An analysis of President Barack Obama’s speech at President Nelson Mandela’s memorial, from critical discourse analysis perspectives

• Main Author: Nguyễn, Diệu Hằng
• Other Authors: Nguyễn, Hòa
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: ĐHNN 2017
• Subjects: Phân tích diễn ngôn phê phán; Tổng thống Obama
• Online Access: http://repository.vnu.edu.vn/handle/VNU_123/41118
• Institution: Vietnam National University, Hanoi

This study presents an attempt to apply a critical discourse analysis perspective to investigating a political speech addressed by President Barack Obama on the occasion of the Nelson Mandela’s memorial on December 10 th , 2013. Based on a brief overview of critical discourse analysis introduced by Norman Fairclough, the study follows a framework with three parts: Description, Interpretation and Explanation. It focuses on the analysis of language features (lexical ones and grammatical ones), the relationship between situational and intertextual context, and the discourse process and social process. Data for the research, thanks to which the objectives are achieved, are collected from the research. The findings show that the author employs linguistic features as the strategies to represent his power and ideology. The ideology of freedom, democracy and tolerance does not only belong to Nelson Mandela, but to Barack Obama as well. That is the way Obama hopes to exert his power and gain support from people around the world. The analysis also proves that critical discourse analysis is the smartest choice for those whose concern is about political discourse, especially political speech.