A critical discourse analysis of Michelle Obama's send forth speech
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Date
2025
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International Journal of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
Abstract
Language is a pivotal instrument in political speeches. This study critically explores how Michelle Obama used interactional control, including wording. connectives, and argumentation (cohesion-lexical and grammatical-modality, word meaning, and metaphor) to communicate in her "Send Forth"speech. The study adopted Norman Fairclough (2001) Critical Discourse Analysis as its theoretical foundation. Findings showed that elements of critical discourse analysis, such as anecdote, deixis, name-calling, the reader, and honorific terms, were used to reveal the social relationship of the writer/speaker to their thoughts or subject matters and their readers/listeners. The findings also indicated that ideologies influence the structure of language, as every choice a writer/speaker makes is strategic. Finally, the elements of analysis stipulated by Fairclough and adapted in this study revealed that all texts are strikingly similar in their ideological representations. The writer/speaker used modality and metaphor to reveal her opinion about certain issues and the persons with whom she had worked.
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Babagogata, A. H. (2025). A critical discourse analysis of Michelle Obama's send forth speech. International Journal of Foreign Languages and Literatures, 2(2), 408-430.