Critical Discourse Analysis On Ideology And Linguistic Features:2012U.S. First Presidential Debate

This thesis is to analyze the2012U.S. Presidential debate by usingthe critical discourse analysis and ideology method focusing on thelinguistic features. Because the United States is a country with two majorparties—the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, and both ofthem have equal chance to be the governing party of the country, so thatthe debate is a significant procedure for the presidential election. Theanalysis of this kind of political discourse focusing on linguistic ideologyand language features can help people to better “read” the debate for whatthe candidates are talking about and why do they organize their debatelike it appears, which can be the first-hand material to guide Americanpeople for their votes and will also be very useful data for futureresearches.Critical discourse analysis, originated from Lancaster school oflinguistics, is a way to take the ideological core structures of discourse toseparate pieces which can be viewed as “communicative, acceptable andnatural features of discourse” at linguistic height (Fairclough,1989). TheCDA can be united by its critical focus on the ways in which knowledgeand social practices are combined and compared to have a general sense.The CDA approach is associated with Halliday’s Systematic FunctionalLinguistics due to its solid analytical foundation which focuses on thepoint that language shapes and is shaped by society (Fairclough,2001). A very important point concerning CDA is that it gives a considerableaccount for multimodal phenomena. Fairclough (2001) uses histhree-dimensional framework in critical discourse analysis to discuss thediscourse from three dimensions. And the approach successfully help tolocate three different forms of the analysis from three differentperspectives:“the analysis of (spoken or written) language texts, analysisof discourse practice (processes of text production, distribution andconsumption) and analysis of discursive events as instances ofsocio-cultural practice to connect the structure analysis to compare withthe structures in socio-political texts, rather than talk about the specialtyat text structure level”(p.12).Linguistic features include a variety of contents that can be applied todiscuss the language phenomena. As a special and distinguished genreof applied linguistics, public debate or presidential debate’s use oflanguage has its own specific features in many perspectives, such asmorphology, syntax and rhetorical devices which can be analyzed throughthe lexical (Modal verbs) perspective, rhetorical method and syntacticapproach. This article chooses the perspective of lexical to talk about howcandidates make choices of vocabulary to maintain their stance and helporganize their arguments. An ideology is a set of conscious andunconscious ideas that constitute one’s goals, understanding and reactionsto describe a group of widely accepted ideas conveyed and expressed by the society’s dominant class. To talk about ideology in a political debatewill also help pave a way for future analysis to put a debate in a socialsphere for the meaning and influence.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One is the introduction ofthe research background, the rationale, the significance, the researchmethods and question. Chapter Two is a review of the related previousstudies on public debate and critical discourse analysis both at home andabroad. Chapter Three is a detailed presentation on the study’s theoreticalframework, including the review of critical discourse analysis, ideologyand linguistic features. In chapter Four, the focus will be the analysis ofthe data—transcript of the2012U.S. presidential debate. Last but not theleast in chapter Five concludes the findings, limitations of the study andthe suggestions for the future studies.According to the analysis of the data, this study arrives at thefollowing conclusions: first, by applying the CDA method, the transcriptof presidential debate can be viewed from a social perspective to discussthe relationship among “what to debate—how to debate—why to debate”;Second, by taking two candidates social status into consideration, as thecurrent president, Obama has the experience to gain the advantage frommaking policy and gaining reliability from people, which can be provedfrom his debating language; third, in terms of ideology, two candidatesput their plans closely related to the social reality, and set up an argument as a representative of the majority’s benefits; last but not the least, byskillfully using many modal verbs, both two candidates showed theirample confidence in debate, and convey their willingness and care to theirpeople, which can be regarded as preparation for votes from the public.