The Implied Power through the Use of Personal Pronouns in Obama’s Speeches: Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This is a qualitative study with descriptive data presentation. It is aimed at investigating the tendency of abuse of power in exploiting personal pronouns of Obama’s political speeches.The employed grand theory in this study is social cognition theory introduced by Teun, A. Vandijk. There are three aspects that need to be empowered: textual, social cognition and social context in disclosing the implied meanings of the use of personal pronouns in Obama’s political speeches.The data of this study were gathered by means of speech transcript collections of Obama’s speeches: 2010, 2011 and 2014 concerning terrorism issues. These transcripts obtained from online media which had been spread worldwide. The objective of this study is to describe which personal pronouns frequently exploited by Obama in his political speeches and discover the hidden meanings of the adopted personal pronouns.The findings demonstrate that: (1) Obama, tends to use personal pronouns ‘we' and ‘our', (2) Obama seems to have been selective in exploiting personal pronouns by referring to both certain contexts and situations before and after the speech was delivered, (3) The features of Obama's speeches are rhetorical, persuasive and manipulative. In terms of cognition and social context, these speeches indicate that intelligence, personal and social experiences do influence towards the emergence of a discourse. The implicitly conditioned and engineered dominance and hegemony are not considered as a force or coercion. Rather, it is thought as a common and justified when being exposed frequently.

The different uses of the pronoun ‘we’ by EFL teachers in classroom interaction

“…In this case, instead of using the pronoun 'I' to imply somebody's power, the pronoun 'we' could help minimize the threat and gap between the superior and the inferior. This is in accordance with a critical discourse analysis conducted by Dahnilsyah (2017), who interpreted that using the pronoun' we" is part of the strategy to use power to gain a positive image and reduce tension and pressure.…”

Cinsiyet ve İngilizceyi ikinci ve yabancı dil olarak öğrenen öğrenciler tarafından İngilizce kişi zamirlerinin kullanımı arasındaki ilişkinin bir analizi

“…He used 'I' to express his gratitude, 'you' to form a close relationship with his supporters, 'we' (inclusive) to express that he and his supporters share a common purpose, and 'we' (exclusive) to refer to himself and his government. Later work carried out by Dahnilsyah (2017) gave similar results. Adopting a Critical Discourse Analysis approach, Dahnilsyah examined the political speeches that Barack Obama gave in 2010, 2011, and 2014.…”

The Power of Ukraine’s President: Personal Pronouns on Zelensky’s Speech

“…Furthermore, when he mentioned Czech, he used you to allude to a specific group. This was related to (Dahnilsyah, 2017) who stated that its role was to create a bond between the speaker and the audience.…”

“…In the course of the engagement process, people with greater status tend to dominate and become engaged. People of lower status, on the other hand, come across as passive listeners (Dahnilsyah, 2017).…”