A Contrastive Critical Discourse Analysis Of Theresa May's And Obama's Speeches On Terrorist Attacks

Critical Discourse Analysis reveals its implicit ideology and power relations by analyzing the linguistic features of discourse.In political speeches,speakers employ specific language strategies to demonstrate their claims and persuade the audience so as to realize political purposes.Based on Faichough's three-dimensional framework and Halliday's SFG theory,this study selects fourteen speeches on the terrorist attack respectively from Theresa May and Barack Obama to do a contrastive analysis from the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis.At the stage of description,this study chooses three metafunctions,especially transitivity in ideational metafunction;mood and modality in interpersonal metafunction and marked theme structure in textual metafunction.At the stage of interpretation,it illustrates linguistic features and its impact on listeners.The explanation level combines social context and historical background to explore the causes of speeches and power relations in the speeches.The purpose is to reveal the hidden ideology and power relations in the discourse.The study finds that at the level of description and interpretation,the two speakers both use quantity of material processes,declarative sentences and median value modal verbs to express ideas,trying to emphasize the objectivity of opinions and stance,and make the audience more convinced;using plural form of the first person pronoun,shorten the distance and establish a positive leader image,which could win more support;using certain the marked theme structure to emphasize specific components and guide the audience's attention.At the level of interpretation,the speaker uses unequal power relations to control the speech process and choose language consciously to create the image of victims,to emphasize the cruelty of terrorist attackers,to legalize and rationalize the policies and actions.It is found that language is the intermediary to transmit ideology and reveal power relation.Ideology and power also affect the choice of diction.Readers and listeners should pay attention to the cultivation of critical awareness and enhance their appreciation and critical ability in language use.