Critical Discourse Analysis for Obama's 2012 cictory speech Essay

Critical Discourse Analysis for Obama's 2012 cictory speech - Essay Example It may also result in oppression of groups based upon gender (Clegg, 1975). Van Dijk (2006) also states that much of what goes into discourse is an attempt to manipulate the audience. Therefore, the central crux of the CDA is how words and discourse is used to control different groups. They must work to change the minds of others, so that these groups’ minds and thoughts are more in line with the groups in power (van Dijk, 2003). van Dijk (2006) looks at the context of speech, as well as examine the discrete parts of the speech for a linguistic analysis, including grammar, style, pragmatism, etc. Included are examinations of sociopolitical contexts, as well as look at how a speech is used to manipulate other groups (Furnham, 1981). Van Dijk (1995) is also interested in how discourses advance ideology. According to van Dijk (1995), ideologies are cognitive, social, sociocognitive, are not true or false, have varying degrees of complexity, have variable maifestations, and are ge neral or abstract. By stating that ideologies are cognitive, van Dijk (1995) states that ideologies are individualistic, which means that the individual has a system of ideas, thoughts, beliefs, judgments and values. An analysis of discourse Van Dijk (1978) further breaks down how discourse should be analysed. He states that there are semantic structures that can be examined to indicate how the speech is being used, and what the goal is, the ideology, and so forth. Speech may be analysed in this way at the microstructure level, or the macrostructure level. The microstructure level is the level that analyses the local level of discourse – the structure of the individual propositions and the relations. The macrostructure is the level that analyses the more global nature of the speech - the discourse itself would fit into a theme, so that the discourse may be seen as a part of a meaningful whole(Clark, 1977). Van Dijk (1978) states that a coherent text base is made up of proposi tions. The proposition is a concept and an argument. The argument may fulfill different functions, such as agent, object and goal of the speech. The text bases must be coherent. One type of coherence is the referential coherence. This is coherence between two propositions that share the same argument, or maybe referentially coherent because one argument is embedded with another argument. There needs to be some kind of argument overlap between all the concepts of the text, for the text to be further processed. If there are gaps, then inference processes may close them – in other words, not everything has to be said. Some things can be inferred. If there are gaps, then one or more propositions must be added to the base of the text, in order for it to achieve coherence. The other concept advanced by van Dijk (1978) is that of the processing cycle. The human memory can only digest speeches and discourse in chunks of information. Therefore, the chunks must all fit together. The ch unks are several propositions. Each of the chunks should link with the other ones that were processed. The chunks are stored in the memory, and only those which are stored in the memory can be used to connect other chunks of information. As long as there is some kind of overlap between the chunks of information, then the text will be interpreted as coherent by the listener. If the proposition shares an argument with another

Reunification Issues of Central American Immigrants Essay

Reunification Issues of Central American Immigrants - Essay Example Yet, in today's age of information and knowledge, it may be seen that it has become more important than ever to keep an eye on including literature that pertains directly to the analysis and findings of the subject at hand. This is where a review of the literature comes in as it helps the researcher look at the use of literature gathered in a critical manner. According to Cooper (Davies et al, 2003) "a literature review uses as its database reports of primary or original scholarship, and does not report new primary scholarship itself. The primary reports used in the literature may be verbal, but in the vast majority of cases reports are written documents. The types of scholarship may be empirical, theoretical, critical/analytic, or methodological in nature. Second a literature review seeks to describe, summarize, evaluate, clarify and/or integrate the content of primary reports". These principles as laid down by Cooper have been followed in ensuring that the literature used within this dissertation has been reviewed carefully in order to omit irrelevant pieces of work and include only those that are relevant to the topic. (Davies et al, 2003) This paper thus summarises the various works that have been used in terms of various sub topics and sections within the dissertation. In doing so, there is a close connection with the methodology and basic statement of the dissertation. The principles borrowed from the works of the scholars that have been used in this dissertation correspond directly with the statement of this paper. As a nation, the United States of America has paid a heavy price for attaining civilization. This seems to be the basic premise upon which author T.H Breen has built the ideologies that shapes the nation, in his book titled, The Power of Words - Documents in American History. This book is based on an important aspect of American history which starts just as the civil war ended in 1860. History is still often seen as the presentation of facts from the past, so that learning involves the mere memorization of the facts. What makes history so interesting and stimulating, however, are the debates that emerge over the facts. From an early stage, the middle passage inspired moral outrage among those opposed to the slave trade, who often treated it as the most horrific part of the whole slave experience. Recently some scholars have argued that such moral outrage has led to a "melodramatic" rather than a "historical" account of the middle passage. I have tried to present an argument that we n eed a more balanced and less moralistic account of the middle passage from the perspective of the changing values and challenges thrown up by industrialization. (Breen T. H; 1997) This points to the disintegration of the traditional family system in keeping with the emergence of the new, immigrant family within Central America where working towards making a new identity is what counts the most in terms of reunification issues and issues pertaining to separation during migration of entire families. Another important piece of literature in this regard is by Coutin (2005) who believes that violence against children is the most common root of