore his underlying ideas or
ideologies in general and to find out the common features of Obama‟s speeches as
well as the relationship between language and ideology behind texts in particular.
Next, to raise language leaners‟ awareness of underlying ideologies in texts and
developing their ability of critical thinking through their uses of linguistic elements
are considered as another important goal that the author attempts to reach. Through
the research, the author hopes to reaffirm that CDA can serve as a useful tool to
discover the hidden relationship of language and ideology behind the surface of
language. In order to attain these aims, the study is supposed to find out answers to
the following question:
o What ideologies are conveyed by Obama in his West Point 2010 and 2014
speeches?
o
How are his ideologies expressed in the West Point 2010 and 2014
speeches?
3. Scope of the study
The study is confined to verbal aspects of the addresses. In this paper, the author is
specifically concerned with the transcripts of two addresses although CDA can also
focus on body language, utterances, symbols, visual images and other forms of
semiosis (signs and symbols) as means of discourse. Therefore, some factors including
paralinguistics (intonation, speed, loudness and so on) and extralinguistics like facial
expression, eye contact and gestures are not taken into consideration despite of their

great importance in comprehending the overall content of the addresses.

Moreover, this is a pure linguistic study and for the academic purpose only. The
researcher‟s political view will be neglected so that this study is not for or against
any party or to change the political viewpoint of readers.
Lastly, this thesis tends to be focused mainly on the President‟s ideologies in his
commencement addresses rather than his power. As the Commander-in-Chief of the
United States, the President has made his great attempt to inspire and encourage the
3


newest officers in the United States Army who will live and fight for the peace and
freedom of the country, who will devote their lives and love to their country and
above all others, their spirits of service “Loyal „Til the End”. Therefore, the
President tried to express his ideas and encouragement to the Cadets as clearly as
possible in order to motivate and make them understand more about the motto they
chose to serve their country.
4. Significance of the study
Practically, this study will provide a support to CDA theories that when approaching
texts as a linguist, a CDA analyst can find out the speakers‟ ideologies embedded in
the discourse. Therefore, the analysis of President Obama‟s West Point speeches is
of certain importance in the sense that it betters our understanding of the powerful
influence of language on underlying ideological and social relations. By
demonstrating how linguistic elements of the speeches help address social
problems, this study is really helpful in strengthening the CDA theories in general.
5. Method of the study
Realizing the great importance of setting up a theoretical framework for the study,
CDA approach is finally chosen as a main perspective for the study. Among all
representatives of CDA and their approaches, Fairclough‟s approach is appreciated
to be quite detailed, clear and much easier for CDA analysts in analyzing discourse.

For some strengths of his framework, Norman Fairclough‟s approach was finally
chosen as a main theoretical framework for the study. That‟s why the author
decided to strictly base on Norman Faiclough‟s model (2001) with three stages of
CDA including textual description, interpretation and explanation. In the research,
these stages will be carried out at the same time.
General textual description of two speeches with three linguistic features
(vocabulary, grammar and textual structure) are exploited together with my
interpretation and explanation. Due to the limitation of the study, in terms of
vocabulary, I only focus on the use of overwording, antonyms and metaphors. In
terms of grammar, only uses of personal pronouns, voices and modality are
analyzed. In terms of textual structures, I will follow Faiclough‟s final questions

4


related to larger-scale structures. Then, quantitative and qualitative data found in
Obama‟s speeches, some common features and differences in Obama‟s language
use can be revealed. In the second stage of interpretation the relationship between
the texts and interactions, presuppositions and some questions given by Fairclough
(2001): what‟s going on, who‟s involved, what relationships are at issue and what‟s
the role of language will be made clear.
Lastly, the author will clarify the step of explanation concerned with the relationship
between those processes and social context (how the discourse change or sustain
certain social relationship in social structure) of two speeches. Then, his underlying
ideologies behind the surface of language will be concluded as the findings of the
study.
6. Design of the study
The study consists of three main parts as follows.
Part A is the introduction of the study discussing the rationale, aims, scope,
significance, method and design of the study.

Next, Part B, the development of the study, is divided into three chapters. In chapter
one, theoretical background of CDA concluding its definition, major concepts,
framework and analytical procedure proposed by Norman Faiclough (2001) will be
presented. Chapter 2 will mention the methodology and analysis procedure. Chapter
3 is data analysis and discussion that mainly presents the analysis of President
Obama‟s West Point speeches of 2010 and 2014.
Lastly, Part C is the conclusion of the study that summarizes the findings of the
study, draws the common and different features of language use in Obama speeches,
states his hidden ideologies and offers suggestions for further study.
At the end of the study, appendices including two speeches of Barack Obama, some
tables, figures dealing with related issues are also given to make the analysis of the
speeches be clearer and more easily accessible.

5


PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
1.1 An overview of CDA
1.1.1 What is CDA?
Different scholars have different ways to define what CDA means. Howerver, most of them
broadly agreed with the view of CDA as suggested by Fairclough (1993:135) that CDA as
a field of linguistic aims “to systematically explore often opaque relationships of causality
and determination between (a) discursive practices, events and texts, and (b) wider social
and cultural structures, relations and processes; to investigate how such practices, events
and texts arise out of and are ideologically shaped by relations of power and struggles
over power” (Fairclough, 1995: 132). Van Dijk also has stated that “Critical Discourse
Analysis (CDA) is a type of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way
social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced and resisted by
text and talk in the social and political context.” (Van Dijk, 2001:352). From two points of

view above, CDA is seen as an approach in which language is viewed as a form of social
practice. It focuses on the ways social or political domination presented in texts and talks.
CDA researchers and analysts attempt to know how discourse produces domination, how
power abuse of one group is exercised on others and how dominated groups may strive to
resist such actions behind their use of language. Furthermore, the term “critical” in CDA is
often associated with studying power relations (Fairclough, 1997). It addresses social
problems and seeks to solve them through the analysis of the accompanying social and
political action (Roger, 2004:4).

1.2 Major concepts of CDA
1.2.1 Discourse in CDA
In CDA, the concept of “discourse” is widely connected with the well-known definition of
Fairclough that discourse means language use in speech and writing as a form of “social
practice” (Fairclough, 2001:18). By saying that, he means language is not only a part of
society but also a social process. This process consists of the text, text production and text
interpretation. In order to understand a speech or a text, it is very necessary to

6


get into the depth of that spoken or written text because one key principle of CDA is that
the way we write and what we say is not arbitrary - it is purposeful whether the choices are
conscious or unconscious. Hence, discourse or language we use (both written and spoken)
requires not only a local coherence within texts but also an assessment of the significance
or values of the global textual items within it (Sayer, 2006:450). To sum up, discourse is
related to our social and cognitive development and plays a very crucial role in the
formation of our identity. Whatever we say always contains some meaning and represents
our perception toward a certain thing or idea. The way we make use of language tells our
intention toward any important issue either political or social because any discourse is
emerged from our cultural, social or power backgrounds.

1.2.2 Ideology in CDA
Ideology is a central concept of CDA. Obviously, ideologies are enacted in other
forms of action and interaction and their reproduction is often embedded in
organizational and institutional contexts. Among the many forms of reproduction
and interaction, discourse plays a prominent role as the preferential site for the
explicit formulation, the persuasive communication of ideologies propositions.
Thomson (1990) defines the term “ideology” as a meaning in the service of power.
He meant that the study of ideology investigates ways in which meaning is
constructed and conveyed by various symbolic forms. As for Fairclough (2001), he
supposes that ideology is pervasively present in language and should be one of the
main themes of modern social science. It is essentially tied to power relation and
understood in the service of establishing and sustaining unequal power relation.
Fairclough‟s view is very much a Marxist one in which he regards ideology as a
distorted representation of the reality of social relations.
According to van Dijk (1995: 248), “ideologies are basic frameworks of social
cognition, shared by members of social groups, constituted by relevant selections of
sociocultural values, and organized by an ideological schema that represents the selfdefinition of a group”. In other words, ideologies are localized between societal
structures and the structures of the minds of social members. Hence, social actors may
easily realize their social properties with their knowledge and beliefs making up the

7


concrete models of their daily-life experiences. Indirectly, ideologies control how
people plan and understand their social practices and the structures of text and talk.
In short, it has been assumed that ideology of any people is largely expressed and
acquired through his language use in spoken or written forms. The discourse
dimension of ideologies explains how ideologies influence our daily texts and talk,
how we understand ideological discourse and how discourse is involved in the

reproduction of ideology in society.
1.3 CDA’s approaches and Fairclough framework for CDA
1.3.1 CDA’s approaches
In terms of building suitable directions or frameworks for CDA, many linguistics have
put a great deal of efforts to the development of CDA. According to Hoa, N. (2005),
five great representatives whose works make a considerable contribution in
constructing CDA‟s methodology with five main approaches that cannot be ignored are
van Dijk of socio-cognitive approach, Wodark of the discourse-historical approach,
Fairclough of Hallidayan systemic functional approach, Scollion of micro social
approach and Jager of Duisburg School. Due to the limitation of the thesis, the
researcher will only pay attention to three great scholars with their approaches in this
study including van Dijk‟s socio-cognitive approach, Wodark‟s discourse-historical
approach and especially, Fairclough‟s Hallidayan systemic functional approach.

1.3.2 Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach
To begin with, van Dijk‟s socio-cognitive discourse analysis is an approach
characterized by the interaction between cognition, discourse and society. It began
in formal linguistics and subsequently incorporated elements of the standard
psychological model of memory together with the idea of frame taken from
cognitive science. At the textual analysis level, van Dijk states it should be not only
an analysis of structures at various levels of description but higher-level properties.
He supposed “discourse is not simply an isolated textual or dialogic structure.
Rather it is a complex communicative event that also embodies a social context,
featuring participants (and their properties) as well as production and reception
processes” (van Dijk, 1988: 2). He advocates the analysis of semantic
8


macrostructures, local meanings, formal structures, global and local discourse
forms, specific linguistic realizations and context. The aspects he focuses on are

coherence, lexical and topic selection, rhetorical figures, speech acts, propositional
structures, implications, hesitation and turn-taking control.
1.3.3 Wodark’s discourse-historical approach
The second approach of CDA is marked by Ruth Wodak‟s school with the discoursehistorical approach. Wodak has carried out her researches in various institutional
settings such as courts, schools, and hospitals, and on a variety of social issues such as
sexism, racism and anti-Semitism. Wodak's work on the discourse of anti-Semitism in
1990 led to the development of an approach that she termed the discourse historical
method. The term “historical” in her approach occupies a unique place in this
approach. It denotes an attempt on the part of this approach “to integrate
systematically all available background information in the analysis and interpretation
of the many layers of a written or spoken text” (Wodak, 1995:209). In 1990, the results
of Wodak and her colleagues „study showed that the context of the discourse had a
significant impact on the structure, function, and context of the anti-Semitic utterances.
Focusing on the historical contexts of discourse in the process of explanation and
interpretation is a remarkable feature that distinguishes this approach from other
approaches of CDA, especially from that of van Dijk School.

1.3.4 Fairclough’s Hallidayan systemic functional approach
Fairclough‟s Hallidayan systemic functional approach has been central to CDA and has
great influence on this study. Norman Fairclough became interested in CDA in 1980s.
In 1989, he started to develop “Critical language study” to examine the relationship
between discourse and power and developed his theory and method of CDA in his later
work “Discourse and Social change” (1992). He described the objective of this
approach as “a contribution to the general raising of consciousness of exploitative
social relations, through focusing upon language” (Fairclough, 1989:4). The aim of
Fairclough‟s work is “to bring together linguistically oriented discourse analysis and
social and political thought related to discourse and language” (Fairclough, 1992:62).
CDA, as for him, sets out to demonstrate that discursive features are systematically
connected with what is going on socially (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999).

9


Central to Fairclough‟s approach are ideas related to the discursive nature of power, the
political nature of discourse and the discursive nature of social change. From the field
of linguistics, Fairclough‟s main point of reference is Halliday‟s Systemic Functional
linguistics (SFL) considered valuable resource for CDA because it is concerned with
the relationship between language and other elements of social life. Because SFL
obviously "has most in common with CDA and more to offer CDA", it "theorizes
language in a way which harmonizes far more with the perspective of critical social
science than other theories of language" (Fairclough and Chouliaraki, 1999:139). In
SFL, language is structured towards three meta-functions: experiential, interpersonal
and textual that are respectively realized by choices of Transitivity, Mood and Modality
and Theme/Rheme systems of the language. Experiential meaning deals with the
question “What is going on?” recognized through transitivity system that construes the
world of experience into a manageable set of process types. For the interpersonal
meaning realized by mood structure, CDA analysts should find the answer for the
question “How do we use language to exchange?”. Lastly, thematic structure is a cue to
find out the textual meaning which deals with creating relevance between parts of what
is being said and between the text and context. The question “How is the content of the
text organized?” can help recognize the thematic structure (the configuration Theme +
Rheme) which organizes the clause as a message.
In conclusion, in Faiclough‟s opinion, CDA researchers should play a main role in
bringing into light the problems or issues of those who have become the victims of
dominance and power abuse, and then question the voice of those who have been
exercising their power over other groups in order to reveal their hidden motives, their
superiorities and ideologies. Among all representatives of CDA and their approaches,
Fairclough‟s approach is appreciated to be quite detailed, clear and much easier for
CDA analysts in analyzing discourse. For those strengths mentioned above, Norman
Fairclough‟s approach was chosen as a main theoretical framework for the study.

1.4 Norman Fairclough’s framework for CDA
According to Fairclough, he identifies three ways in which language operates as
discourse: (1) as text; (2) as the social processes of producing and interpreting a text, or
the interaction; and (3) as the social conditions for the production and interpretation of
the text, or the social context. Then these dimensions of discourse link directly to the
10


three-stage approach he advocates for analysis, namely description of the text,
interpretation of the relationship between texts and the social processes of
interaction, and explanation of the relationship between interaction and the social
context (Fairclough 2001). All these stages will be discussed further as follows.
1.4.1 Description
Among three stages of analysis, description is the first stage which is concerned
with the formal properties of the text and focuses on three aspects including
vocabulary, grammar and textual structures (Fairclough, 2001:21). The three
different values are also contained within the stage of description. Fairclough makes
distinctions between which types of values that can be expressed in choice of words
and grammar, depending on what the producer of a text reveals himself or society.
The first value is experiential value which is an indication of how the text producer
experiences something, without expressing his personal evaluation. Relational
value is the second one which is the aspect of a text that manifests social relations.
The last one is expressive value which is when the producer presents his own
evaluation of some part of reality, thus expressing himself as a subject who has a
position within the social relations present in society.
According to Faiclough (2001: 92-93), he provided a model of ten questions related
to three criteria to help find out the text‟s formal properties which are supposed to
imply speakers‟ ideologies and values. (See Appendix I, Table 1: The 10-question
model of the description stage (Fairclough, 2001:92-93).

In terms of vocabulary, to find out the answers for given questions, Fairclough (2001)
divided into smaller questions for realizing experiential and relational values. For
experiential values, CDA analysts should try to find out classification of scheme; words
which are ideologically contested; rewording or overwording; meaning relations such
as synonym, hyponymy or antonym and use of metaphor. For relational values,
euphemistic expressions and formal or informal words should be explored.

In terms of grammar aspect, experiential values are expressed through types of
process and participant predominance, agency, nominalizations, active or passive
sentences and positive or negative sentences. Cues for finding relational values are

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modes of sentences, features of relational modality and the use of pronoun “we”
and “you”. Also, grammatical features express expressive values through
expressive modality. Additionally, how sentences are linked together can be found
through logical connectors, coordination or subordination and means used for
referring inside and outside the text.
To sum up, the first three questions concern the experiential, relational, and
expressive values of the lexical features of texts respectively. Question 4 is designed
to deal with metaphor only whereas questions (5,6,7) focus on the experiential,
relational and expressive values of grammatical features. The last three questions
are related to the grammatical relations “cohesion” and structures rather than the
meanings behind texts. Due to the limitation of the study, the author will only focus
on several questions which are applicable and considered most relevant to the study.
1.4.2 Interpretation
The second stage is the interpretation of the relationship between text and
interaction. In detail, it is mainly concerned with the relationship between text and
interaction with seeing texts as the product of a process and as a resource in the

process of interpretation. As can be seen from the Figure 1 in the Appendix II,
interpretation stage is generated through two levels, interpretation of content (upper
section) and interpretation of texts (lower section). The upper section is related to
both context and text as Fairclough‟s assumption and consists of situational and
intertextual context. Fairclough refers to the situational context and the intertextual
context as central to the process of interpretation.
The situational context provides external cues which have to be interpreted on the basis
of MR: “participants arrive at interpretations of situational context partly on the basis
of external cues-features of the physical situation, properties of participants, what has
previously been said: but also partly on the basis of aspects of their MR in terms of
which they interpret these cues - specifically, representations of societal and
institutional social orders which allow them to ascribe the situations they are actually
in to particular situation types” (Fairclough, 1989:114). In the interpretation of
situation, Fairclough (2001) guided CDA analysts to focus on some main tasks: What is
going on? Who is involved? What relationships are at issue? And what is the role

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of language in what is going on? Dealing with interpreting the intertextual context,
presupposition should be brought into focus.
According to Fairclough (2001:119-120), the four remaining elements of MR
functioning as interpretive procedures related to the text are proposed. Conventions
of phonology, grammar and vocabulary are resources which provide procedures for
interpreting the surface of utterance. Other kinds of resource are semantics,
pragmatics and cohesion which provide procedures for interpreting the meaning of
utterance and its local coherence. Resources are schemata which provide procedures
for interpreting a text‟s structure and its global coherence. To sum up, the
interpretation stage takes a great role in interpreting the discourse process as well as
its dependence on background assumptions of MR.

1.4.3 Explanation
The last stage, explanation, is concerned with the relationship between interaction
and social context with the social determination of the processes of production and
interpretation of their social effects (Fairclough, 2001:21-22). One of the aims of
discourse is to show how language works and what context it is being used. That is
the reason why Fairclough (1992:28) states that “discourse is more than just
language use: it is language use seen as a type of social practice”. (See Figure 2 in
the Appendix II).
It is very clear that both social effects and social determinants of discourse undergo
three levels of social organization: the societal level, the institutional level and the
situational level. Fairclough (2001:138) also suggests three questions with some
main cues to find out explanation of a particular discourse. To uncover social
determinants, CDA analysts should consider what power relations at situational,
institutional and societal levels help shape discourses. To state hidden ideologies in
texts, it is suggested to discover what elements of MR drawn upon have an
ideological character. Lastly, CDA analysts should take into consideration how the
discourse is positioned in relation to struggles at the situational, institutional and
societal levels and whether these struggles overt or covert the normative discourse
sustaining existing power relations or transforming them in order to understand
effects of those determinants in discourse.

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CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY AND ANALYTIC PROCEDURES
In order to help readers understand clearly the methodology employed in this
research, this chapter will deeply present a description of research method including
the approach and techniques used for the data analysis. Then, the steps of collecting
data and text analysis will be mentioned.
2.1 Approach of the study

CDA approach will be applied in the study to serve the goals that the author tries to
reach. As mentioned, the objective of CDA is to uncover the ideological assumptions
hidden behind the texts. In this study, the author applies CDA perspective in analyzing
President Obama‟s West Point speeches in order to find out his ideologies embedded in
those addresses as well as the common features of Obama‟s speeches. In addition,
Fairclough‟s line of study is called textually oriented discourse analysis which takes a
specific middle-range theory position. Thus, the study follows the three stages of CDA
outlined by Fairclough (2001): textual description, interpretation and explanation. Each
linguistic characteristic of two speeches is described at first, then, the relationship
between texts and interaction as well as between interaction and social context is
interpreted and explained.

2.2 Data collection
In terms of data, I choose two speeches delivered by President Barack Obama at the US
Military Academy commencement ceremony in 2010 and 2014 as the main subject for
the study. Outlining his foreign policy and defense plan for the remainder of his term,
President Obama‟s address for the US Military Academy‟s class of 2014 was a
particularly important document called the Obama Doctrine because it was all that
people around the world were expecting from President Obama and the U.S. For his
address in 2010, this marked his visit to West Point after nearly six months since his
work to the academy December 1. Outlining his basic strategy to increase troops
abroad, he made it clear that why it was important to continue the missions of the
country, to live and sacrifice for what was called freedom of the nation.

In terms of data collection, lots of books, articles and studies in the field of CDA
were collected and exploited thoroughly. In addition, special attention was paid to
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how different CDA scholars suggested ways of doing CDA. There may be, of

course, different viewpoints and different approaches to CDA. After studying
carefully, Norman Fairclough‟s theory of CDA considered most suitable for the
aims and subject of the study was finally chosen.
2.3 Data analysis procedure
Three stages of CDA including description, interpretation and explanation proposed
by Norman Fairclough (2001) will be applied as an insightful investigation into
President Obama‟s addresses in order to explore how linguistic elements manifest
his ideologies. To attain this aims, both quantitative and qualitative method are used.
Three staged proposed by Fairclough (2001) are analyzed together.
Specifically, general linguistic features of two speeches (lexicology, grammar and
textual structure) are discovered and analyzed to see how ideologies of the speaker are
encoded through language use. In terms of vocabulary, only overwording, antonyms
and metaphors will be focused. Then, grammar features with the use of personal
pronoun, voice and modality will be analyzed carefully. The textual analysis will be
also stressed in terms of textual structure with its larger-scale structure. All these
linguistic features are randomly chosen based on the author‟s purposes.

Then, the relationship between the processes of text production and interaction will
be made clear with the interpretation of situational and intertextual context. In
interpreting the situational context, questions given by Fairclough (2001) will be
used as useful suggestions: what is going on? Who is involved? What relationships
are at issue? And what is the role of language in what is going on? In terms of
intertextual context, the researcher will pay attention to the use of presupposition.
Lastly, explanation concerned with the relationship between those processes and
social context will be mentioned. As a part of social process or social practices,
those speeches are exploited to see how they are determined by social structures and
how they change or maintain certain social relationship in social structure.

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