- •Masaryk university brno
- •Content
- •1 Introduction
- •2 Theoretical part
- •2.1 Pragmatics
- •2.1.1 Syntax, semantics and pragmatics
- •2.1.2 Reference, inference, presupposition and entailment
- •2.2. Discourse
- •2.2.1 Discourse Analysis
- •2.2.2 Critical Discourse Analysis
- •2.2.3 The Role of Cohesion
- •2.2.3.1 Discourse, Context and Co-text
- •2.3 The Nature of Discourse and Political Speeches
- •2.3.1 Politics and its Theoretical Bases
- •2.3.2 Features of Political Participation
- •2.3.3 The Features of Spoken Political Speeches and their Gradual Changes
- •2.3.3.1 Changes of the Features of Political Speeches through the Time
- •2.3.3.2 The Influence of Media on Changes in Political Speeches
- •2.3.4 Problems of Analysis of Political Discourse
- •2.3.4.1 Some Features of Analysis of Political Discourse
- •2.3.4.2 Necessary Principles of Analysis of Political Discourse
- •2.3.5 The Presence of Power, Ideology and Persuasion in Political Speeches
- •2.3.5.1 Ideological Argumentation and Persuasion
- •2.3.5.2 Tolerance and Opposition to Persuasive Argumentation
- •2.4 The Position of the us in Contemporary World
- •2.5 Summary
- •3 Practical part
- •3.1 Corpus under Investigation
- •3.2 Scrutiny of all speeches
- •3.2.1 Obama's domestic speeches
- •3.2.1.1 Victory Speech
- •3.2.1.2 Inaugural Speech
- •3.2.1.3 Address to the Congress on February 24, 2009
- •3.2.1.4 State of the Union Address 2010
- •3.2.1.5 State of the Union 2011
- •3.2.2 Obama's Foreign Speeches
- •3.2.2.1 Remarks by President Obama at Strasbourg Town Hall;
- •3.2.2.2 Remarks by President Obama at a New Start Treaty Signing Ceremony and Press Conference
- •3.2.2.3 Remarks at the Meeting with Future Chinese Leaders
- •3.2.2.4 Remarks by President Obama at g20 Press Conference in Toronto,
- •3.2.2.5 Remarks by the President to Parliament in London
- •3.3 Comparison of the speeches
- •3.3.1 Comparison of Obama’s domestic speeches
- •3.3.2 Comparison of Obama`s Foreign Speeches
- •4 Comparison and conclusion
- •5 Bibliography
- •5.1 Primary Sources
- •5.2 Secondary Sources
2.3.4 Problems of Analysis of Political Discourse
So far only general features and qualities of politics and political discourse have been briefly introduced. But the key question remains unanswered till now: how to undertake an analysis of political discourse correctly and with the aim to find out what would be the focus of investigation. It is crucial to remember that apart from an analysis of the wording of discourse the structure of deeper communication must be examined. The key point is not to forget that it is just an exception if all discursive exchanges are clearly understandable from pure communication. And although that politics is conducted through the language which is clearly uttered, the political goals are gained more effectively also through the speech where such acts are not necessarily articulated. And it is here again the discussed problem between what is said and what is implied. During the interpretation of political speeches it is important to choose the right meaning, because the more indirect discursive formation and the more deniable phrases are used by the speaker, the more options are left for the hearer to understand the uttered message and interpret it. Such indirectness causes substantial complexities when analyzing such discourses; however, in order to comprehend the cohesion of discourse formations correctly the indirectness must be taken into consideration (Skillington 503). It is up to the analyst to judge to what extend the situation is obscured by the so-called coloring which aims at presenting the truth in a different way depending on the event and the public for whom the event is devoted to. And it should be remembered that there is always the danger of conscious or unconscious bias. The attitudes tend to be crept in the discourse and it is up to the analyst to pay careful attention to the language vehicles which are used to for these attitudes in order not to be easily fooled (Crystal 191-192).
2.3.4.1 Some Features of Analysis of Political Discourse
This sub-chapter aims at introducing and explaining the basic methods and approaches of political discourse analysis. It is evident that such a task is a hard one and this thesis cannot explain thoroughly all aspects of political discourse analysis. It is thus more accurate to say that the attention is devoted to some of the features of political discourse analysis.
Firstly, the tendency to map political speech is a domain of various disciplines which may be characterized by many studies focusing on different constitutive elements and using a variety of methods. It is, however, necessary to point out here that some of these studies and methods bear little or even no relation to any linguistic theory. For instance, content analysis, the goal of which is to map and count of themes in order to test hypotheses, is the branch of analysis typical for sociology, social psychology, media studies or political science (Handbook of Discourse Analysis 4: 43). As such, it has just little to do with linguistic theory; however, it is related to pragmatics and the tendencies in political speeches.
A different level of power and its representation is one - and for our purpose very important - aspect of political speeches. It is necessary to differentiate between two approaches - the study of the power in discourse and the study of the power behind the discourse. The first approach is characterized by a discourse where relations of power are present; behind the face-to-face spoken discourse and the mass media discourse, this kind of power is exemplified in cross-cultural discourse where its participants belong to different ethnic and social Groupings. The second approach, the power behind the discourse, investigates how orders of discourse - as the dimension of social order of societies with their institutions are themselves influenced by relation of power (Fairclough 43).
Symbolically, in order to depict social change in the most traditional manner it is necessary for discourse to speak a language which should be other than the rhetorical due to the fact that its referential aspect is marked by broader cultural and political significance. Deep analysis would reveal the power relations between competing actors who occupy a common action space (Skillington 496).
It seems that between various types of discourse it is especially the political discourse that posses a pragmatic dimension because it studies the sign system and codes in terms of user relation as the significant focus of investigation. To say it, hopefully, more understandably, the focus is aimed at what language is actually used by different users. Thus, the investigation tries to find out user's consistent semantic and syntactic options in terms of the interactional strategies of individuals, groups and classes. And it is especially this aspect that differentiates the discourse analysis from traditional studies of syntax, semantics, language change, and variation which do not concern with it (Handbook of Discourse Analysis 4: 45).