A Study Of Barrack Obama’s Political Speeches From The Perspective Of Critical Discourse Analysis

In 1979, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as a new discourse-analysisapproach was put forward by Fowler, Kress, et al., in their commonly-composed book.In the process of development, CDA has combined a variety of sciences into itsresearch field, such as critical theories and sociology. Up to now, as aninterdisciplinary analysis approach, it has developed into one of the most significantbranches in the area of linguistics.The present study will analyze American President, Barrack Obama’s eightpolitical discourses primarily in Fariclough’s three-dimensional framework. SinceHalliday considers that people should describe not only language structure ofdiscourse, but also the way in which discourse is determined by social structure.Therefore, Halliday’s functional grammar is bound to be considered as the theoreticalbasis of the present study.Language characteristics of Obama’s political speeches will be firstly presentedthrough quantitative and qualitative methods. Next, based on the three meta-functions,the study will further interpret the way in which these language characteristics areproduced. Moreover, the social context of Obama’s presidential campaign will becombined into the explanation in order to further interpret the relations of ideologicalsystem and power relations behind political speeches.The present study finds that the attribute of the political speeches are allcarrying their ideologies. No matter how the speakers highlight the fidelity of his speeches, they will be more or less influenced by their own thinking system and alsotheir political views and purposes will be added into speeches subconsciously. So itwill be easy for them to choose different language devices (such as transitivity andthematic structure) and to insert their various ideologies into speeches imperceptibly.Through analyzing Obama’s speeches, there are several theoretical and practicalmeanings of the present study as well. Firstly, CDA broadens the research field ofdiscourse analysis. Secondly, a large number of data will be analyzed in order todiscover the regularities of Obama’s speeches. Thirdly, by learning CDA, people canimprove their critical consciousness to reject the dross and assimilate the essence offoreign culture. Finally, it will also provide a new method for language teaching andlearning.