THE UNIVERSITY OF DANANG UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES NGUYEN THI THANH THANH PERSUASIVE STRATEGIES IN ENGLISH POLITICAL SPEECHES FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS DOCTORAL THESIS IN SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES DANANG - 2023 THE UNIVERSITY OF DANANG UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES NGUYEN THI THANH THANH PERSUASIVE STRATEGIES IN ENGLISH POLITICAL SPEECHES FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS Major: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS Code: 9220201 DOCTORAL THESIS IN SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES DANANG - 2023 i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the dissertation This dissertation has not been submitted for the award of any degree of diploma in any other tertiary institution Da Nang, June, 2023 ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I am greatly indebted to my supervisors for their continuous support and conscientious supervision I wish to express my deep gratitude to Dr Ngũ Thiện Hùng and Dr Lê Thị Giao Chi for their kindness of giving me useful feedback, constant encouragement to help me to conquer every demanding stage of the doctoral research Thus, my supervisors fire up my confidence, determination in accomplishing the thesis I owe my sincere thanks to Assoc Prof Dr Phan Văn Hòa, Assoc Prof Dr Trần Hữu Phúc, Assoc Prof Dr Nguyễn Thị Quỳnh Hoa, Assoc Prof Dr Lưu Quý Khương, Assoc.Prof Dr Trần Văn Phước, Assoc Prof Dr Nguyễn Tất Thắng, Assoc Prof Dr Nguyễn Quang Ngoạn, Dr Võ Thị Kim Anh, and Dr Huỳnh Ngọc Mai Kha for their precious comments and encouragement throughout my process of writing the paper I would like to thank the Department of Academic Affairs, University of Foreign Language Studies for their support and facilitation with the paperwork pertaining to this doctoral thesis Last but not least, I am very grateful to my family: my parents, my brother and sister-in law, my three children and my husband Especially, this dissertation could not have been completed without the immense support of my husband, who has always been encouraging me to achieve dissertation goals iii ABSTRACT Politics is a process of seeking group decisions by the distribution of power and resources in order to put certain political, economic and social ideas into practice (Bayram, 2010) It is hardly imagined that almost every political action is prepared, accompanied, influenced and accomplished without the utilization of persuasive strategies The study on Persuasive Strategies in English Political Speeches from the Perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis attempts to build up a comprehensive picture of persuasion strategies in political discourse, especially contrasting political stands of the two presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump during their 2016 Presidential campaign Methodologically, the study was designed as a descriptive comparative study using qualitative method since the collected data was targeted to yield information about the syntactic linguistic units in the form of sentences, phrases, clauses and words These were classified into their syntactic categories along with their semantic functions, adopting Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) model (1995, 2010), Halliday’s Textual Analysis in Systemic Functional Grammar (2004, 2014) as the grounding theories, assisted by rhetoric theory by Aristotle (1984) to unearth the persuasive strategies employed by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in their presidential election speeches Accordingly, thanks to the contrastive analysis of the persuasive strategies and the metafunctions utilized by the two politicians in 35 speeches, the thesis discovered that both politicians presented their different political stands and ideologies over various issues Although Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump deeply reflected their tremendous love, patriotism and loyalty for their nation through their presidential election speeches, they mostly showed their disagreement on quite a large number of aspects manifested in six conflicting ideologies The current situation of the American society was, therefore, also concurrently portrayed through the thesis findings The dissertation, as briefly described above, is hoped to entail significant contribution to research on both language and discourse concerning persuasive strategies iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Adm : Admiration Aff : Affect App : Appreciation An : Anger Cal : Calmness CDA : Critical Discourse Analysis Conf : Confidence En : Envy Enth : Enthymeme E.g : Example Fe : Fear Fr : Friendship Gw : Goodwill Ha : Hatred Jud : Judgment PIn : Perceived intelligence SFG : Systemic Functional Grammar VCh : Virtuous character v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Fairclough’s framework for analyzing a communicative event .13 Figure 2.2 Applying Fairclough (1995, 2010)’s three-layered model to the research 17 Figure 2.3 Main structure of the appraisal framework, adapted from Martin and White (2005) 22 Figure 2.4 The sub-systems of Attitude Appraisal Martin and Rose (2007) 22 Figure 2.5 Features of persuasion (Simon, 2001) 28 Figure 2.6 Theoretical Framework of the Thesis 40 Figure 2.7 Conceptual Framework of the Thesis 41 Figure 3.1 A snapshot of Research Randomizer Software 48 Figure 4.1 Ideational function in Hillary Clinton’s Ethos 73 Figure 4.2 Analysis of material process in Hillary Clinton’s Ethos .73 Figure 4.3 Analysis of material process in Hillary Clinton’s Ethos .74 Figure 4.4 Analysis of mental process in Hillary Clinton’s Ethos 75 Figure 4.5 Analysis of mental process in Hillary Clinton’s Ethos 76 Figure 4.6 Analysis of relational process in Hillary Clinton’s Ethos 76 Figure 4.7 Topical theme of behavior in Hillary Clinton’s Ethos 77 Figure 4.8 Topical theme of circumstance in Hillary Clinton’s Ethos 78 Figure 4.9 Topical theme of time in Hillary Clinton’s Ethos 78 Figure 4.10 Interpersonal theme - Vocatives in Hillary Clinton’s Ethos 80 Figure 4.11 Ideational function in Hillary Clinton’s Logos .91 Figure 4.12 Analysis of material process in Hillary Clinton’s Logos 92 Figure 4.13 Analysis of material process in Hillary Clinton’s Logos 92 Figure 4.14 Analysis of mental process in Clinton’s Logos 93 Figure 4.15 Analysis of relational process in Clinton’s Logos .94 Figure 4.16 Interpersonal theme – Finite 95 Figure 4.17 Interpersonal theme – Mood adjuncts in Hillary Clinton’s Logos .96 Figure 4.18 Vocatives in Hillary Clinton’s Logos 97 Figure 4.19 Ideational function in Hillary Clinton’s Pathos 113 vi Figure 4.20 Analysis of material process in Hillary Clinton’s Pathos 113 Figure 4.21 Analysis of mental process in Hillary Clinton’s Pathos 114 Figure 4.22 Analysis of relational process in Hillary Clinton’s Pathos 115 Figure 4.23 Topical theme of behavior in Hillary Clinton’s Pathos 116 Figure 4.24 Topical theme of circumstance in Hillary Clinton’s Pathos 116 Figure 4.25 Topical theme of time in Hillary Clinton’s Pathos 117 Figure 4.26 Vocatives in Hillary Clinton’s Pathos .118 Figure 5.1 Ideational Function in Donald Trump’s Ethos 137 Figure 5.2 Analysis of material process in Donald Trump’s Ethos 138 Figure 5.3 Analysis of material process in Donald Trump’s Ethos 138 Figure 5.4 Analysis of mental process in Donald Trump’s Ethos .139 Figure 5.5 Analysis of relational process in Donald Trump’s Ethos 140 Figure 5.6 Topical theme of behavior in Donald Trump’s Ethos 141 Figure 5.7 Topical theme of circumstance in Donald Trump’s Ethos .142 Figure 5.8 Topical theme of time in Donald Trump’s Ethos 143 Figure 5.9 Interpersonal theme - Vocatives in Donald Trump’s Ethos 144 Figure 5.10 Ideational function in Donald Trump’s Logos 162 Figure 5.11 Analysis of material processes in Donald Trump’s Logos 163 Figure 5.12 Analysis of mental process in Donald Trump’s Logos 163 Figure 5.13 Analysis of mental process in Donald Trump’s Logos 163 Figure 5.14 Analysis of relational process in Donald Trump’s Logos .164 Figure 5.15 Analysis of relational process in Donald Trump’s Logos .164 Figure 5.16 Topical theme of circumstance in Donald Trump’s Logos 165 Figure 5.17 Topical theme of time in Donald Trump’s Logos .166 Figure 5.18 Ideational function in Donald Trump’s Pathos 186 Figure 5.19 Analysis of material process in Donald Trump’s Pathos .186 Figure 5.20 Analysis of mental process in Donald Trump’s Pathos 187 Figure 5.21 Analysis of mental process in Donald Trump’s Pathos 187 Figure 5.22 Analysis of mental process in Donald Trump’s Pathos 188 Figure 5.23 Analysis of mental process in Donald Trump’s Pathos 189 vii Figure 5.24 Topical theme of circumstance in Donald Trump’s Pathos 189 Figure 5.25 Topical theme of time in Donald Trump’s Pathos 191 Figure 6.1 Ethos’s features in Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s political speeches 194 Figure 6.2 Modality in Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s Ethos 196 Figure 6.3 Ideational function in Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s Ethos 199 Figure 6.4 Topical theme of behavior in Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s Ethos 200 Figure 6.5 Topical theme of time in Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s Ethos 200 Figure 6.6 Topical theme of circumstance in Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump ’s Ethos 201 Figure 6.7 Interpersonal theme - Vocatives in Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s Ethos 201 Figure 6.8 Logos’s features in Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s political speeches 202 Figure 6.9 Modality in Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s Logos .203 Figure 6.10 Ideational function in Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s Logos 206 Figure 6.11 Interpersonal theme – Finite in Hillary Clinton’s Logos .207 Figure 6.12 Interpersonal theme – Finite in Donald Trump’s Logos 207 Figure 6.13 Vocatives in Hillary Clinton’s Logos .208 Figure 6.14 Pathos in Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s political speeches 209 Figure 6.15 Modality in Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s Pathos 210 Figure 6.16 Ideational function in Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s Pathos213 Figure 6.17 Topical theme of circumstance in Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s Pathos 214 Figure 6.18 Topical theme of time in Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s Pathos 215 Figure 6.19 Vocatives in Hillary Clinton’s Pathos .216 Figure 6.20 Voters’ views on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump according to CBS NEWS’s poll 232 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1 Ethos in Hillary Clinton’s political speeches .56 Table 4.2 Modality in Hillary Clinton’s Ethos .59 Table 4.3 Positive Affect in Hillary Clinton’s Ethos 62 Table 4.4 Negative Affect in Hillary Clinton’s Ethos 66 Table 4.5 Judgement in Hillary Clinton’s Ethos 68 Table 4.6 Appreciation in Hillary Clinton’s Ethos .70 Table 4.7 Logos in Hillary Clinton’s political speeches 81 Table 4.8 Modality in Hillary Clinton’s Logos 83 Table 4.9 Positive Affect in Hillary Clinton’s Logos 85 Table 4.10 Negative Affect in Hillary Clinton’s Logos .87 Table 4.11 Judgement in Hillary Clinton’s Logos 89 Table 4.12 Appreciation in Hillary Clinton’s Logos 90 Table 4.13 Pathos in Hillary Clinton’s political speeches 98 Table 4.14 Modality in Hillary Clinton’s Pathos 101 Table 4.15 Positive Affect in Hillary Clinton’s Pathos 102 Table 4.16 Negative Affect in Hillary Clinton’s Pathos 107 Table 4.17 Judgement in Hillary Clinton’s Pathos .109 Table 4.18 Appreciation in Hillary Clinton’s Pathos 111 Table 5.1 Ethos in Donald Trump’s political speeches 120 Table 5.2 Modality in Donald Trump’s Ethos 123 Table 5.3 Positive Affect in Donald Trump’s Ethos 125 Table 5.4 Negative Affect Donald Trump’s Ethos .129 Table 5.5 Judgement in Donald Trump’s Ethos 131 Table 5.6 Appreciation in Donald Trump’s Ethos .134 Table 5.7 Logos in Donald Trump’s political speeches 145 Table 5.8 Distribution of modality in Donald Trump’s Logos .147 Table 5.9 Positive Affect in Donald Trump’s Logos 149 Table 5.10 The summary of negative Affect in Donald Trump’s Logos 152