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Final Assignment of Discourse Analysiss Course

Analyzing States Malinowski at Human Rights First Summit

Tantri Sari Safitry

2236149060

Program Magister Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris

State University of Jakarta

Introduction

When talking about analyzing discourse, the terms are closely related with analyzing text. To make easier in distinguishing them, the most important thing to do is trying to understand their purposes. To study or analyze the text, people will note the overall structure and grasp the meaning of the content to answer the questions. Meanwhile, to study or analyze the discourse, the main point is to determine who is communicating with whom through what medium and for what social purpose (Kazmig, 2011). Moreover, Fairclough (1989: 24) also stated that discourse is a wider term than text because discourse has three dimensions: it is either spoken or written; it is an interaction between people involving processes of producing and interpreting the text; or it is influenced by the situation or environment in which a participant in.

One of the types of discourse analytical research is called Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). It is often applied to analyze political discourse including the public speech, in which the speaker wins favorite response from the audience (Wang, 2010). Wang also stated that the object of CDA is public speech, such as advertisement, newspaper, political propagandas, official documents, laws and regulations and so on. Its aim is to explore the relationships among language, ideology and power.

The purpose of this study is to analyze Tom Malinowskis speech at Human Right First Summit. The first summit was held in Washington DC on December 9th, 2014. While delivering the speech, Tom is an assistant secretary at Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor United State of America. This speech is being the discursive practices as the main data. It will be analyzed to find out its formal features and to explore the relationships among language, ideology and power. Then, it also to find out how the speaker use the power of speeches to persuade the public to accept and support his ideas.

In this study, the author will apply rhetorical strategies which have a goal to recontexualize the meaning of the speech (Pu, 2007). To present the paper, at first the data source will be analyzed using rhetorical strategies from Flowerdew (2002); Ricento (2003) and Wodak et al (1999) cited by Pu (2007) and Critical Discourse Analysis from Van Dijk (1998) as textual analysis tools in order to identify discursive tools that appeared in the Malinowskis speech. The observed rhetorical strategies in Malinowskis speech are parallelism, antithesis and pronouns. The analysis will be presented with the relationship between interaction and the theory in discourse analysis. Then, the evaluation of the aspect of the relationship between discourse analysis and the data analysis will be given along with the implication of the findings. Finally, the conclusion is mentioned at the end of the paper to summarize the findings.

Findings The findings show that Malinowski used parallelism on his speech to construct the listeners understanding and believe that the United States is helping the world to defend human rights. Parallelism is a powerful rhetorical device to convince readers, because it has elements on the sentence that are alike in form as a signal that they are fulfilling the same role expression (Weaver, 1967, p.1888) cited by Pu, 2007). Example is as shown below:

(1) I do want to try to offer some perspective, and to argue that the troubles were struggling to overcome are to some degree a product of historical progress, a flip side of trends that should give us hope about the future. I also want to talk about something we are doing to give the good guys a more powerful weapon in their fight, and to ask your help in doing it.Another example can be found on the extract here:

(2) Citizens are more empowered because nations have established institutions and policies however imperfect -- to enforce these human rights norms. If you flout them, you will be condemned. You may be sanctioned. You may one day even be prosecuted. Citizens are more empowered because they are more connected to each other. Civil society in one country helps civil society in every other country and its not just civil society in the US and Western Europe doing the helping. If you are learning civil resistance to dictatorship, you are probably being taught by a former dissident from Serbia or Georgia. If you are mapping outbreaks of violence in a crisis-torn country, you may well be using software tools invented by activists from Kenya. Citizens are also more empowered because information and ideas can no longer be contained.

The last example of parallelism can be seen on this extract:

(3) And so we will continue our support for civil society wherever it is threatened. We will stand up for imprisoned activists around the world. We will oppose laws that restrict freedom of expression, association and assembly, or that target vulnerable ethnic, religious or sexual minorities. Well employ all the traditional tools in our arsenal, from private and public diplomacy to leveraging our assistance to targeted sanctions. As I mentioned at the start, we will also look for new ways to give the bad guys pause, and the good guys an edge.

Another rhetorical strategies found on the speech is the use of antithesis. According to Aristotle as cited by Fahnestock (2000) defines antithesis as a verbal structure that place contracted or opposed terms in parallel or balanced cola or phrases, and opposites are most knowable and more knowable when put beside each other. The example can be found on here:

(4) These efforts havent solved the problem, but have saved lives.

The last rhetorical strategy is the use of pronouns. On this speech it will be only focused on the use pronoun I and we. From the results, there are some examples regarding with this feature. Personal PronounMelanowskis Speech

I17

We45

From the table, it can identify that the personal pronoun used the most is we. The use of this pronoun is to shorten the distance between the speaker and the audience, regardless of their differences in age, social status and professions (Wang, 2010). It may include both the speaker and listener into the same arena then make the audience feel close to the speaker and his points.

Discussion For the findings, it can be understood that from the first extract, Malinowski uses parallelism to explain his purposes on the speech as the way to make the listeners aware about the issue mentioned because this summit occurred to bring human rights defenders to work together. Parallelism is re-occurrence syntactical and lexical similarities and is employed across or inside sentences or even inside clauses and phrases (Cuddon, 2012). Thats why by using the word repetitive to, he tried to bring the objectives on the speech to address that issue. Parallelism in here is also being as the device for keeping the listeners on track regarding with the equivalent elements in the sentences. It also can help the listeners to interpreter the whole speech.

Furthermore, the second extract tells that Malinowski uses parallelism as constructive strategy in giving the facts that citizens nowadays are more empowered in defending human rights on their life. They are more empowered because the human rights movement has succeeded. They are now free and have a right to speak, associate and worship freely and choose their leaders in free elections. So thats why within this strength, it is now the time to people to more focus in dealing with human rights problems that are still happening.

These bolded parallelism phrases from the third extract can be identified as the way Malinowski tries to make promises of future actions in defending human rights in the whole world (Sarfo and Krampa, 2013), it also to ensure that the United States of America will help other regions to solve their problems of human rights. The most indicator on the extract is the repetitive use of the future tense will. It is being the statement about certain types of actions that will take place in the future. Then, the use of statement on the sentences is applied in order to make more effective in making promise rather than a question. In sum, Malinowskis discursive choice uses to assure listeners that he and his government (US) is determined to take action in fighting and defending human rights and he wants the listeners joining and working together with them.

The next finding is about the use of antithesis in the speech. Antithesis is defined by Cuddon (2012) as the contrasting ideas sharpened by the use of opposite or noticeably different meanings and it creates a transparent, contrasting association between two ideas by connecting or juxtaposing them together , of ten in parallel structure. The word but on the extract four is seen as the contrasting word to emphasized idea of the content in the sentence. It means that the efforts from Americans that they have helped the human rights problem in the Central African Republic even though it havent really solved the problem yet.Lastly, personal pronoun we is identified as the most used in the speech. If the speech is read and listened critically, it will be grasped that in every clause or a sentence, there are some hidden meanings await to be disclosed and signal to be noticed by the audience and readers. In political discourse, the rhetorical strategy in using pronoun we serve to establish a relationship between Malinowski as the politician and the public as the audience and the target of the speech. In above example, the use of we might refer to Malinowski and the audience. Malinowski tried to shorten the distance so that they feel they are including the one who can help in defending and fighting the human rights. Simply put, Malinowski speaks on behalf of the citizen who also have responsibility on this matter. Conclusion

According to the teory of rethorical strategis, we can summarize the features of Malinowskis speech as follow. First, he used pointers to make the listeners easily comprehend the correct order of the speech. For example, he used that when explaining his perspectives and propositions. Moreover, his language is quite easy to be understood. He used some examples and analogies before going to the main point of the speech. Therefore, it makes the listeners have the same background knowlegde of the issue. Second, pararellism is used on the speech, it can be seen as the constructive stragegy in making a promise towards the listeners. Malinowski, as the assistant secretary bureau of democracy and human right in the United States, tried to bring the human right defenders such as: U.S. policymakers, military leaders, and business leaders, and Members of Congress to address some of the most pressing issues and identify pragmatic opportunities for American leadership to advance human rights. The United State government promised to help in defending and fighting the human rights problems all over the world. Moreover, they also focuses not just on what human rights outcomes should be, but puts forward real-life actions on how to achieve them. Furthermore, this speech also uses antithesis in order to emphasized the idea that the efforts that have been done by the US government have created some effects in saving the lives of people even though it havent solved the problem at all. The last features found on this speech is the use of first person pronoun we. Within this, he successfully shortened the distance between him and the audience. So it can help him persuade the public to accept and support his ideas. Therefore, by seeing the result of this study, it makes people understand that language can be a powerful tool that can shape and influenced peoples mind because they communicate through it. Speech is being media that can potray a great impact on the listeners. Then, this study, as being analyzed by using Critical Discourse Analysis, can also explore the relationships among language, ideology and power. It provides a new idea and method to analyze public addresses. So, it is worth for us to pay more attention in analysing it. References

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