The Critical Discourse Analysis Of Obama’s Speech On Bin Laden’s Death

Critical discourse analysis (CDA), a new subject which has developed quickly in the past few decades, was first put forward during1970s. CDA is originated from critical linguistics and aims at studying the relationship between language, power and ideology. Critical linguists believe that discourse is not only a mirror of the reality, but at the same time a force of social practice.CDA is utilized to reveal and analyze the ideology and power relations in some discourses in order to reexamine them. Unlike in the early period when CDA was used in news report, it’s used to analyze political speech so that the underlying relations among language, ideology and power can be discussed in a fresh way. The reason that CDA is needed is that the speech, although being stated as objective and rational, will be influenced by the speaker’s power and ideology. Audiences or readers will find it hard to spot these implicit relations. Due to the implicit and persuasiveness of the political speech. CDA can help the readers better understand the content and offer an access to the implicit information.This thesis conducts an analysis of Obama’s address on Bin Laden’s death. The death of Bin Laden, the head of the world terrorism group, has a profound significance upon US, that is why this speech definitely conveys strong national ideology. So the utilization of CDA can reveal the obscure relations for the readers.The thesis mainly applies Fairclough’s three-dimensional model to do the analysis, which includes3parts:description, interpretation and explanation. First, to describe the linguistic features in terms of three metafunctions:ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function, which are the basic concepts in Halliday’s Systemic-Functional Grammar. Second, to interpret how the discourse is produced with the linguistic features concluded in step1. Third, to explain the relations between discourse and social factors with the consideration of social and historical background, then to analyze the relations among language, ideology and power in the speech from the social aspect.This thesis is divided into5chapters. Chapter one is introduction, a general description of the paper. Chapter two is literature review, which talks about the relevant CDA study both at home and abroad. Chapter three deals with the basic theories that this thesis needs, that is, Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework and Halliday’s systemic-functional Grammar, meanwhile it introduces the basic concept of language and discourse for the better understanding of the whole paper. Chapter four is the main part of the whole thesis, which makes a thorough analysis of Obama’s speech based on the theories discussed in chapter three. Chapter five is the conclusion part of the whole essay.The aim of the thesis is to improve readers’critical awareness and critical way of thinking in reading, what’s more, it is very important in English teaching and learning because it can help learners to establish critical way of thinking so that they can have better abilities to read and comprehend.The creativity of the paper is to closely link the linguistics and international politics. This speech is different from the normal presidential inauguration or campaign in that it dabbles in anti-terrorism, so it has more hidden political meanings and better demonstrates the practicality of CDA.