Critical Discourse Analysis Of "My Dream,Chinese Dream" Speech Competition

After the 18 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,the concept of “Chinese Dream” has attracted increasing academic attention.Scholars have interpreted and studied “Chinese Dream” from different perspectives in different fields.Based upon the theoretical framework of Fairclough's Three-dimensional Model and Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar,this thesis attempts to explore the meaning construction of “Chinese Dream” in terms of textual description,interpretation and explanation,and the hidden ideologies reflected from these speeches using the 30 awarded speeches selected from “My Dream,Chinese Dream” speech competition as the sample texts.In a sense,this thesis would help broaden the perspectives of studying “Chinese Dream” and speech discourses and cultivating a more profound understanding of the concept of “Chinese Dream”.With analytical tools such as lexical choice,transitivity,modality analysis,intertextuality,the major findings are as follows.(1)Transitivity analysis of the sample texts,particularly the analysis of Actors and Goals,reflects some repeatedly focused themes,which cover a variety of aspects closely linked to “Chinese Dream”.1)These themes indicate that “Chinese Dream” is closely related to career success and the scientific and technological development.2)Actors and Goals also highlight people's expectation of the ideal society such as regional development,ecological environment,national union and the establishment of legalistic society.3)“Individual quality-themed” Actors in the selected samples also reflect some desirable qualities that are indispensable to fulfill “Chinese Dream”.These qualities include,among others,passion,kindness,hardworking,persistence,unremitting effort and courage,which are reinforced by the analysis of Goal structure in the clauses.(2)The realization of “Chinese Dream” demands the extensive participation of the ordinary Chinese who fight for their own individual dreams.The close relationship between ordinary people's dream and “Chinese Dream” is reflected by the dominant use of first pronouns “I/we” to create a sense of inclusiveness and empathy.By analyzing intertextuality,in particular,it is found that quotation sources are from ordinary people.And more importantly,the employment of intensive identifying relational processes generalizes that ordinary people's Chinese dream is “Chinese Dream” or everyone's “Chinese Dream”.(3)The meaning of “Chinese Dream”,people's pursuit of ideal happy life,their expectation of an ideal society and the desirable qualities reflected in the sample speeches,are actually shaped by the overall political,economical and sociocultural contexts in China during the years.The pursuit of mere GDP in the past has been replaced,at least partially,by the government's emphasis and promotion of “Happiness Index”,“sustainable development” and “ecological society”.The “revival of traditional Chinese culture” also has had a profound impact on the people's well recognition of qualities that are most desirable in traditional Chinese culture.This analysis of “Chinese Dream”-themed speeches has theoretical and practical significance.This thesis has provided a new angle to the “Chinese Dream”-themed studies to some extent by analyzing the speech discourse from the perspective of critical discourse analysis.The analysis of “Chinese Dream”-themed speeches has,to some degree,broadened the application of critical discourse analysis in meaning construction.This thesis may also provide some insights for university students' understanding and realization of “Chinese Dream” at individual level.