A Critical Discourse Analysis On Trump's Speech About Syria Airstrikes

Critical Discourse Analysis(CDA)combines discourse's linguistic analysis with discourse's social analysis.It studies the relationship between language,power and ideology.Because of its strong political color and extensive use of language strategies,political speech is often the research object of critical linguists.On April 13,2018,the U.S.,the United Kingdom and France conducted air strikes on targets in Syria,bypassing the UN Security Council on the grounds that“Syrian government forces have used chemical weapons to kill civilians” without any concrete evidences.This thesis attempts to conduct a critical discourse analysis on the speech of U.S.President Trump about the joint air strike published by the official website of the White House,aiming to reveal the language strategy and ideology contained therein.This thesis takes Fairclough's three-dimensional models as the theoretical framework,Halliday's systemic functional grammar and van Dijk's sociocognitive approach(context models and the overall strategy of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation)as the analytical tools.This thesis analyzes Trump's speech from the following three aspects: at the level of description,the linguistic features of the text are analyzed from four aspects: lexical choice,transitivity,modal auxiliary verbs,personal pronouns;at the level of interpretation,it analyzes the production,distribution and consumption of discourse from two aspects: interpretation of context and interpretation of text;at the level of explanation,how discourse is determined by social structures,and what reproductive effects discourses can have on social structures are explained.Through analysis,the author found that Trump concealed ideology in his political speech through certain language strategies.In the stage of description,the author found that the extensive use of emotive words shaped the negative image of the Assad government and the positive image of the United States.The use of median-value and low-value modal verbs reduced the mandatory color of speech.The extensive use of the plural form of the first person pronoun “we” and “our” brought the American government and the American people closer together.In the stage of interpretation,the author found that context models controlled how discourse participants produce and comprehend discourse.The overall strategy of positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation was implemented at many levels of discourse,constructing a righteous “self” and an evil “other”.In the stage of explanation,the author found that the military action has been met with skepticism and condemnation,and Trump,as a representative of American state power,eagered to seek legitimacy for it.So Trump delivered this political speech.By presenting events selectively,incompletely,and falsely,speech constructed a social reality like this: The Syrian government carried out the attack,and the U.S.military strike against Syria was a punishment and response to countries that have used chemical weapons.This thesis will help arouse the critical awareness of political discourse recipients and enhance their language sensitivity,so as to help them grasp the hidden information in political discourse,understand the truth and resist discourse manipulation.