A Comparative Study Of Bush's Speeches From The Perspective Of CDA

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) intends to represent the relationship between language and its social conditions and in particular the relationship between language and ideology. Critical discourse analysis aims to expose the underlying ideology embedded in the language by means of linguistic analysis.Critical discourse analysis typically focuses on public discourses, which refer to data like news reporting, political speeches and official documents etc. The present study chooses three political speeches on the Iraqi War given by George. W. Bush. By the comparative analysis of the texts, the author intends to uncover the hidden ideology embedded in the language and to seek the change of the speaker's attitude towards the war according to different social situations.The analytic methods employed in the present study are Fairclough's procedure of critical discourse analysis and Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar(SFG).By introducing the Iraqi War and the specific social situation of each speech, the author conducts an analysis from the aspects of lexical classification, transitivity, syntactic transformation, modality and thematic choice.For lexical classification, words with commendatory meaning are preferred and help construct a positive image of American forces, while words with dreadful connotation are chosen to depict Saddam as a devil, words with unpleasant and derogatory meaning construct an image of disorder in Iraq. From the aspect of transitivity, material processes are mainly used to depict American military forces as active and energetic troops, and relational processes connect several frightening attributes to Saddam. With regard to syntactic transformation, passive voice and nominalization are employed .By passivization the link between agent and process is weakened, the causal connection is loosened. The nominalization turns processes and activities into universal states and objects, and concretes into abstracts. About modality, different modal auxiliary verbs are used to show resolution and strong ambition or to imply the uncertainty and weak volition of the speaker. Thematic choice may give an implication of the assumptions and the stance of the speaker. The thematic analysis shows that many sentences choose American side as unmarked themes to represent the courage and rightness of American forces, while various parts like time and location adjuncts are chosen as marked themes for the requirement of expression. The study shows Bush's attitude to the war changes from overconfidence and optimism to uncertainty and perplexity, finally to disappointment and anxiety.