The Political Significance Of Barack Obama's Noble Peace Prize Acceptance Speech

There is a close relationship between language and politics. Their close relationship has been clearly demonstrated in political discourse. Political discourse consists of political speeches, media texts and parliamentary debates. Much has been done by linguists concerning political discourse analysis, and different theories and approaches have been applied to political discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis as the most frequently used one. In this thesis, a new framework-Martin and Rose's analytical framework will be applied to Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech to analyze its political significance and legitimization and delegitimization.Legitimization and delegitimization is one of the main strategic functions of political discourse. Legitimization bears close relationship with coercion, and establishes the right to be obeyed. The techniques used include arguments about speakers'wants, charismatic leadership projection, boasting about performance and positive self-presentation. Delegitimization is the counterpart of legitimization, one technique used is negative other-presentation.Obama's acceptance speech is chosen as the object of study because the speech causes controversy among the public.Martin and Rose's analytical framework studies meaning beyond the clause and resources that lead us from one clause to another as a text unfolds. The analytical framework is the latest achievement of systemic functional grammar developed by M.A.K. Halliday. Halliday sees language as simultaneously fulfilling three metafunctions:the ideational metafunction, the interpersonal metafunction and the textual metafunction (Bloor.& Bloor,2001). Each of the three metafunctions is about a different aspect of the world, and is concerned with a different mode of meaning of clauses. The ideational metafunction is about the natural world; the interpersonal metafunction is about the social world, especially the relationship between speaker and hearer; the textual metafunction is about the verbal world, especially the flow of information in a text. Each metafunction is realized by corresponding system or systems within Martin and Rose's framework. This framework is composed of five systems, appraisal, ideation, conjunction, identification and periodicity. While appraisal fulfills interpersonal function, ideation and conjunction fulfill ideational function and identification and periodicity fulfill textual function.The thesis will give a detailed analysis of the speech. Around the three metafunctions of the language, the analytical framework by Martin and Rose is applied to the analysis of the speech. This thesis aims to show the legitimizing and delegitimizing value attributed to Obama's speech through careful analysis of this speech.The thesis is composed of four chapters.In Chapter One, the background of this research, its purpose and significance, the principle of data collection, the method adopted and the arrangement of the thesis are introduced.Chapter Two describes strategic functions of political discourse and gives an overview of stages of political discourse analysis:rhetoric, critical theories, cognitive linguistics and pragmatics. And it also explains why Martin and Rose's analytical framework is applied to the analysis.Chapter Three makes a systematic analysis of Obama's speech with Martin and Rose's framework in detail. And the speech is divided into three parts, each expressing a meaning different from the previous one. The interpretation of Part One includes the analysis of the realization of textual metafunction and ideational metafunction. The interpretations of Part Two and Part Three of the speech contain the analysis of the realization of all three metafunctions of the language. In Part Two, Obama proposes an important concept:the concept of "just war" and begins to justify military actions of the U.S. in Afghanistan. In Part Three, Obama justifies the U.S. intervention in other countries'affairs with the help of the system of appraisal, the system of ideation, the system of conjunction, the system of identification and the system of periodicity. And legitimizing and delegitimizing value attributed to Obama's speech is disclosed through realization of different metafunctions.Chapter Four is the conclusion. It includes not only the summary of the analysis, the meaning disclosed, its political significance but also disadvantages of the framework: cumbersome, implied context analysis and implicit ideology, power and inequality.