A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF PRESIDENT OBAMA’S 9/11 MEMORIAL ADDRESS

Abstract

Recently, the world has witnessed the fighting between Russia and Ukraine. For whatever reason, every attack has always caused a great loss for innocent people. Looking back further in the past, we still can’t forget the day when even the most supreme power of the world was attacked on September 11th, 2001, and the United States of America has still carried painful memories. To celebrate this mournful day, Barack Obama - the 44th President of the United States delivered a memorial address which was extremely touching and inspiring. To provide an in-depth understanding of this speech, the study was carried out with the help of the critical discourse analysis (CDA) approach. In the analysis of this political address, the author mainly focused on identifying the power of language by the way of analyzing vocabulary and grammatical features. Then, the macrostructure of the text was examined to help reveal the implications and ideology embedded in the linguistic elements. This discourse could be treated as the message to all Americans particularly and the whole world generally about fighting and peace.