International Journal of Linguistics and Translation Studies Volume 1, Issue 1, 2020 Homepage http://ijlts.org/index.php/ijlts/index
A Critical Discourse Analysis of Donald Trump’s Inaugural Address in 2017 Ameer Ali University of Sindh, Pakistan ameer7037@gmail.com
Mohammad Ibrahim University of Sindh, Pakistan ibrahimsoomrogic@gmail.com
ARTICLE HISTORY Received: 01/02/2020 Accepted: 20/04/2020
KEYWORDS Discourse, Power, Relations, Historical
Abstract The current research work is a critical discourse analysis of Donald Trump's Inaugural Address (2017). The researcher has made use of Ruth Wodak’s Discourse Historical Model (2004) to study the inaugural address. Moreover, the current research work is qualitative in its approach and analysis, as it answers the research questions in accordance with Ruth Wodak’s Discourse Historical Model (2004). Furthermore, research design used in this research is both descriptive and explanatory; and, it also contains purposive sampling as a data collection method. Although much CDA research has been already carried out on Trump’s speeches, the current research studies Trump’s speech in the context of history and power using Ruth Wodak’s Discourse Historical Model (2004). The researcher has focused lexical and syntactic items in Trump’s speech. Besides, the researcher has found out that power relations, historical norms, ideological constraints, and American values have played a significant role in the discursive construction of Trump’s Inaugural address (2017). Finally, the current research convincingly achieves its objectives and answers its questions.
1. INTRODUCTION The roots of Critical Discourse Analysis lie in many fields of study: Philosophy, Rhetoric, Text Linguistics, Anthropology, Socio-Psychology, Cognitive Science, Pragmatics, Applied Linguistics, as well as Sociolinguistics (Wodak and Meyer, 2008). This field is also famously known as Critical Discourse Studies (Wodak and Meyer, 2008). Moreover, the field actually emerged in 1960s (Van Dijk, 2007). Its ability to draw upon the diversity of its manifold roots, in fact, renders it to adopt a problem-oriented, interdisciplinary approach to study a phenomenon in its context. Besides, the emergence of Critical Discourse Analysis, as an interdisciplinary field during 1960s, brought significant changes in the field of Linguistics. Furthermore, the broader approach of Critical Discourse Analysis has also enhanced the scope of Linguistics; speaking precisely, Critical Discourse Analysis or Critical Discourse Studies really extends the study of language structure to the social, historical, political, cultural, religious, and ideological investigation of the language in a specific context. In a nutshell, Critical Discourse Analysis approaches a written or a spoken text by taking into systematic consideration the role of power relations in the restrained production of language. About the origins of Critical Discourse Analysis, there is another commonly held opinion that maintains that the field actually came into being in the University of Amsterdam International Journal of Linguistics and Translation Studies
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