| In the age of globalization and information,language plays an increasingly crucial role in politics,economy and culture.People can get information quickly from Internet,TV and newspaper every day,then sort out and interpret information in the brain.However,critical discourse analysis aims to unveil the relationship among language,ideology and power and helps people to interpret the deep meaning behind the language.In the CNKI database,there are 1275 articles on critical discourse analysis,but most of them focus on the international relations and the theory itself.Political speeches have not attracted widespread attention in the linguistic circle.There are only 9 master thesis and 11 journal articles on political speeches from the perspective of linguistics.For Trump's political speeches are equipped with the characteristic of real-time,there is only one thesis before writing this paper.This study differs from previous studies in the aspects of data selection and theoretical framework.Firstly,this study collects and selects three political speeches of Trump: the announcement speech,the victory speech and the inaugural speech.Secondly,this study combines the systemic functional grammar of Halliday with the three-dimensional framework of Fairclough as the theoretical basis,which is beneficial to the critical discourse analysis of Trump's political speeches from many angles,revealing the hidden ideology and rights relationship behind the political speech,thus improving people's criticism for language.Hallidy summarizes three functions: ideational function,interpersonal function and textual function.Ideational function is the expression of the world experience and subjective;interpersonal function reflects the relationship of people;textual function is the tool of above two functions and used to make sentences and organize discourse.Fairclough believes that language is a social practice,and the utterance is composed of discourse,communication process and social practice.Therefore,he puts forward three steps to analyze the text: description,interpretation and explanation.In the first step "description",the author uses the systemic functional grammar to analyze the discourse.From the aspects of transitivity and transformation,which reflects ideational function,and from the aspects of mood and modality,which reflects interpersonal function,and from the thematic structure and lexical repetition which reflect textual function to analyze the linguistic features of the speeches so as to find out the language skills used by the speaker.In the second step of "interpretation",the author analyzes the ideological meaning behind all kinds of linguistic features and explores the relationship between language and society.In the last step of "explanation",combining the social and historical background of the speeches--the current political and economic situation,historical and cultural background,to have a deep explanation through using various means of language in a speech,in order to reveal the complex relationships between discourse,ideology and society.This study tries to solve the following problems: 1.What language skills and language strategies did Trump use in his political speeches? 2.What factors influenced Trump's language strategies to help him win the election?The paper is intended to use the example method and the quantitative analysis method to analyze the discourse of Trump's three political speeches.First of all,the author finds out that three speeches on www.whitehouse.com.,and then analyzes the discourse using the quantitative analysis method.At the same time,the author makes further analysis from the qualitative point of view.Finally,the paper answers the research questions and the conclusion would be drawn.The author finds out that the language characteristics of Trump's political speeches mainly reflects in the following aspects: first,Trump uses the material process to express his language,leaving the audience with a good impression of the "doer".Secondly,the application of passive sentences in speeches can enhance the objectivity of discourse.Thirdly,the use of declarative sentences and first person statements can narrow the distance between the speaker and the listener and then create intimacy.Finally,Trump employs marked thematic and lexical repetition to emphasize the importance of some themes or the concerns of the audience so as to get the attention and support of the voters.Besides that,political,economic and cultural factors influence Trump's language strategy.In the political aspect,Trump opposes to the existing system and the decision made by the special interest groups of the United States.At the same time,it is pointed out that policy reform should be carried,which helps Trump build the image of "outsider".In the economic aspect,Trump,facing the problems encountered by the current American economy,such as rising unemployment and low economy,puts forward some solutions that accord with the interests of American people,leaving the audience with the impression of "the doer".In the cultural aspect,Trump puts forward the slogan of "the United States first" in his speeches,which means that the United States should first pay attention to its own development rather than help other countries.That view is consistent with the individualism and heroism which peculiar to American culture and is easily accepted by the American people.This research has some practical implications.On the one hand,this study may help to improve students' reading abilities.Students could have a better understanding of reading materials by applying Fairclough's three dimensional analysis.On the other hand,this study helps to improve people's critical language awareness.Through critical discourse analysis,people can have a clearer and deeper understanding of political discourse in real life.Due to the time limit and inadequate academic abilities of the author,there are some limitations in the thesis.First of all,with the enrichment and development of CDA theory and the continuous innovation of analytical tools,the theoretical basis and traditional analytical methods used in this thesis need to be further improved.Secondly,the objectivity of critical discourse analysis has been questioned by the scholars in linguistic field for many years.Although the author has done her best to make the objective analysis,she can not guarantee the absolute objectivity,which is also one of the common problems in social science.The author gives some suggestions for the further research.Firstly,we can make a comparative analysis of Trump's and Clinton's political speeches,because the two are not only competitors,but also have different social background,sex and language style.Secondly,we can try to apply other theories of critical discourse analysis,such as the Socio-cognitive Analysis of Van Dijk and the Discourse-Historical Approach of Ruth Wodak,as the theoretical framework. |
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