TITLE:
Critical Discourse Analysis of the President Barack Obama’ Victory Speech
AUTHORS:
Sumaya Alweldi
KEYWORDS:
Critical Discourse Analysis, Political Discourse Analysis, Barack Obama, Speech Victory, Semantic Macrostructures, Local Semantics
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.11 No.4,
April
23,
2024
ABSTRACT: Using the language to achieve social or political goals is a skill that is needed for any president to have the power of words to win the election war, and the people’s hearts and voices. Barack Obama was the president of the United States of America from 2008 to 2017 and he used the language in a great way when he spoke to the audience. This study focused on one of Barack Obama’s speeches as data, which is his victory speech, and has two aims; the first one is whether Barack Obama gave the audience what they wanted to hear; the second one is, was the language used in the social context to make it serve the political goals? The researcher used Fair Clough’s three-dimensional model, both of the macro analysis (semantic macrostructures) and microanalysis (local semantics) were used, the researcher only used the repetition strategy from the local semantics strategies. The findings of this study revealed that the language was used in the social and political context, to support the speaker’s plans for the future, and the goals that he wanted the audience to believe in them. It also showed that Barack Obama gives priority to the audience’s needs.