A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Obama's Weekly Addresses On The Recovery Plan

Critical Linguistics (CL) was proposed by British linguists Roger Fowler and Gunther Kress, etc. in the late 1970s. Following that Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) came into being and was full-fledged both theoretically and methodologically up to 1980s. CDA originated from Frankfurt School's critical theory, and is based mainly on Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG). It aims to uncover the relations between language, power and ideology in political and media discourses. Within CL, language is regarded as a kind of social practice and an intervening force. It not only reflects society but also directly gets involved in social processes and contributes to their production. The present thesis analyzes Obama's three weekly addresses on the recovery plan so as to reveal the relation between language, power and ideology.Based on Fairclough's three-dimensional model for CDA, the present study proposes a framework by integrating Halliday's SFG and Matin and Rose's Appraisal Theory to understand and analyze the political address. The reason for integrating them is that the Appraisal Theory, which gives preference to evaluation achieved through lexis rather than clause rank grammar, extends Halliday's model of the realization of interpersonal meaning. This integration enhances the systematicness of the study. In the first stage of description, the author uses Halliday's SFG and Matin and Rose's Appraisal Theory to describe the linguistic features of the address in terms of three metafunctions. Then in the second phrase of interpretation, the author explores how these linguistic features are produced and presented. Finally, in the third stage of explanation, the author attempts to examine the social context of the discourse in order to explain why Obama delivers the series of addresses as well as the power relation in discourse.According to the analysis, it is clear that the linguistic features, such as lexical classification, transitivity, transformation, modality, thematic choice and so on, are determined by the functions of language, the power relation as well as language producer's ideology. Obama, representing the supreme authority, tries to convince the audience and seek support for the recovery plan, thus pressuring the Congress into passing the plan as soon as possible.The analysis of Obama's addresses shows that Fairclough's three-dimensional model, Halliday's SFG and Matin and Rose's Appraisal Theory are applicable in CDA from a different perspective of discourse analysis. Besides, it also contributes to cultivating people's critical awareness and fostering their ability of critical reading.