A Study Of Financial Discourse From The Perspective Of Critical Discourse Analysis

This thesis deals with the discourse analysis of financial texts, which is normally considered to be least ideology-ridden, through an analysis of Ben Bernanke's financial remarks. The study is based on the assumption that language and ideology share an intimate and dialectic relationship. Thus, the objective of the present paper is to uncover the hidden ideological messages behind the financial samples under discussion.This thesis follows Fairclough's three-dimensional framework. It attempts to interpret the linguistic features and goes on to explain the prominent features from the social perspective after a thorough textual analysis with the linguistic instrument loaned from Halliday's Functional Grammar.Ideologies are invested at various levels in financial discourse. There are the selection of processes and the adoption of nominalization in terms of Experiential aspect; there are the application of declarative clauses, modal operators and especially personal pronouns in terms of Interpersonal aspect; and, in terms of Textual aspect, the means of foregrounding is outstanding. All the linguistic features in Bernanke's financial remarks have served the purpose of the speaker.The whole study is an ideology-revealing process. It is also hoped that this study can provide some implications for pedagogical application. In the present case, the critical reading of financial discourse and further discussion of critical language awareness are covered at the end.