Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Muhammad Munir
Fall 2014
ii
Declaration
I, Muhammad Munir, hereby declare that this research is a result of my research
investigations and findings. The sources of information other than my own have been
acknowledged and a reference list thereof has been appended. This work has not been
previously submitted to any other university for award of any type of academic degree.
Signature..
Date
iii
Certification
This research project has been perused and approved as fulfilling one of the requirements
for the award of M. Phil English degree in the Department of English Language and
Literature, GIFT University, Gujranwala, Punjab, Pakistan. The researcher has submitted
this thesis within the stipulated period.
Date
Project Supervisor
Date
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Dedication
Humbly dedicated to my extremely venerable father and mother
My painstaking mother in law
My more than beloved wife Namrah Munir
Revered brothers: M. Shabbir, Shah Zib, Tanvir Sajjad, Zuber, Asim Ahmad, and Ahmad
My dearer-than-life sister Sidra Siddique
The sweetest, soothing, and comforting angels: Abdullah, Ali, Mahnur, and A. Rahman
&
The divine and miraculous Saif-ur-Rahman Mubarak
The matchless Khaja Khalid Mahmood
The simple Sultan Mahmood
The inspiring Muhammad Ajmal Khan
The selfless Amjad Mehmood
The reliable Shahzad Ahmad
The sincere Humayun Shahzad
All of my religious and academic teachers
Acknowledgements
Having offered gratitude to the Almighty and Durood upon the Holy Prophet (Peace Be
Upon Him) beyond the limits of my calculations, I most venerably acknowledge the
invaluable guidance of my respected supervisor Dr. Muhammad Iqbal Butt without
whose says and scolds this thesis would have gone unborn. I am also heartily obliged and
thankful to my mentors Mr. Muhammad Ajmal Khan, Dr. Mehmood Ahmad Azhar, and
especially Mr. Salman Rafique for bestowing spiritual, moral, and intellectual heed on
me imbued with kindness; they really became source of inspiration for me. It is also to be
acknowledged well-deservedly that Miss Ammara Sabohis sincere cooperation, and
Fatima Salahuddins esteemed assistance greatly facilitated me in this project. I am
obliged to admit the helplessness of my inadequate vocabulary while acknowledging the
concern, caution, and counsel my auspicious wife, neglecting herself, devoted to me in
the way of completing this task; her un-substitutable well-wishing and beatific care have
left me badly in debt to her. All these entities have had me to the destination; I am deeply
and humbly thankful to all of them.
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Abstract
This study concentrates on the selected pieces of Benazir Bhuttos political discourse to
critical discourse analysis (CDA). The researcher has tried to explore the conveyance of a
particular ideology in an environment in which several other socio-political ideologies
compete at once. Besides, the play of various persuasive strategies to indoctrinating the
very ideology has also been analyzed by evaluating: how the political discourse exercises
language to its specific ends, and how an individually power-plugged language attempts
to manage representing general public. This research observed twofold relationship of
power i.e. relation with the powerless, and relation with the (other) powerful. Unlike the
earlier critical discourse analyses, this analysis has investigated the political discourse of
a female political leader when she held the office of the premier of an Islamic country; it
has also touched the pronouncing of power from a female tongue. It is found that power,
through discourse, demonstrates and declares itself in all of its possible dimensions which
remain varying though in its particular range of orbits like language, individual, ideology,
society, control etc.; the practice of power dismisses the so called gender differences of
socio-political nature. This research presents a broader investigation of the selected
political discourse i.e. it has been given an eclectic treatment as far as application of
framework is concerned: the selected data has been analyzed keeping in view the
analytical frameworks and strategies occurred in the works of certain discourse analysts.
However, it is closely inspired by Michael Alexander Kirkwood Hallidays perspectives
and Norman Faircloughs deliberations on hidden meaning, language, ideology, and
power etc. where persuasive strategies have also mattered.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION..................
CERTIFICATION.
DEDICATION..
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS..
ABSTRACT..
TABLE OF CONTENTS..
LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES..
KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS .
CHAPTERS
1
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
1.7
1.8
1.9
1.9.1
1.9.2
1.10
1.10.1
1.10.2
1.11
1.12
1.13
1.14
1.15
1.16
1.17
1.18
1.19
1.20
1.21
1.22
1.23
1.24
1.25
2
2.1
2.2
2.3
INTRODUCTION..
Politics (ideology), Power, and Language..
Evolution of the Expression of Power
Language of Power and Power of Language..
Instrumentalization of Language....
CDA Perspective of Ideology....................
Function of Ideology..
Ideology and Discourse Process.
CDA Perspective of Power................
Discourse and Types of Power...
Power in Discourse.
Power behind Discourse
Discourse and Power.
Discourse Control..
Mind Control.
Discourse as Social Practice .
Difference between Discourse and Text
Power lies in Language or Speaking?..............................
Indispensability of Language.
Inequality and Power: -ful versus -less..
Empowerment through Languages.
Efficacy of Language in Religious and Mythical Texts
Transitivity: Tracing True Trends..
This Study and Its Significance.
Statement of the Problem
Research Questions.
Hypotheses.
Research Objectives
Research Methodology..........
Conclusion..
LITERATURE REVIEW...
Theoretical Background...................................................
What is Discourse?...........................................................
What is Discourse Analysis (DA)?...................................
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v
vi
vii
ix
x
1
3
3
5
6
6
7
8
8
9
9
11
12
13
13
14
15
17
17
18
19
20
21
21
23
24
24
24
25
25
27
27
27
28
viii
2.4
2.5
2.6
2.6.1
2.6.2
2.6.3
2.6.3.1
2.7
2.8
2.9
3
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
4
4.1
4.1.1
4.1.2
4.1.3
4.2
4.3
4.4
5
5.1
5.1.1
5.1.2
5.1.3
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
REFERENCES
APPENDIX I
APPENDIX II
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30
33
34
38
39
42
51
53
58
60
60
62
64
66
67
67
69
75
76
77
115
129
131
131
131
135
150
151
151
152
154
. 160
. 164
. 175
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List of Figures
Figure 1:
Figure 2:
Figure 3:
Figure 4:
Figure 5:
Figure 6
Figure 7:
Figure 8:
Figure 9:
Figure 10:
3
16
19
26
30
31
32
52
60
152
List of Tables
Table 1:
Table 2:
Table 3:
Table 4:
Table 5:
Table 6:
127
130
135
137
141
151
Key to Abbreviations
AIDA
APA
CDA
CL
Critical Linguistics
DA
Discourse Analysis
DSF
DSS
ESP
EU
European Union
ILO
IPDR
IPA
M.A.K Halliday
PML-N
PML-Q
PPP
SFL
UK
United Kingdom
US/USA
USSR
Z.A Bhutto
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTON
Aggregate of humans administrative evolution and experience is politics.
Behind this is a calendar-less process through which, over the civilizations, humanity
has acquired despotism, democracy, and a mix of both of course. Ancient
Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans etc., and lately the Muslims, Westerns, and
Americans etc. - all have contributed to this powerful venture according to their
sagacity, capacity and legacy.
Since politics is altogether concerned with ruling and administrating a
particular group of people or peoples i.e. a nation or subjects in the form of a social
group, it has excelled as purely a social science. The very social spirit of politics has
exposed it to an immense competition of ideologies within the same social group in
addition to others (social groups). There emerges, then, a variety of faces (individuals)
or factions advocating their own agenda, ideology, or, merely a shade of ideology
which they think appropriate for themselves or the people there in given time, space,
and circumstances. This agenda-contest, in turn, necessitates outdoing the other faces
and factions by the one who appears to be the most credible and/or influential. This
race of rule may so naturally be self-oriented i.e. dictatorship in any form, as well as
public-oriented i.e. democracy in any form. In both of the cases, it involves attainment
of power to fulfill the purposes set. It is here the word power becomes a pretty
proper substitute for the word politics. Politics and power become complimentary to
each other. Hence, politics may be defined as an endeavour for attainment,
preservation, organization, and practice of power towards individual and/or collective
end.
As politics and power mainly deal with governing, language i.e. discourse/text
becomes an inseparable dimension of these. It is so because language (specifically
political texts and discourses) appears to be the sole and the most facilitating medium
for the demonstration and practice of political power.
It is well perceived that, after religious texts, only two types of language
influence the men most: one is the artistic language, and the other is the language of
power. Man can be viewed as a political animal as well as a poetical animal. It is,
further, observed that it is the power of language which translates the language of
power.
In order to gather maximum public favour and fervor, the players of power use
different techniques and strategies in their formal speeches and conversations. Their
ideological reflections, expected actions, futuristic connections, and all the other
political tendencies including their persuasive strategies and even ironies and
paradoxes of their persons are wrapped in their diction. Their worlds live in their
words, and only if they could be explored methodologically. Language can, so, be
regarded as form of life and house of being.
In order to interpret, understand, and analyze the production, practice, and
effects of (such politically, ideologically, and) inevitably charged discourses, Critical
Discourse Analysis has offered the best analytical tools ever developed; its analytical
procedure operates in as organized a fashion as shown below in a self-explanatory
figure (1):
struggle and expression. All of them are inseparably operational with one another:
political agenda are unpractical without power; power is dumb without language, and
language is least effective without power. The real instrument in the hands of political
players is not power, but powerful language i.e. language of power. Language of
power does not mean merely authoritative or dictatorial language, but it also involves
powerful play upon words emerged strictly and solely from power-oriented purposes.
These power-oriented purposes may be open and/or secret in ones discourse.
Therefore, politics is the game of power mainly played upon the ground of words. In
addition to many others, these three phenomena (politic, power, and language) mainly
mark the ambit of ambition at higher organizational levels. However, politics remains
to be an umbrella term involving necessarily power and language (of power) within it.
1.2
Providing the king with a good deal of knowledge and action dutifully
An unripe conqueror waged war, generally, upon the weak neighbour(s) for
significant task of the council was to monitor and manage the needs of military
service satisfactorily and the establishment of lordships on behalf of the kings for the
collection of taxes smoothly. Cabinet of modern day is the most developed form of
the same council.
Nature intends a happy life for man, and it is the one led in accordance with
virtue. Political community has, therefore, historically been recommended to arrange
for securing life of virtue in the citizenry.
Today politics is, thence, the theory and practice of influencing other people(s)
on global, civil, and/or individual levels. It, more narrowly, refers to attaining,
holding, and exercising offices of governance i.e. an organized influence over a
human community, mainly a state. What is more, politics is the theory and/or practice
of how to distribute and organize power and resources within a specific social group
as well as between/among groups. Various methods are applied in politics including
promotion of individual political agenda; inter political-parties dialogues, legislation,
and exercising power involving warfare against resisters. Politics is exercised in
almost all the spheres of society, including all the layers of social formations from
clans and tribes to nation-states and, at times, the whole globe even. A political
system, today, refers to a framework of power-entrusting and defining peacefully
acceptable codes and methods of power within a particular society in order to
perpetuate a particular ideological operation by trying continuously avert sociopolitical collisions.
1.3
click the minds first of all are that of influence of one over the other, influence, terror,
suppression, and command and control etc. In this connection, political play i.e.
power, is the key factor behind all the social evils as well as social good at a time.
This renders the phenomenon of power extremely complex, and it comes to involve
the power of language. Power of language refers, at once, to the language which can
serve power as well as which can challenge or sabotage power. Power of language is,
concisely interpreting, language of power. Relation between language and power is
one of the quite complex and ambiguous kind. All types of power ultimately use
language as the most influential tool. Power is vested and manifested in language, and
it is conveyed through it; it commands and dictates through language, and others have
to hear attentively and obey formally when power plays.
1.4
Instrumentalization of language
Power mainly instrumentalizes language for its exercise. This
Function of ideology
Having defined ideology, the question arises that as to, after all, what is the
function of ideology in the life of a particular social group? How does it address their
lives in connection with particular socio-individual ends, and at last owing to what
characteristic(s) does a particular ideology hold its people through life times? Van
Dijk has tried to meet such issues by holding that ideology can fulfill mainly these
functions:
promoting the interests of its members against the other social (ideological)
groups
1.7
and expressed through discourse i.e. discourse is the sole medium with ideology. For
example, when political leaders want to explain, inspire, and legitimate their plan and
actions, they more than often arrange it through (ideological) discourse. It, overtly
and/or covertly, packs their individual ideological inclinations within their
painstakingly designed linguistic frames. Amid such ideological bombardments of
lexis and sentences, the concealed idealism may also remain unreached. Such powerplay of policy, however, lends rather a curious charm to the political discourses when
states meet.
1.8
Van Dijk (1998) has viewed power in relation with control: a particular social
group is in possession of power if it is able to influence and control the minds and acts
(wholly or partially) of another group. This presupposition also hints the group to
arrange the possession of the sources typically scarce in societies like money, force,
fame, status, information, knowledge, and indeed peoples trust and their practical
fellowship.
Discursively speaking, however, in Critical Discourse Analysis power has
referred to the ideological power which could be exercised through discourse, and
through discourse which could influence and control peoples perspectives and
practices, and which has tended to be universal, right and just, and frankly close to
common sense.
1.9
exercise it to coerce the others to getting along with ones agenda, or to win the
others consent and approval by means of persuading them. Fairclough has
discursively categorized power into two types:
power in discourse
1.9.1
Power in discourse
The notion of power in discourse deals with discourse taking it as a circle
where power relations are literally enacted and exercised. Hence, power in discourse
goes pertinent to the situation in which discursive interaction is face to face between
the unequal participants, and where a powerful participant can control, constrain, and
10
11
created and formed by power relations, especially when order of discourse appears to
be connected with institutional order in a given society. That is, power in discourse
refers to discourse as being a sphere in which power is practically/physically
12
exercised and enacted whereas power behind discourse denotes that the discourse is a
stake in the struggle for power; the former deals with discourse of a powerful
participant when it is in possession of power, and the later take into account the
discourse of a powerful participant when it is in the struggle for
possessing/perpetuating power among others with the like intentions.
This notion, however, faces extreme complication when it observes that the
powerful participant who is in possession and practice of power has also, at the same
time, to compete and struggle (for power) in order to maintain his possessed power.
The only contenting idea, as yet, can be that every participant with more or less power
in its possession is bound to play a double role at once: one practicing whatever
amount of power the participant has, and other, struggling (for power) to maintain the
whatever amount of power the participant already has. It, therefore, establishes that
one has to look into/after both of the fronts at once: power in ones discourse, and
power behind ones discourse.
Fairclough has opined that power behind discourse is, in fact, an impact of
power through which certain discourse types come into working generally from the
side of institution(s). He holds that the struggle among communications for the
preservation of the existing power and for importing more power into that has become
the most salient feature of contemporary political discourse.
1.10
their specific discourse type, and the likelihood of their control over others minds
multiplies accordingly. Since actions are solely to be controlled by the minds, having
got control over others minds through their ideologies and opinions, the powerful
13
come to (wholly or partially) control the others actions at last. As peoples minds
typically accept influence from talk and text, discourse can thus control their minds as
well as actions by employing manipulation and various persuasive strategies in
language use. These strategies may be overt as well as covert or both at once.
1.10.1 Discourse control
The idea of discourse control can be comprehended by juxtaposing it with the
idea of discourse access. Both are relative concepts: discourse access is related to
context whereas discourse control relates to the text. Discourse access speaks of
context control whereas discourse control informs of text control: context control
emphasizes the participants control over context-related aspects mainly including
internal and external situation, time-and-space setting, while text control stresses
control over the lexical and structural choices (etc.) of the text via phonetic and other
kinesthetically applicable techniques. The main discourse strategy to control text is
positive self-presentation against the negative other-presentation.
1.10.2 Mind Control
Though mainly contextual yet textual drives are also involved in the
conditions of mind control. In addition to contextual implication, in other words, the
selection of certain lexical choices and forms in discourse can more influence the
peoples minds in according proportion, for example the choice of right words in a
give situation. Here again, the typical practices of persuasive strategies including
manipulation and linguistic spin claim to be vital in mind control. The discursive tools
and techniques of mind control at global level and at local level differ sharply. It is to
say that the health of information to be communicated can discursively be tampered
with by altering discourse structures in ones communication. This, when used by a
14
political leader, can be instrumental to control the discourse of general public; the
more the peoples discourse is controlled, the greater their minds are dictated.
1.11
that language first and foremost is a social phenomena; it takes birth socially (i.e.
from society), it grows socially, and it dies socially (i.e. when a society falls extinct).
It can involve a good deal of socio-linguistic elaborations. The relation between
society and language is cultural and dialectical, and also of a parasitic type. Society
and language share an inevitable and complementary relationship via social agents
(individuals). Since individual is the product of society and since the very society is
married to the very individual in an unbreakable connection, individual carries
linguistic implications (competence and performance) as unquestionably cognitive, if
not innate. It is not, thus, the individual who speaks language, it is the language which
speaks the individual. Text is, therefore, product of the socio-individual collaboration.
Language is first a social phenomenon and then a linguistic one. It is in the
sense, whenever individuals speak, listen, read, and write, they can play on society
and society alone. Society is all pervasive even in non-verbal communication
including interjections and gestures. Society is the totality of individuals knowledge
and information. There is no society outside language and there is no language outside
society; in language is the entire society and in society is the entire language.
Language finds contexts from society and, in turn, gives it text. Both can be
considered as living organisms in their own right. This is how the language becomes a
social practice. Language being a social practice also provides that language is a
social process.
15
1.12
there exist very minute and critical differences between the both. Text is a product
whereas discourse is wider and, say, an all-encompassing process a process of social
interaction between/among social agents. Interestingly, text appears to be rather a part
of this macro process, and interestingly more, the process of text production of which
the text becomes a product is itself a part of that very wider process i.e. discourses.
Besides, the process of interpretation of which the text is a (re)source also falls within
the dimensions of discourse. This can further be comprehended by juxtaposing the
definitions of discourse and text proposed by some renowned linguists, as following:
Discourse (Crystal 1992):
A continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than the
sentence, often constituting a coherent unit, such as a sermon, argument, joke or
narrative. (p. 25).
Text (Crystal 1992):
A piece of naturally occurring spoken, written, or signed discourse identified
for purposes of analysis. It is often a language unit with a definable communicative
function, such as a conversation, a poster. (p. 72).
Discourse (Cook 1989): stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified,
and purposive. (p. 156).
Text (Cook 1989): a stretch of language interpreted formally, without context. (p.
158).
Discourse (Fowler 1986): whole complicated process of linguistic interaction
between people uttering and comprehending texts. (p. 86).
Text (Fowler 1986): unit of communication seen as a coherent syntactic and semantic
structure which can be spoken or written down. (p. 85).
16
Critical
Discourse
Analysis
Social practice
Discourse practice
17
social, psychological, and an abstract data whereas speaking is the act and way of
verbally using this abstract data in social contexts, and it is purely physical behaviour
known as the act of uttering. However, both of the aspects take full part in the
exercise of power.
It is also an ironic fact that there is no concept of power at all especially
display of power through language until it finds some challenge, objection, or
opposition before it on which it could exert it exercise. It is to say that language of
power contains the germs of a sort of counter-power within itself. Thus, most
interestingly, language of power not only speaks power but, at the same time, has full
capability to undermine it. It is a reasonable perception that, other than policies, it is
language which makes and/or breaks the rulers. By analyzing the force of language,
one can see through and unmask the actual power working behind the language and
exercise of power therein. The inherent function of language is simply communication
and not the show of power through it. Demonstration of power through language is,
therefore, a utility purely given to the language. Power, in this way, brings language
into work which is not natural with it; instead, it is entirely plotted and efficacyoriented.
1.14
Indispensability of language
18
that one is in the possession of weapons, money, or other such resources, and the
other is not. It indicates that power is a concept rising from a binary, from between
possessing and missing. This is what ultimately prevails as ones power over the
other. Broadly speaking, the game of power rises out of -ful and -less. Owing to
this very fact, language of power is significantly a presentation of contrast,
competition, and also tussle(s) between two or more agents. Difference is the root,
preference becomes trunk, on this trunk the stands the privileges as branches, and
power is cultivated as fruit; in order to maintain this growth, power remains
corresponding mainly with privilege; this power-projection goes like this (Figure 3):
19
20
discourse. Religious and mythical texts, in spite of being soothing, pleasing, and
aesthetic, have always been considered the highest amounts of awe, wonder, capture
and rapture. These and other such arresting and moving elements are supplied through
the elevated working of an unmatchably fabulous figure who may be God, god(s), or a
(super)man, but who ever appears to be a hero. The momentous magic in the language
of an epic and/or tragedy is the orientation of power which the pivotal figure relates.
The powers provided to a religious/mythical figure are often the ones which are
generally above the human order. Then, whatever pours from the pedestal of power
becomes prominent, powerful, sacred, and sublime. Profound learning and cosmic
comprehension through the elements of warning and fear run as undercurrents
throughout. All this is accorded with the like intensity of diction.
21
1.18
through examining the linguistic choices the discourse offers. A speaker practices
language obeying its social context; his choice of words varies as the purpose of
discourse varies. Hallidays Systematic Functional Grammar (also known as
Systematic Functional Linguistics or SFL) has examined language from the viewpoint
of its functions. Halliday (1994) has gathered:
Language has developed in response to three kinds of social-functional
needs. The first is to be able to construe experience in terms of what is going on
around us and inside us. The second is to interact with the social world by negotiating
social roles and attitudes. The third and final need is to be able to create messages
with which we can package our meanings in terms of what is new or given. (p. 11).
He has discovered three functions (meta-functions) of language i.e. ideational,
interpersonal, and textual. Hallidian type of grammar (SFL) has tried the linguistic
systems and linguistic tools to analysis. For example, (though unequally yet) all the
three linguistic functions - ideational, interpersonal, and textual - have been served to
form the notion know as transitivity. Though transitivity is peculiar to ideational
function yet this notion, as a whole, could create a full-fledged and applicable
framework of discourse investigation known as Transitivity Analysis. As per Sudarto
(2011), Transitivity is the grammar of the clause for construction our experience of a
process, participants directly involved in that process and circumstance. (p. 349)
This analytical framework has further involved various process types namely
material, mental, relational, verbal, behavioural, and existential; it has also raised the
circumstances discursively related to language as well as research in language: detail
thereof has been provided in the following part of this research.
1.19
22
23
2. An in-office ruler
3. Ruler of an ideological nation-state (Pakistan)
4. Conscious not only of orientalism but also occidentalism
5. Herself chairperson of the party
6. Addressing one speech right on the day of her victory: victory is an event on
which voluntarily manipulating the thought and words faces psychological
difficulty against the involuntary stream of naturally overflowing joy,
excitement, and emotions right away; the other speech was addressed on
Pakistans Independence Day which was the day of extreme national
significance.
7. A female, and
8. The first ever elected female head of state in Pakistan and in the entire Muslim
world
It is pertinent to mention here that the seasons and events of political
campaigns and of showing political power and performance have always been marked
with intense competition among various political factions in Pakistan. It is nothing
other than a positive trend overall in which political discourse of almost every
political party appears to be participating as well as contributing.
1.20
the overall interests of which are in debt to the victory of their respective
representatives/leaders. On the other hand, these interests and affiliations have more
often to be compromised in order to import progress and prosperity to the general
masses. Striking is that various political parties practice and proclaim likewise in the
24
same time and space, and amid such situation where everyone claims to be credibly
right, only one particular political party has to and manages to stand out by retaining
or making most of the public believe in it (the particular party). It becomes, however,
problematic to ascertain and measure the credibility and integrity of all the political
players through their discourse in such perplexing situation.
1.21
Research questions
1.22
Hypotheses
1. Political speeches involve some sort of ideology in one way or the other, and
at the same time, they are always power-oriented; hence, a credible ideology is
the real power.
2. The victory of a particular political entity is an evidence of its credibility.
1.23
Research objectives
1. To study the manner in which a political leader pursues and propagates his/her
own and/or shared ideology through the use of language.
25
2. To analyze the formal political discourse of a political leader when she was
unpracticed, and when she got experienced.
3. To evaluate the role of party-politics in achieving specified ends.
4. To investigate whether the political speakers artfully employ persuasive
strategies in order to indoctrinate their selected ideologies or it happens
automatically under genuine impulse.
5. To reach whether their national concerns remain/become really pro-public, or
it remains/becomes merely a manipulative drama.
1.24
Research methodology
Data has been selected from the speeches addressed by Benazir Bhutto at
different occasions of formal import. The source of data was internet. Critical
Discourse Analysis of the selected speeches has been undertaken in the light of the
theories regarding meaning, power, ideology, and persuasion presented by prominent
critical discourse analysts including Halliday and Norman Fairclough. It would be a
qualitative type of research.
1.25
Conclusion
Pondering the power-plugged journey of language from its earliest clues to
this days modern nation-state system, it becomes obvious that the discourse offered
by the powerful and also the power-seeking does not go un-striking in whatever
context and form it is represented, and whether it is symbolic/metaphoric or literal in
use. Inspired by the above narrated usage of language, this research is an attempt to
critically document all the possible dimensions of the selected discourse from CDA
point of view. Therefore, all the critical aspects of discourse analysis have particularly
been entertained. The researcher has, in this regard, also coined a term criticals in
26
order to encompass the related aspects of critical importance in such analyzes. By the
Criticals of Discourse Analysis, he has broadly meant: all the major aspects of
discourse and relationship among them ineluctable while analyzing, as the following
self-explanatory figure (4) has illustrated:
27
CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
It is the well-sifted literature-review portion which provides theoretical and
empirical background as well as foreground to a successful research project. Though
it is altogether a traditional part in each research work, however, the researcher
believes that the individual measures and methods of every new research can render
this portion unique every time. Believing, therefore, in the worth and weightage of
literature-review section, the researcher has tried to reviewing only the inevitably
relevant slices of theory from CDA background in this research.
2.1
Theoretical background
Political campaigns, debates, demonstrations, and parliamentary proceedings
all are the fields of ideological fight. It should not be surprising because, as van Dijk
(2004) observes,
it is eminently here that different and opposed groups, power, struggle and
interests are at stake. In order to be able to compete, political groups need to be
ideologically conscious and organized. (p. 11).
One of the keys behind the political figures reaching their objectives and
winning the general public agreement in this nonstop power-battle is their capacity to
influence and inspire their audience. Teittinen (2000) finds,
The winner is a party whose language, words, terms and symbolic
expressions are dominant once reality and the context have been defined. (p.1).
This is where the need for perusing and perceiving is exceedingly felt in order
to come across to what the truth is and how it is bended through sensitive and
designed usage of language.
2.2
What is discourse?
28
29
and translation studies etc. Each of them is subject to its own assumptions,
methodologies, and dimensions of analysis.
2.4
30
Maturity of CDA
A group of linguists and literary theorists of the University of East Anglia
(Fowler et al., 1979; Kress & Hodge, 1979) developed Critical Linguistics in the late
1970s. Critical Linguistics (CL) was based on Halliday's Systemic Functional
Linguistics (SFL), its aim was "isolating ideology in discourse" and revealing "how
ideology and ideological processes are manifested as systems of linguistic
characteristics and processes." The developing of SFL-based CL's analytical tools
(Fowler et al., 1979; Fowler, 1991) was only for the sake of pursuing this agenda.
CL practitioners, under Hallidian influence, find that language serves these
three functions (also considered as meta-functions): ideational, interpersonal, and
textual. Ideational function, according to Fowler (1991, p. 71), and Fairclough
(1995b, p. 25), refers to the speakers experience of the world and its phenomena; the
interpersonal function involves the addition of speakers own views and attitudes in
the phenomena, along with setting relation between speakers and listeners; textual
function is rather instrumental to the ideational and interpersonal ones because the
speakers can produce comprehensible discourse owing only to the textual fuction.
31
This function is the really operational one because it connects discourse with its
context. These three functions of language can be illustrated in the following figured
manner (Figure 6):
32
33
Recent Advancements
Recently, however, CL and what is now more frequently referred to as CDA
(Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999; van Dijk, 1998a) have further been intermingled as
well as broadened. These recent developments have represented further issues such
as: firstly, CLs interpretation of the role of audiences and discourse appears to be
different from that of the discourse analysis; secondly, the scope of analysis should go
beyond the textual, to the intertextual analysis. Fairclough (1995b), in turn, has taken
up both issues. He informs that the initial work in CL could focus on the "interpretive
practices of audiences", but that remained inadequate. CL has mainly established that,
he traces, the audiences, and the analysts interpret texts the same way. Similarly,
Boyd-Barrett (1994), commenting on Fowler (1991), views that there is "a tendency
towards the classic fallacy of attributing particular 'readings' to readers, or media
'effects,' solely on the basis of textual analysis" (p. 31).
Fairclough (1995b) claims that earlier contributions in CL were of more
grammatical and lexical analysis and less intertextual analysis of texts: "the linguistic
analysis is very much focused upon clauses, with little attention to higher-level
organization properties of whole texts" (p. 28). Fairclough (1995b) further adds,
"mention of these limitations is not meant to minimize the achievement of
critical linguistics--they largely reflect shifts of focus and developments of theory in
the past twenty years or so." (p. 28).
These shifts and developments do not offer a single concentrated
theoretical design to analysis.
34
Today CDA, according to Bell & Garret (1998), "is best viewed as a shared
perspective encompassing a range of approaches rather than as just one school" (p. 7).
Van Dijk (1998a) informs that CDA "is not a specific direction of research" so "it
does not have a unitary theoretical framework." He (1998a) further asserts, "given the
common perspective and the general aims of CDA, we may also find overall
conceptual and theoretical frameworks that are closely related."
The scholars whose reflections have significantly contributed to the growth of
CDA in recent times are mainly van Dijk (1988, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1998b, 1998a),
Wodak (1995, 1996, 1999), and Fairclough (1989, 1992, 1993, 1995a, 1995b, 1999).
2.6.1
the critical evaluations of media discourse, even in the analyses which are not
considerably proper to the CDA circle (e.g. Karim, 2000; Ezewudo, 1998). He, in the
1980s, started applying his discourse analysis design to the media texts which were
specific to representing ethnic and minority communities in Europe. His News
Analysis (1988) incorporates his general theory of discourse to the discourse of pressnews, wherein he applies the same to a variety of news reports at national and
international levels. His stress on analyzing media discourse at not only textual and
structural levels but also at the production and reception or comprehension levels
has distinguished him along with his analysis-framework (1988) from other critical
discourse analysts (Boyd-Barrett, 1994).
Structural analysis means, according to van Dijk, an analysis of "structures at
various levels of description" i.e. grammatical, phonological, morphological and
semantic levels; it also includes the analysis of "higher level properties" like
coherence, collective themes and topics in news stories, involving the whole
35
schematic patterns and rhetorical facets of texts. However, he interestingly asserts that
such an apparently holistic analysis too may be insufficient because discourse is not
something isolated or individual rather it is, at once, shared by and associated with a
range of discourses around it. It is a complex discourse-event with a particular social
context, varying characteristic, participants, and production and reception processes
(van Dijk, 1988, p. 2).
According to van Dijk, "production processes" refers to journalistic and
institutional exercises of news-making and the socio-economic factors involved
therein which become major driving force behind media discourse.
In van Dijk's analysis, "reception processes" of news evaluation includes both
"memorization and reproduction" of news information. Analyzing Dijk's analysis of
media (1988, 1991, 1993), it tries to display the relationships between the three
degrees of the text making of news (structure, production and comprehension
processes), and their relation with the facts that lie within the vast social circle. For
the identification of these relationships, we have two levels of van Dijk's analysis: the
first level is microstructure and second level is macrostructure.
At the microstructure level, analysis deals with the semantic relations between
propositions, syntactic, lexical and other rhetorical facets which are basic to give a
coherent structure in the text, and other rhetorical elements such as quotations, direct
or indirect reporting that add to the authenticity of the news reporting.
According to van Dijk's analysis of news reports, the central analysis is of
macrostructure which involves the thematic/topic structure of the news stories and
their complete schematics. The headlines and lead paragraphs demonstrate themes
and subjects.
36
The headlines, according to van Dijk (1988), "define the overall coherence or
semantic unity of discourse, and also what information readers memorize best from a
news report"(p. 248). He also believes that the cognitive model of the journalists and
their judgments and definitions of news events mostly find their expression in the
headline and the leading paragraph. Though the readers possess different knowledge
and believe yet, while dealing with the important information about a news event,
they will normally use the same subjective media definitions. (p. 248).
Van Dijk (1988) has designed the news schematics ("superstructure schema")
in a typical narrative pattern that can be divided in the following parts: summary
(headline and the lead paragraph), story (situation consisting of episode and
backgrounds), and consequences (final comments and conclusions). These parts of a
news event are arranged in the order of "relevance," according to this arrangement, it
is evident that the summary, the headline and the leading paragraph are the main
ingredients of the general information. According to van Dijk, it is the best for
readers memorization and recollection. (pp. 14-16).
Discourse analysis of van Dijk (1995) is mostly perceived as an ideology
analysis, as he himself writes,
"ideologies are typically, though not exclusively, expressed and reproduced in
discourse and communication, including non-verbal semiotic messages, such as
pictures, photographs and movies." (p. 17).
For analyzing ideologies we find three types of analyses in his works: social
analysis, cognitive analysis, and discourse analysis. (p. 30).
Here the social analysis deals with the examination of the "overall societal
structures," (the context), and the discourse analysis is primarily text based (syntax,
lexicon, local semantics, topics, schematic structures, etc.). Van Dijk's approach has
blended two traditional approaches in media education which are: interpretive (text
37
based) and social tradition (context based), into an analytical one. However, cognitive
analysis is such a distinctive feature of van Dijks approach that it distinguishes his
approach from other approaches in CDA.
According to van Dijk, this approach is the sociocognitioncognition at
personal as well as social levelit creates a link between society and discourse. He
defines social cognition in these words "the system of mental representations and
processes of group members" (p. 18). It shows, for van Dijk, "ideologies are the
overall, abstract mental systems that organize socially shared attitudes" (p. 18).
Ideologies, thus, "indirectly influence the personal cognition of group members" for
understanding the discourse found in other actions and interactions (p. 19). For the
mental representations of various persons during such social actions and interactions,
he has used the term models". He believes, "models control how people act, speak or
write, or how they understand the social practices of others" (p. 2). Similarly
according to van Dijk, mental representations
"are often articulated along Us versus Them dimensions, in which speakers of
one group will generally tend to present themselves or their own group in positive
terms, and other groups in negative terms." (p. 22).
To analyze and display this contrasting dimension of Us versus Them, van
Dijk's has attached central importance to the theme in most of his research work and
writings (1988, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1998a, 1998b). He (1998b) devises a proper
way to analyze ideological dichotomy in the discourse transparently (pp. 61-63), the
said way goes through the following steps:
a. To examine the context of the discourse: historical, political or social
scenario of a conflict and its important participants
b. To evaluate all the concerned groups, power relations and conflicts
c. To identify positive and negative viewpoints of all (Us and Others)
38
d. To make the things explicit in relation to the presupposed and the implied
e. To examine the complete structure: lexical choice and syntactic structure, in
a way which helps to emphasize polarized group opinions
2.6.2
39
contexts of discourse while explaining and interpreting lends this approach difference
as compared to all the other approaches of CDA especially that of van Dijk.
In the discourse historical method approach, (nearing Fairclough) it is
believed that language "manifests social processes and interaction" and "constitutes"
those processes as well (Wodak & Ludwig, 1999, p. 12). According to Wodak &
Ludwig (1999), analyzing language that way entails three things at least. First,
discourse "always involves power and ideologies. No interaction exists where power
relations do not prevail and where values and norms do not have a relevant role" (p.
12). Second,
"discourse is always historical, that is, it is connected synchronically and
diachronically with other communicative events which are happening at the same
time or which have happened before" (p. 12).
This idea is similar to Fairclough's idea of intertextuality. Third part of Wodak's
approach is that of interpretation. According to Wodak & Ludwig (1999), readers and
listeners, differ in their background knowledge and information and their positions
that is why they may interpret the same communicative event differently (p. 13).
Therefore, Wodak & Ludwig (1999) stress:
"THE RIGHT interpretation does not exist; a hermeneutic approach is
necessary. Interpretations can be more or less plausible or adequate, but they cannot
be true" (emphasis in original) (p. 13).
Fairclough (1995b) also agreed to this notion (pp. 15-16).
Another inevitably relevant approach considered to be very significant in CDA
is that of Faircloughs. Over the recent decade, his theory has come to enjoy central
position in CDA.
2.6.3
Faircloughs contribution
In his primary works Fairclough (1989) termed this approach to language and
discourse as the Critical Language Study (p. 5). According to his (1989) viewpoint,
40
the main objective of his approach was "a contribution to the general raising of
consciousness of exploitative social relations, through focusing upon language" (p. 4).
He continued his research work with the same objective and now his approach is one
of the most developed and refined frameworks of CDA (Fairclough, 1992, 1993,
1995a, 1995b; Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 1999).
Here, for analyzing media discourse, attempt has been made to present a
comprehensive note on Fairclough's works in CDA because, in addition to Hallidays,
the researcher has applied Faircloughs reflection also in the course of this research.
For Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999), CDA "brings social science and
linguistics together within a single theoretical and analytical framework, setting up
a dialogue between them"(p. 6). The linguistic theory referred here is the Systematic
Functional Linguistics.
Like many others, Faircloughs analytical framework was also based on
Linguistics (SFL) (Fowler et. al., 1979; Fowler, 1991; Hodge & Kress, 1979).
Fairclough's (1989, 1992, 1995a, 1995b) approach also draws upon many critical
social theorists, such as Foucault (i.e. concept of orders of discourse), Gramsci
(concept of hegemony), Habermas (i.e. concept of colonization of discourses).
Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999) posit that CDA has contributed a lot to make
discursive sense. They believe that, "the past two decades or so have been a period of
profound economic social transformation on a global scale" (p. 30). They perceive the
changes which are due to peculiar actions by people as "part of nature" (p. 4), that is,
changes and transformations are being perceived as natural and not because of
people's general actions. At present, the economic and social changes, according to
Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999), "are to a significant degree . . . transformations in
the language, and discourse" (p. 4). So, CDA contributes by theorizing modifications
41
and creating awareness "of what is, how it has come to be, and what it might become,
on the basis of which people may be able to make and remake their lives" (p. 4). With
this aim in mind, Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999) believe that CDA of a
communicative interaction displays that the semiotic and linguistic features of the
interaction are systematically attached with what is happening in society, and
whatever happens in society is no doubt is happening, one way or the other,
semiotically or linguistically. In other words, CDA charts relationships of
modification between the symbolic and non-symbolic, between discourse and the
non-discursive. (p. 113).
To analyze any communicative event, this approach of CDA involves three
main analytical interactions. These three interactions are text (e.g. a news report),
discourse practice (e.g. the process of production and consumption), and
sociocultural practice (e.g. social and cultural structures which give rise to the
communicative event) (Fairclough, 1995b, p. 57; Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999, p.
113). These are similar to van Dijk's three dimensions of ideology analysis: discourse,
sociocognition, and social analysis [analysis of social structures]. The main difference
between Fairclough's approach and that of van Dijk appears to be in the second
dimension, which mediates between the other two. Whereas van Dijk perceives social
cognition and mental models as conciliating between discourse and the social,
Fairclough (1995b) believes that this task is assumed by discourse practices: text
production and consumption (p. 59). In this case, these two approaches of CDA are
"similar in conception" (Fairclough, 1995b, p. 59).
Hence, ideology operates through text or discourse as a result of the combined
working of certain macro-structural contexts of socio-cultural nature. This wide(st)
texcont (text-context) ambit of ideology can be perused in the following figure (8):
42
Discourse
Context
Text
43
A specific formation of the relationship between writer and reader (as, for
instance, formal or informal, close or distant). (p. 58).
According to Fairclough (1995), linguistic analysis is concerned with
44
"basically the property texts have of being full of snatches of other texts,
which may be explicitly demarcated or merged in, and which the text may assimilate,
contradict, ironically echo, and so forth." (p. 84).
Fairclough (1992) refers to two types of intertextuality: "manifest
intertextuality" and "constitutive intertextuality." (p. 85). Constitutive intertextuality
refers to the heterogeneous formation of texts by which specific other texts are
overtly drawn upon within a text. This kind of intertextuality is marked by explicit
signs such as quotation marks, indicating the presence of other texts. Constitutive
intertextuality, on the other hand, refers to the heterogeneous constitution of texts out
of elements (types of convention) of orders of discourse (interdiscursivity) (p. 104).
This kind of intertextuality manifests the structure of discourse-conventions going
into the production of new text.
Fairclough (1992) gives various examples of these processes of intertextuality.
Like, he analyzed an article published in a British national paper, The Sun. That was
basically a report about an official document about drug trafficking prepared by a
committee of the British House of Commons. He described two main things: (1) there
are linguistic forms that do not clearly express the official document. They are subreports supposed about the issue which are not present in the official document; (p. 2)
(2) there are linguistic and semantic signs which show the relationship between The
Sun and the official document. This is quite obvious that The Sun suggests the same
recommendations as the official document makes to the House of Commons. But at
the same time, The Sun is different because it does not only repeat the official
document as it is, rather rephrases things and expresses them in its own words and
language.
This is performed in two ways: (1) by taking a shift from the formal language
and legal jargon to a conversational vocabulary and spoken language (e.g.
45
46
Among the various aspects and traits of mass media which are considered to
be the centers of attention are: access to the media, economics of the media, politics of
the media, and practices of media text production and consumption.
a) Access to the media: Access to media is one of the most important aspects.
It is an important issue that who has access to mass media and what implications it
bears. The answer to this question has regarded the place of the media in society. As
Fairclough (1995b) believes, there are many individuals and social groups who do not
have an equal access to the mass media in the sense of writing, speaking or
broadcasting. Fairclough argues that this is because
"media output is very much under professional and institutional control, and in
general it is those who already have other forms of economic, political or cultural
power that have the best access to the media" (p. 40).
According to van Dijk (199?), access to discourse is more important than that
of the media because access to discourse is a major (scarce) social resource for
people, and that in general the elites may also be defined in terms of their preferential
access to, if not control over, public discourse. Such control may extend to the
features of the context (time, place, participants), as well as to the various features of
the text (topics, style, and so on). (p. 10)
b) Economy of the media: Another important feature of media is its economics,
because according to Fairclough (1995b), "the economics of an institution is an
important determinant of its practices and its texts" (p. 40). Same is the case with the
mass media. Like other profit making institutions, the media have a product to sell.
Their product is the audience of interest to advertisers (Chomsky, 1989; Fairclough,
1995b). Fairclough views that, as a result, the mass media "are very much open to the
effects of commercial pressures" (p. 42). For the press, for instance, these effects are
also important in identifying what is selected as news and in what ways such news is
47
published (Fowler, 1991, p. 20). This issue of the effects of the economic aspects of
media, particularly its advertising practices, has been the center of much discussion in
critical media studies (Achbar, 1994; Chomsky, 1989; Hackett, 1991; Winter &
Hassanpour, 1994).
Closely related to the issue of advertising is the issue of ownership and more
specifically concentrated ownership of the mass media, which according to many
analysts causes an essential impact on media discourse (Fairclough, 1995b, p. 43;
Chomsky, 1989; Hackett, 1991, p. 65; Winter & Hassanpour, 1994). According to
Fairclough, a few large corporations own most of the commercial media in the West.
For example, according to Winter & Hassanpour (1994), two corporations, [Southam
chain and Thomson corporation-the owner of the Globe & Mail], control 59 per cent
of Canadian daily newspaper circulation, and they are corporations with wide interest
outside the newspaper industry, run by the corporate elite. (p. 15).
The impact of concentration of ownership, Fairclough (1995b) holds,
"manifests itself in various ways, including the manner in which media
organizations are structured to ensure that the dominant voices are those of the
political and social establishment, and in the constraints on access to the media " (p.
43).
c) The politics of media: The politics of media, according to Fairclough (1995b),
should also be considered in media analysis (p. 36). Many theorizers, (Chomsky,
1989; Fairclough, 1995b; Fishman, 1980; Fowler, 1991; Hackett, 1991; van Dijk,
1991, 1993), debate that the commercial mainstream media works ideologically and is
in the service of the powerful, the elite, and the state. Fairclough (1995b) argues that
media discourses "contribute to reproducing social relations of domination and
exploitation" (p. 44). At the same time, he (1995b) observes that sometimes the
interests of the media are in contrast with the state, for example in the case of the
Vietnam War when American television, by showing images of the war changed the
48
public opinion against the war (p. 45). Gowing (1991) and Schorr (1991) also talk
about the impact of television, in 1991, in persuading the Bush administration to
interfere in Northern Iraq to help the Kurdish refugees.
Chomsky, however, believes that periodical criticisms of the state or major
corporations by the media are a part of the doctrine of dominant elite groups to
"aggressively portray themselves as spokesmen for free speech and the general
community interest" (as cited in Achbar, 1994, p. 53). The same critics of the media,
however, admit that the state in the West does not overtly dictate to the mass media.
Now question arises how the media is so powerful?
To explain this, Fairclough and other analysts such as Hackett (1991),
following Gramsci, use the concept of hegemony. Chomsky (1989) and van Dijk
(1998a), similarly point to the media's power of manufacturing consent. According to
Fairclough & Chouliaraki (1999), hegemony in relations of domination is based upon
consent rather than coercion, involving the naturalization of practices and their social
relations as well as relations between practices as matters of common sense; hence,
the concept of hegemony emphasizes the importance of ideology in achieving and
maintaining relations of domination. (p. 24).
The mainstream media, according to Hackett (1991), are "agents of
hegemony" (p. 56). According to Hackett, no power could last forever through
imposing force. As he observes, this is particularly true of democratic countries such
as the U.S. and Canada where the public is mostly literate, has a history of
experiencing the freedom of expression, and has a right to vote (pp. 56-57). In these
countries, the ruling class needs to achieve the public consent through persuasion in
order to maintain its domination, and the mass media is one of the essential elements
49
in manufacturing this consent (Chomsky, 1989; van Dijk, 1998a; Hackett, 1991;
Fowler, 1991).
d) Practices of media text production and consumption: Production and consumption
of media texts are two other important dimensions of media and their institutional
practices. Production involves a set of institutional routines, such as news gathering,
news selection, writing, and editing (Fairclough, 1995b; Fowler, 1991; van Dijk,
1993). Consumption mainly refers to the ways in which readers, in case of the written
text (i.e. the press), read and comprehend text.
Selecting news reports is one of the important practices of text production.
Mass media always have far more material than space; therefore, not all the news
makes it to the newscast (Fowler, 1991, p. 11). This means that there is a process of
selecting news, what to weed out and what to publish. In terms of criteria for such
selections, according to Carruthers (2000, p. 16) and Eaman (1987, p. 51),
newsworthiness is not an inherent characteristic of events and news items. It is rather
determined by the news production and institutional practices. So, according to
Eaman (1987),
"events become news when transformed by the news perspective, and not
because of their objective characteristics . . . news is consciously created to serve the
interest of the ruling class" (p. 51).
As a result, Fowler (1991) holds, "the world of the Press is not the real world",
rather a partial one, which is "skewed and judged" (p.11).
Selection by journalists and the media is also involved in selecting the sources
of information, for example: who is to be interviewed or who is to be quoted or heard
in news. According to Fairclough (1995b), one striking feature of news formation is
the overwhelming reliance of journalists on a tightly limited set of officials and
50
otherwise legal sources which are systematically drawn upon, through a network of
contacts and procedures, and sources of 'facts' and to substantiate other 'facts.' (p. 49)
In contrast to officials, ordinary people, whenever they are used as sources, are
mostly allowed to speak about their personal experience rather than expressing
opinions on an issue (Fairclough, 1995b, p. 49). According to Fairclough (1995b) and
Fowler (1991, p. 22-23), this heavy reliance on officials as sources of information is
tied to the media's dependence on the status quo to keep their ownership, and continue
their profitability.
The consequence of this, according to Fairclough (1995b), is "a predominantly
established view of the world, manifested textually in, for instance, ways in which the
reporting of speech is treated" (p. 49).
Once a news item goes through the production process it becomes ready to be
read and comprehended, in other words, it becomes ready for consumption, but how it
will be consumed has been the center of much discussion, from the viewpoint of the
analysis of media discourse in particular (Boyd- Barrett, 1994; Fairclough, 1995b;
Fowler, 1991; Widdowson, 1998). Discourse analysts naturally make assumptions
about how audiences read and comprehend texts. They even appear to interpret texts
on behalf of the audiences. The issue at stake here is how a discourse analyst knows
how audiences consume media discourse, how and what they comprehend or what
sorts of impacts these reports have. I think it is safe to say that all analysts, including
CDA practitioners, agree that different audiences may interpret texts differently. This,
however, is one of the strongest arguments that critics of CDA have brought forward
against discourse analysts who base their conclusions on their own interpretations,
regarding the impact of media discourse on audiences (Fairclough, 1996; Widdowson,
1995). CDA practitioners are the first to acknowledge that different readers might
51
read similar texts differently (Fairclough, 1995b, pp. 15-16). In a similar vein, van
Dijk (1993) states that "media recipients [are] active, and up to a point independent,
information users" and they may form interpretations and opinions of news reports
different from those the newspaper projected or implied (pp. 242). This seems to
indicate that it is not possible to say, for instance, how people read and interpret a
news report.
However, CDA practitioners have reasons to believe otherwise. There are at
least two reasons. First, readers usually are not trained to be critical readers of texts
(Fowler, 1991, p. 11; van Dijk, 1991). Second, audiences interpret texts against their
background knowledge and the information they already have about the subject in
question (van Dijk, 1993, p. 242). Ironically, van Dijk (1993) discovers,
"for specific types of social and political events . . . the news media are the
main source of information and beliefs used to form the interpretation framework for
such events . . ." (pp. 242-243).
It shows that describing and analyzing the media discourse could be helpful in
determining the influence of the media on audiences. Fairclough asserts that texts
have no particular meanings; meanings of texts are based on the interpretations of
readers (1995b). He states,
It strikes me as self-evident that although readings may vary, any reading is a
product of an interface between the properties of the text and the interpretative
resources and practices which the interpreter brings to bear upon the text. The range
of potential interpretations will be limited and delimited according to the nature of the
text. (p. 16)
Fairclough (1995b) believes that reception studies (for example, asking the
audiences about their actual interpretations of texts) could help discourse analysis in
identifying meanings and effects of texts. Nonetheless, he believes that text analysis
should be the central element in media analysis provided that it is accompanied by
analysis of text production and consumption (p. 16).
52
2.7
Principles of CDA
Thus, principles of CDA as given by various CDA practitioners (Fairclough,
1995a; Kress, 1991; Hodge & Kress, 1993; Van Dijk, 1998a; Wodak, 1996) can be
recapitulated as follows:
1. Language is the main source in social practice; the world is represented
through it.
2. The use of language as a form of social practice in itself not only
represents and signifies other social practices but it also constitutes other
social practices such as the exercise of power, domination, prejudice,
resistance and so forth.
3. Texts are interpreted by the dialectical relationship between texts and the
social subjects: writers and the readers, who always operate at various
levels of choice and access to texts and means of interpretation.
4. Albeit the choices may be conscious or unconscious, the linguistic features
are always out of objective. They are not arbitrary.
5. Production, practice and reproduction of power relations are carried
through discourse.
6. Work of all the speakers and writers involves peculiar discursive practices
pertaining to various aims and interests which also include further
inclusions and exclusions.
7. Discourse is termed as historical because meanings in the texts are being
acquired through particular social, cultural and ideological contexts, and
time and space.
8. CDA analyses as well as interprets the texts.
53
Previous Analyses
Hassna Alfayez (2009) conducted critical discourse analysis of Martin Luther
54
speech addressed, at once, several ideological flash points involving mainly sociopolitical inequality, racial segregation, and conflict of interests in that days American
society. The researcher is convinced that the emotional appeal along with logical
reasoning to socio-political ends has played tremendous role to believe in Kings
theory; it has multiplied the persuasive impact of the speech. It has been analysed that
the speakers temporal play also raised his speech under reference to historical
credibility.
Kulo (2009) has conducted research to find out the links between the form and
the function of language as thrown in political discourse. He analyzed two different
speeches delivered by two different political giants of the USA i.e. Barak Obama and
John McCain during their election campaigns in 2008. Both of the speeches show
frequent use of linguistic spin.
Alvi and Baseer (2011a) examined Barak Obamas Keynote Address at the
2004 Democratic National Convention. They applied Hallidays Tansitivity
framework in order to reveal meaning hidden in the speakers persuasive
constructions. Alvi and Baseer (2011b) made another investigation of Obamas use of
the art of linguistic spin in three of his famous speeches delivered during October 2,
2002 to February 5, 2008. The selected political discourse has been tried through the
Transitivity systems. The finding reveals that Barak Obama practices the material
processes of event and action along with the mental process of affection to win the
minds of the masses.
Baseer and Alvi analyzed (2012) Obamas another speech The Great Need of
the Hour he delivered during 2008. This speech was given to Aristotles threepronged framework of rhetoric consisting of ethos, pathos, and logos, along with
55
Hallidays framework of transitivity. The results showed that the factors of Ethos and
Pathos are found to be in frequent use in Obamas speech, and it appears that he is
interested in using the circumstance of location: spatial as well temporal, and also the
circumstance of reason in order to establish the integrity and reliability of his
discourse.
Naz, Alvi, and Baseer (2012) have tried Benazir Bhuttos speech
Democratization in Pakistan to critical discourse analysis. She delivered this speech
on 25th September, 2007 when she was getting ready for contesting general election
prospecting her thirst tenure as prime minister. The researchers have conducted
transitivity analysis of the said speech observing linguistic spin in the light of
Hallidays points of view. The researchers have categorically applied the notions of
different clauses/processes and circumstances on the selected piece of discourse. They
have attempted to explore the way the pattern of transitivity choices operates in the
selected political discourse of Benazir Bhutto. Their analysis concluded that Benazir
Bhutto was comparatively more conscious about the emotional and physical responses
and activity of her audience. It was also found that she was more concerned with
material clauses in her political discourse. Though her political language lacked in
verbal and existential clauses yet, they showed, the presence of mental, behavioural,
and relational clauses is considerable at once. Her use of spatial and temporal
constructs also used an instrumental role in the authentication of her arguments.
Circumstances of contingency and manner together lent objectivity to her discourse,
the researchers found.
Sana Nawaz (et. al. 2013) have conducted an analysis of Quaid-i-Azam
Muhammad Ali Jinnahs famous speech addressed to the first ever Constitutional
Assembly even before the birth of Pakistan on 11th August 1947.Theyviewed that
56
there is a jar contrast between what the Father of the Nation envisioned and
recommended and what the national behavior has appeared and prevailed. He wished
a country free of all the socio-governmental corruption, with full religio-political
harmony and freedom. Mainly, the ideological and national facets of his discourse
were tried to analysis. The ideological exposition as stipulated in the said speech was
investigated in view of overall national scenario of Pakistan.
The same speech has variously been analyzed by various analysts, in them one
is Nusrat Javeed whose analysis appeared on 12thAugust 2011 in The Express
Tribune. He particularly touched the favour and safeguards for minorities as set by the
Quaid-i-Azam in a persuasive frame. Nusrat Javeed tried to explain the degree of
practicality by analyzing the ideological patterns present in the discourse.
www.pakdefenceunit.wordpress.com, a website, has also offered an analysis
of the same speech holding that the Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnahs discourse
was charged with ideological current, and he conceptualized Pakistan to be a welfare
state, providing freedom to all the sects and segments.
Muhammad Aslam Sipra and Athar Rashid have critically analyzed the
celebrated speech of Martin Luther King When I Have Dreams. They have applied
Faircloughs 3D framework to analyzing the said speech. By this framework,
Fairclough has proposed three dimensions or levels of analyzing a particular text or
discourse i.e. text, sociocultural practice, and discursive practice in the given society.
Viewed through this triangulated approach, the socio-economic and socio-political
factors render text analyzable because they influence the discursive activity in society.
Fairclough has visualized this model as inspiring awareness of exploitative social
relationships focused through the discourse involved. The researchers have examined
57
the influence exercised through the lexical choices, syntactic arrangements, and
speech-coherence of discourse which essentially carries a particular ideology vested
therein. In this research, critical lens has been set especially to study the social,
political, and economic demonstration in the selected speech. The researchers divided
their analysis into two sections: one examining the intra-sentential organization and
symmetry, and the other focusing on the inter-sentential assemblage along with
patterning; the first section has highlighted in particular the Theme, Rheme, Give, and
New Information. They have also traced certain persuasive strategies employed by
Luther King in his speech mainly the use of repetition and metaphor. Besides text,
context, style, and representation value of the speech have also been given categorical
treatment.
Staying confined only to the first part of one speech, this study has concluded
that the usage of specific textual and stylistic technique have abundantly been
undertaken in order to cultivate the purpose of the same specification. The selected
speech has satisfied all the prerequisites necessary for a speech for sophisticatedly
propagating the ideology it upholds. It bears a well-designed syntactic development
sticking with the one single theme of socio-racial inequality in that days America.
However, the lexeme-choices have not been found well in accordance with the speech
situation. The researchers have observed that Luther King made impressive use of
certain persuasive schemes to unearth the gulf which he viewed between the powerful
and the oppressed of his time. The hallmark of his persuasive play was that he won
the favour of the powerless but, at the same time, did not let there be any collision
with the powerful. He has, quite frankly and harmlessly, condemned and denied the
ongoing socio-racial discriminations which had spread enough to the extent of being
institutionalized, the researchers conclude.
58
good deal of critical discourse analysis studies of political and other discourse have
been conducted by using a number of frameworks. This research record has shown
59
that the political texts appeared to be the most interested, vital, and favourite literature
for the researchers in the field of critical discourse analysis. However, the political
discourse offered by a female ruler while heading a state is hardly found on the touch
stone of critical discourse analysis. This study is an analytical attempt of the same.
60
CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLGY
This research has attempted to critically investigate the selected political
discourse of Benazir Bhutto by using trends and techniques of Critical Discourse
Analysis; it has tried to explore the representation of ideology and working of power
through the language used in discourse. Researcher has examined the linguistic
choices and strategies as set in the political speeches of the said leader she delivered
on certain occasions of national import. The fashion the speaker has adopted to
construct various socio-political constructions through the use of language by setting
it to persuade her audience has appeared to be a point quite analyzable.
3.1
Methodology
This research project has been given to a combination of different frameworks
proposed by critical discourse analyst. Since this research has not been confined to the
application of one particular framework of Critical Discourse Analysis and has
involved the general application of various CDA studies, it should be considered in
the frame of eclectic approach. The analysis of the selected political discourse has
been undertaken keeping in view mainly the goals and objectives of research; hence,
it is more a target-oriented research and less a tool-oriented oriented.
Answer to the question as to why only an eclectic approach became necessary
here is that the devising of eclectic approach became essential when it was found that
no one single framework would serve to meet the objectives and hypotheses
set/sought by the researcher. Especially, the examination of the hypothesis 2 that is
The victory of a particular political entity is an evidence of its credibility
61
62
Analysis practice, and secondly, it has also been observed that how different big-guns
of this field and certain critical discourse analysts have applied the said theories. It
has been reviewed so, so that this research can logically be justified as duly filling a
hunch by bearing theoretical development along with its analytical applications at its
back.
3.2
leaders on the like events are arranged to broadcast, there is little difficulty in finding
them on internet and/or in the archives of mass media. There are but little concerns
about the authenticity of such obtained materials.
The researcher has selected two speeches from amongst the many delivered by
Benazir Bhutto. Both of the selected speeches are the formal addresses of the speaker.
Both of the selected speeches bear different lengths: one is elaborative with its forty
six paragraphs, and the other is packed in fourteen paragraphs. The exact temporal
distance between these addresses is nine months, and twelve days (one year
approximately). The speeches have been obtained from the following websites
respectively:
1. http://bhuttolegacyfoundation.com/bhutto/supremacy-of-people-and-nationalintgration/
2. http://bhuttolegacyfoundation.com/bhutto/healing-hands-to-build-this-greatcountry/
The texts of these speeches have been appended as appendixes: selected
speech I as appendix I, and selected speech II as appendix II.
63
The first of the selected speeches is one Benazir Bhutto addressed to the
nation at the eve of her success in the general election on December 2, 1988, in
Islamabad. It was an event when she succeeded in winning the general election for the
first time in her political career. It was the first ever instance in the history of Pakistan
as well as the Muslim world that a female became head of the state. This unique
opportunity rendered, naturally, her first tenure extraordinary as well as unusual at
home and abroad. Therefore, it was an address from the pulpit of though an
inexperienced yet a more ambitious premier.
The second speech which has been selected for analysis was addressed to the
nation on August 14, 1989, in Islamabad. It was the occasion of the Independence
Day of Pakistan. She, by then, had started going through the typical hot and cold of
Pakistani politics, she had set on the way to political maturity in the position of a head
of the state. This speech was significant for it was addressed to the nation on the
Independence Day by its first ever female leader. This speech experientially sounded
with more pith and politics.
The researcher has rationalized the selection of these particular speeches for a
number of factors have rendered them discernable via research. A few of these factors
involve that the speaker, at times of these addresses, was the first ever in-office
female head of an ideological state (Pakistan) as well as the first ever in the Muslim
world; she was Daughter of the East, but had also acquired a considerable amount of
western education; her power was multiplied by the fact that she was not only the
head of the state but, at the same time, head of her political party as well; both of the
speeches were formally addressed: one right on the day of her personal rejoice owing
to her success in the general election (December 2, 1988), and the other right on the
day of great national significance (August 14, 1989); history recorded her these
64
triumphant addresses in society where religious dictum mattered and gender biased
prevailed.
These afore-mentioned factors have set these speeches on a high pedestal of
individuality, complexity, importance, and distinguishableness; this very
multifariousness of these speeches inspired the researcher to select them for CDA.
3.3
Procedure
Having collected the said material, the words and sentences of its text have
critically been pondered, interpreted, weighed, explored, and analyzed, being close to
M.A.K Halliday and Norman Fairclough. Influence and inspiration of the ideological
aura emerging out of the mutual relations between/among the sentential constructions,
between/among the paragraphic constructions, and between the sententialparagraphic constructions have also been tried to exposure. Us-Other binaries have
also been attended categorically wherever occurred. However, pragmatic features of
the selected political text have least been dealt with. The feminist constructions have
also been pointed out wherever occurred. Stylistic qualities of the discourse have also
been considered. Not only the presentation and representation of power and ideology
but also the relationship among various power-possessing channels has been
evaluated under critical discourse analysis.
Use of persuasive strategies has been found influential and of vital interest in
the selected material; the variety and the fashion the speaker has offered in using
linguistic strategies have also been analyzed for their discursive and linguistic value.
Implications of various covert linguistic choices have also been examined from close
quarters; the considerations whether these strategies are persuasive in nature or in use
or in both have also been undertaken. In the chase of persuasive strategies, the
65
manipulative tactics have also been examined at length. Besides this, considerable
accommodations have also been provided to purely thematic analysis of the selected
discourse. Duality and multiplicity of meaning has also not been neglected throughout
the analytical process (chapter 4).
Having analyzed the text from a broader and multi-theoretical point of view
including the discursive functions, processes, and circumstance prescribed by
Halliday, and the discursive perspectives relating to ideology, power, and persuasion
viewed by Fairclough, the researcher has revisited the research problem, research
questions, hypotheses, and research objectives set at the outset. This critical revisit of
certain research-paraphernalia has led the researcher to certain findings and checking
the research objectives and expectations. Most of the research objectives have
successfully been achieved; however, a part of them also remained undecided and
unascertained. At the same time, certain other dimensions and implications of
discourse have also come to the surface in addition to the objectives pursued by the
researcher (chapter 5).
The analysis has, by and large, revolved around the dimensions of the selected
political discourse as set in the following self-explanatory figure (9):
66
Conclusion
In the light of above summarized information, this segment (chapter 3)
visualized the ins and outs of this research project specifically when the question of
the adopted methodology is concerned. It has tried to provide comprehensive
summation of what was sought, how was sought, whether it has been found or not: if
found, what nature of the findings has been noticed, and what additional (to the set
goals) has been extracted in this research. It is established that methodology is the
mentor, if not mother, of research.
67
CHAPTER 4
CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF BENAZIR BHUTTOS SELECTED
SPEECHES
Critical Discourse Analysis of Benazir Bhuttos political discourse has already
been conducted by a couple of researchers. The previous research in this has appeared
mainly on the concise canvasses of research papers. This research work has, however,
intended an elaborated design and, therefore, has selected as many as two speeches to
a broader programme.
4.1
1953 to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, previous Prime Minister of Pakistan and Begum Nusrat
Ispahani. She went to the Lady Jennings Nursery School, and Convent of Jesus and
Mary in Karachi. Following two years of educating at the Rawalpindi Presentation
Convent, she was sent to the Jesus and Mary Convent at Murree. She passed her Olevel examinations at the age of 15. She then went ahead to complete her A-Levels at
the Karachi Grammar School.
In the wake of competing her initial learning in Pakistan, she sought after her
advanced education in the United States. From 1969 to 1973, she went to Radcliffe
College at Harvard University, where she got a Bachelor of Arts degree with cum
laude honours in comparative government. She was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Bhutto later called her time at Harvard "four of the happiest years of my life" and said
it structured "the very premise of her faith in vote based system". Later in 1995 as
Prime Minister, she presented a gift from the Pakistani government to Harvard Law
68
School. On June 2006, she got an Honorary LL.D degree from the University of
Toronto.
The following period of her education occurred in the United Kingdom.
Between 1973 and 1977, she studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Lady
Margaret Hall, Oxford, during this time she completed extra courses in International
Law and Diplomacy. After LMH, she went to St Catherine's College, Oxford and in
December 1976 she was elected as president of the Oxford Union, turning into the
first Asian lady to head the prestigious debating society.
Her marriage with Asif Ali Zardari took place on 18 December 1987, in
Karachi. They had three children: two daughters and a son (Bakhtawar, Asifa, and
Bilawal respectively).
Benazir Bhutto's father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was expelled
from office after a military overthrow in 1977 drove by the then Chief of the Army
Staff General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. He imposed martial law yet guaranteed to hold
election in three months. Instead of holding general elections, General Zia charged
Mr. Bhutto with planning to murder the father of dissenter legislator Ahmed Raza
Kasuri. Z.A Bhutto was sentenced to death by the martial law court. Benazir Bhutto
and her mother were held in a "police camp" until the end of May, after the execution.
In 1985, Benazir Bhutto's sibling Shahnawaz was murdered under mysterious
circumstances in France. In 1996, the killing of her other sibling, Mir Murtaza, added
to destabilizing her second term as Prime Minister. Murtaza, who had been blunt in
his allegations of corruption against his sister and her spouse Zardari, was gunned
down only outside of his home by police.
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4.1.1
Political life
After the oust of her father Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's administration
in a bloodless overthrow, Benazir Bhutto spent the following eighteen months all
through house arrest as she attempted to rally political backing to drive Zia to drop
allegations of murder against her father. The military despot disregarded overall offers
for pardon and had Z.A Bhutto hanged in April 1979. After the hanging of her father,
Bhutto was captured more than once. Notwithstanding, after PPP's triumph in the
local election, Zia put off the general election for an uncertain length of time and
moved Bhutto and her mother Nusrat Bhutto from Karachi to Larkana. This was
seventh time Benazir had been captured within the short span of two years after the
coup. More than once put under house arrest, the administration at last detained her
under isolation in a desert cell in Sindhi area amid the late spring of 1981. She
depicted the conditions of her wall-less prison in her book "Daughter of Destiny":
The summer heat turned my cell into an oven. My skin split and peeled,
coming off my hands in sheets. Boils erupted on my face. My hair, which had always
been thick, began to come out by the handful. Insects crept into the cell like invading
armies. Grasshoppers, mosquitoes, stinging flies, bees and bugs came up through the
cracks in the floor and through the open bars from the courtyard. Big black ants,
cockroaches, seething clumps of little red ants and spiders. I tried pulling the sheet
over my head at night to hide from their bites, pushing it back when it got too hot to
breathe.
After her six month detainment in Sukkur jail, she remained hospitalized for
quite a long time after which she was moved to Karachi Central Jail, where she stayed
detained till 11 December 1981. She was then kept under house arrest in Larkana and
Karachi for eleven months and fourteen months respectively.
In January 1984, following six years of house arrest and detainment, Zia
succumbed to worldwide pressure and permitted Bhutto to travel abroad for medical
reasons. In spite of undergoing a surgery, she continued her political exercises and
70
started to raise worries about the abuse of political detainees in Pakistan at the
command of Zia administration. The pressure from international community was
increased on Zia into holding election to give certain authenticity to his legislature.
The referendum was held on 1 December 1984 which proved to be farce because the
turnout was noted to be only ten percent in spite of having used the state machinery.
Benazir Bhutto, who had come back to Pakistan after the completion of her
studies, was put under house arrest in view of her father's detainment and consequent
execution. Having been permitted in 1984 to fly back to the United Kingdom, she rose
as a leader in exile of the PPP (Pakistan Peoples Party): her father's political party.
However, she could not make her political worth felt in Pakistan until after the demise
of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. She had succeeded her mother as pioneer of the
PPP, and the banner-raiser of democracy against the Zia-ul-Haq administration.
The seat, on which Benazir contested for the position of Prime Minister, was
the same one from which her father had already contested i.e. NA 207. On 16
November 1988, in the first general election in over 10 years, Bhutto's PPP won the
biggest coalition of seats in the National Assembly. Bhutto was confirmed as Prime
Minister of a coalition government on December 2, at the age of 35 to be the youngest
person and the first lady to head a Muslim state in modern era. In 1989, Benazir
received Prize for Freedom by the Liberal International. Bhutto's achievements amid
this time were in activities for national change and modernization; a group of
conservatives described it as Westernization.
Bhutto's administration was dismissed in 1990 on charges of corruption, for
which she was never held under trial. Nawaz Sharif from PML-N came to power after
71
the October 1990 election. She served as leader of the Opposition while Sharif served
as Prime Minister for the following three years.
In October 1993, general election was held again and Bhuttos PPP coalition
gained success, returning Bhutto to the office of premier and allowing her to proceed
with her change-oriented activities. In 1996, Bhutto was again dismissed by then
president Farooq Leghari, who exercised his discretionary power of the Eighth
Amendment to dissolve the legislature. The Supreme Court endorsed the President
Leghari's move. Feedback against Bhutto originated from the Punjabi elites and
influential feudal families who opposed Bhutto. She pronounced this step of dismissal
as destabilization of Pakistan.
After the sack of Bhutto's first government on August 6, 1990 by President
Ghulam Ishaq Khan on the grounds of corruption, the government of Pakistan gave
task to the intelligence agencies to confirm the allegations. After fourth general
election, Nawaz Sharif became the Prime Minister and intensified the proceedings of
trail against Bhutto. She along with her husband Asif Ali Zardari had to go through
many corruption cases, including an alleged case of money laundering through Swiss
banks.
During election campaigns, the Bhutto government voiced its sympathy
toward womens social and health issues, including the issue of gender discrimination
leaving women rights vulnerable. Bhutto declared policies to set women development
banks, courts, and women police stations. In spite of these plans, she did not propose
any formal policy to enhance the women-related affairs. She also ensured the
annulment disputed laws such as Hudood, and ordinances related to Zina, and the
other laws which negatively affected women rights in Pakistan. Bhutto forcefully
72
spoke for life and against premature birth at the International Conference on
Population and Development in Cairo, where she blamed the West of seeking to
impose adultery, abortion, intercourse education and other such matters on
individuals, societies and religions which have their own social ethos. She was a
staunch and establishing member of the Council of Women World Leaders, a network
of current and former prime ministers and presidents.
The Taliban took control in Kabul in September 1996. It was during her
second term when the Taliban arose to prominent pedestal in Afghanistan. She, like
many other leader of international level, could view the Taliban as a group which
could facilitate trade to the Central Asian republics, as Stephen Coll, a writer had also
see. He asserts that like the United States, her administration gave military and
budgetary backing to the Taliban, actually sending a little unit of the Pakistani armed
force into Afghanistan. Later on, however, she took a hostile view of Taliban, and
denounced terrorist acts allegedly perpetrated by the Taliban and their supporters.
In spite of the fact that never convicted, Asif Ali Zardari remained in jail for
eight years on the like charges of corruption. On being released on bail in 2004,
Zardari disclosed that his time in jail was marked with torture and violation of human
rights. The human rights groups supported his claim. Benazir Bhutto held that the
allegations of corruption had no truth in them, and that they were actually political
charges.
In spite of various cases and charges of corruption leveled against Bhutto by
Nawaz Sharif between 1996 and1999, and by Pervez Musharraf from 1999 till 2008,
she could not have been convicted in any case so far. The cases were, however,
73
withdrawn by the government of Pakistan after Bhutto was permitted to regain her
erstwhile position in PPP in 2008.
In 2002, Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf amended certain parts of
Pakistan's constitution to bar the prime ministers from coming into power more than
two times. It stopped Bhutto from ever becoming prime minister again. This move
was generally thought to be a direct assault on previous premiers Benazir Bhutto and
Nawaz Sharif. While living in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, she looked after her
three youngsters and her mother Nusrat, who was suffering from Alzheimers. She
travelled to deliver lectures, and kept in touch with the supporters of her political
party. She could meet her spouse in December 2004 after over five years. In 2006, a
request was issued by Interpol for the arrest of Bhutto and her husband on the basis of
corruption charges leveled by the government of Pakistan. The spouses scrutinized the
legality of the appeal of arrest in a letter to Interpol. On 27 January 2007, she was
welcomed by the United States to address President George W. Bush and
Congressional and State Department authorities. Bhutto showed up as a panelist on
the BBC TV program Question Time in the UK in March 2007. She appeared in a
program Newsnight on different occasions; it was a BBC-televised current affairs
program. Bhutto had proclaimed her expectation to come back to Pakistan within
2007, which she did so in spite of Musharraf's announcements of May 2007 about not
permitting her to come back before the general election, which was due late 2007 or
early 2008.
In July 2007, a part of Bhuttos frozen funds was permitted to release. On the
other hand, she was continuously facing the severe charges of corruption. Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation interviewed Bhutto on 8 August 2007, in which Bhutto
disclosed her view of her coming back to Pakistan for the 2008 general election, and
74
75
Presidential poll. On 6 October 2007, Musharraf won the parliamentary election for
President. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court decided that no victor can be formally
declared until it completes the process of settling on whether it was lawful for
Musharraf to run for President while remaining Army General. Bhutto's PPP party did
not join the boycott moved by the other opposition parties, however did refuse voting.
Later, Bhutto requested security equal to that of the President's. Bhutto likewise
contacted the foreign security firms for her security.
4.1.2
Return to Pakistan
Bhutto was very much aware of the danger to her own life that may come
about because of her come back from exile in order to launch campaign for her lost
authoritative post. In a meeting on September 28, 2007, with columnist Wolf Blitzer
of CNN, she promptly disclosed the likelihood of assault on her. Following the eight
years banishment in Dubai and London, Bhutto came back to Karachi on 18 October
2007, to plan for the 2008 national election.
On the way to a rally in Karachi on 18 October 2007, two blasts occurred not
long after Bhutto had arrived and left Jinnah International Airport. She was not
harmed yet the blasts, later discovered to be a suicide-bomb assault, murdered 136
individuals and injured no less than 450. The dead included no less than 50 of the
security personnel from her PPP who had made human chain around her truck to keep
potential bombers away, and also six police officers. Various senior authorities were
also injured. Bhutto, after about ten hours of the parade through Karachi, got back
into the steel command center to remove her shoes from her swollen feet, only a few
minutes before the bomb blast. She was taken out of the scene unhurt.
76
Bhutto later asserted that she had cautioned the Pakistani government that
suicide bomb squads would aim at her upon her coming back to Pakistan and that the
government had neglected to act. She was mindful as not to charge Pervez Musharraf
for the attacks, blaming rather certain people within the government who misuse their
positions and power to give hype to Islamic militants. Soon after the attack on her life,
Bhutto wrote a letter to Musharraf naming four persons whom she associated with
getting the attacks conducted. Those named included Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, a PMLQ leader and Chief Minister of Punjab province, Hamid Gul, previous chief of the
Inter-Services Intelligence, and Ijaz Shah, the director general of the Intelligence
Bureau, another intelligence agency. All the four names were closely associated with
General Musharraf. Bhutto has a long history of alleging government wings,
especially Pakistan's major intelligence agencies, of opposing her and her party on the
grounds that she had a liberal and secular agenda.
Sworn in again on 30 November 2007, this time as a civilian president having
given up his military position, Musharraf declared that he would lift the state of
emergency on December 16. Bhutto respected the declaration and issued a manifesto
sketching out her party's internal issues. On 4 December 2007, Bhutto met Nawaz
Sharif to announce their interest that Musharraf must satisfy his guarantee to lift the
emergency before January's parliamentary election, warning to boycott the election if
he failed to comply. They made a plan to constitute a committee which would prepare
a list of deamands from Musharraf, on that list their part in the election would depend.
4.1.3
Assassination
On 27 December 2007, Bhutto was murdered while leaving a campaign rally
for the PPP at Liaquat National Garden, where she had delivered a potential speech to
77
the party supporters in the run-up to the January 2008 parliamentary elections. Bhutto
remained standing through the sunroof of her bullet proof vehicle in order to wave to
the crowd. At that time, a shooter fired shots at her and the explosives were exploded
close to her vehicle murdering nearly 20 individuals. Bhutto was badly injured and
was hurried to Rawalpindi General Hospital. She was taken into surgery at 17:35 local
time, and was announced dead at 18:16. Bhutto's body was traveled to the place where
she grew up of- Garhi Khuda Bakhsh in Larkana District, Sindh. She was buried next
to her father in the family mausoleum in a funeral ceremony attended by a huge
number of grievers.
This research has selected Benazir Bhuttos two formal speeches for critical
discourse analysis. She has, as prime minister, formally delivered these speeches on
two important national occasions: first is at the day of her success as prime minister in
the general election, and second is at the first Independence Day after her having
become the prime minister. Both of the occasions bear a temporal distance of less
than a year between them. The length of both of the selected speeches differs
considerably.
Further, the too-repeatedly occurring CDA terminologies like ideational,
interpersonal, and textual functions of language, material, mental, relational process
etc. and different types of Hallidian circumstances have been reduced to a limited
description so that this work could be kept from unnecessary monotony as far as
possible.
4.2
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calculated and psychological play of words in view of the agenda and its propagation
in the following parts of this speech ahead. Last sentence of this paragraph has again
been thrived with the expression of congratulations, but this time it pinned the
personal pronoun I with you in the same sentence. It was the first instance that the
speaker expressed self-focus by pronouncing I. It is worth noticing that the
paragraph was concluded with a sentence in which I was the doer. This selfsignifying and subjective turn in the very concluding line can foreshadow the tone and
content of the rest of the discourse. Such fashion is typical to the language of power
where I or we more often plays towards the conclusion and crux. This time she
manipulated congratulations into her doing felicitate you on success- again the
selfsame repetition of success, and a synonymous repetition of victory of the first
sentence. This paragraph is a replete with material, mental, relational, behavioural,
verbal, and existential aspects which are purely Hallidian marks. Language of the
discourse, however, has involved the ideational function at the least. Her success is
analyzable as being an existential construction i.e. happening.
In second paragraph, a smart one, the speaker brushed aside all the mannerism
of formality and came in the shoes of a quite informal rather domestic relationship in
order to grasp maximum recognition and cognizance. It is again a flash of Hallidian
interpersonal and relational facets of discourse. Before opening the lines of her
ideology, she wanted to get herself endorsed nation-wide. She told the people that she
is their sister and down-to-earth before them for the duty and assignment they had
assigned her to accomplish. The word sister is a sort of exaggerative manipulation of
the relation between a ruler and the ruled; it is purely a multi-purpose metaphor of
tackling the opposition and, interestingly, masculinity as well. This metaphorical
expression has significance because it is purely a demonstration of what Halliday has
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masses to the ruler- the speaker, and pointing out the workers of the Pakistan Peoples
Party rather instrumentalized them among all. It showed the speakers inclination and
priorities in first place. She not only pointed out her workers, but also paid homage to
their fearless activism from the platform of Pakistan Peoples Party. It may be
analyzed that the speaker openly exposed a party-oriented agenda as yet. She admired
the workers of her party for being so much devoted and staunch in believing in her
idealism. She preferred her party workers to the others, but at the same time she kept
the others from disappointment, and held that they (she and her workers) would invite
the support and cooperation of those who played their role in upholding democracy
and in the restoration of the 1973 Constitution. Then occurs a contrastive conjunction
but which indicated that something different from the preceded words was about to
come in the following sentence. She told that though she would preferably be assisted
by her party workers and then the co-strugglers in the way of democracy and
constitution yet the real source of her power are the people, the common folk. One
more thing is analyzable that the conjunction but occurred after comma (,) but
preceded by period (.); it indicated that the speaker meant to treat this sentence as a
separate unit of thought and an individual idea, and not in continuation of the previous
idea regarding the people having worked for democracy and constitution. Therefore,
the generalized expression that the people in general are the real spring of power
should be taken as something disjointed from the previous expression that she would
seek, after her party workers, the cooperation of the people endeavouring for
democratization and constitution. It implicated that she manipulated one single idea,
power, to a larger social construct- the people in general. She revealed her ideology as
to be democracy and the constitution which may collectively be meant the political
process in view of the environment prior to her government. Hallidian inter-
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personality (speakers reference to her political party in particular and the nation in
general), and Faircloughs intertextuality (speakers reference to 1973 Constitution)
are at operation at once.
In this paragraph, from critical discourse analysis point of view, the speaker
wove a micro structure, and then fetched a macro-structure by expanding the micro
one. She started from the workers of Pakistan Peoples party (a specific and typical
construction) to the masses (a general and wider social construction) passing through
those particular masses who participated in the process of energizing democracy and
constitution. This widening of the basic discursive structure in this paragraph reveals
that the speaker could masterly employ the strategy of generalization and shifting
from a particular political reality of her own faction to the wider reality of her society
and nation.
Fourth paragraph appears to be a manifestation of Leechs (1983) Politeness
Principle. Here, the speaker used the tactic of repetition most effectively. She
expresses that the masses are not the others, instead, she acknowledged the people
as the root of relation between her and them. However, she wore we instead of I in
this paragraph. She told the people that they (her and the party) are no distinguished
entity, and that they along with their workers were but among the general public. She
owned the public in an all-inclusive situation: she owned their suffering by declaring
that their suffering was the suffering of hers own, their honour was her own honour,
their happiness is the happiness of hers and her party, and that she along with her
workers was proud of the people i.e. the nation. Each sentence started with we and
ended with you. Firstly, she told the audience that she could not survive without
their backing; secondly, she shared/owned their suffering; thirdly, she uniformed the
concept of the honour of the both; fourthly, she joined them in their happiness; fifthly,
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she declared her pride in the people. This paragraph showed nearly sandwichapproach: it comprised of five sentences, the first and the last offered as such no
particular possession to be shared as they are simply about the speaker as being from
among the people and her being proud of the people, but the central three sentences
represented a keen amalgam of the abstract social assets of the both (speaker and the
listeners). Here, the ideology is unity, national solidarity, cooperation with end of
differences, and brotherhood. This painting of ideology appears to be a practice of
powerful morality.
In fifth paragraph of this speech, the speaker directly addressed the entire
population by asserting that it elected a government which was unanimously endorsed
through the four provinces of Pakistan. Therefore, it enjoyed the majority of the
minds on its side. This precise paragraph is a note on the Pakistan Peoples Partys
nationwide significance. After relating her government as being in debt to the people
who participated in the political process (general election), the speaker expressed her
belief in the equal qualification and quantification of the masses. She disengaged from
weighing on the side of the particularized spheres of her party worker and the other
co-strugglers in order to impart an impression and expression of her generous
generality and universality towards the common man of Pakistan. She represented the
ideology of equality as well as balance, and convincingly vowed that she had realized
her position was to justify the people of the country in equal measure, regardless of
their factions and sections.
Sixth paragraph breaks with the personal pronoun we, which clearly
indicates the speakers measure to have become uniformed with the rest of the folk,
that she intends to bring all the nation together in the same boat, and that no
differences should be left in the nation (mainly between the powerful and the non-
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powerful) towards the national ends. She told the nation that they (she and the nation)
had set on an honourable journey because that journey appeared to be the legacy of
those who invested themselves to make Pakistan a progressive state, where
democracy could have a free play, and where exploitation was found no more. This
turn of discourse sounded to be very much inclined to involve an allusion or a sort of
retrospection, because she alluded to some person/people who undertook the said
journey before her turn. This retrospective tilt appeared to be materialized when in the
very next sentence the speaker flew twenty years back (exactly 17 years back) when
Mr. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the speakers father, established a political party (Pakistan
Peoples Party) in 1971 with a vision to safeguard the rights of deprived and neglected
population of Pakistan. She further alluded to the dictatorial regime right in the heart
of which Zulfikar Ali Bhutto emerged with his pro-politics, pro-constitution, and propublic voice. The speaker claimed that it was he who saved the country of the further
impacts of dictatorship. The speaker further held the very dictatorship as being the
perpetrator of disintegrating the country or letting it disintegrate in two parts in 1971
(hint to Dhaka Debacle). She further claimed that after that fatal mishap it was
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who gathered and empowered the shattered brains and bodies of
the defeated nation.
This paragraph is essentially a temporal paragraph though the involvement of
place (Pakistan, its geographical disintegration in 1971, and Bangladesh) also echoes
soundly. She first constructs a material process of event: the people had embarked on
a journey, and then she merged this material process with mental process of time i.e.
retrospection of an unforgettable terrible event in the history of Pakistan. By playing
both the processes together, she created a spark of strong emotional appeal associated
to the national and strategic sense of pride and freedom, the freedom irreparably
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injured and dismembered under a dictatorial rule in 1971. It showed a complex use of
persuasive strategy on the part of the speaker as many devices were at work at the
same time. This paragraph, what is more, covertly contained a self-defense viz-a-viz
the separation of Pakistans East Wing (1971) is concerned. The incident of 1971 is
purely an ideational representation in the light of Hallidays views: this allusion is
schematic as well.
In the next (seventh) paragraph, the speaker jumped from recent past to the
present by pronouncing today at the very outset this paragraph. She necessitated that
they had to go ahead once again and had to acquire national strength. The phrase
once again can be highly analyzable here. Once again offers a story of the past.
This once again brought forth the stoppage occurred on national growth in the past.
It confessed the past failures, represented the present (at that point of particular time)
determination, and prognosticated the future goals. The speaker weaves a web of
material and mental processes here by recommending a chain of cause and effect to
the audience, the nation. She viewed that they had to get forward and attain strength
for nation, and nation would be able to attain strength if the people at individual level
found strength, and the cause of peoples strength could only be our (governments)
paying proper attention to their needs. It could be inferred that the only proviso in the
way of undertaking a forwarding strength was the newly elected governments due
heed to the public need.
The care was taken in the under-analysis paragraph as the phrase strength
has appropriately been used every time and has not been given to its synonym
power. Power was held proper to the personality and/or party alone, meaning by,
political power, and the public power was particularly structured as being strength.
One more aspect appeared to be worth visiting and that is the dual role the speaker
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was playing: she earlier created a strong impression of being one of the masses, and
towards the close of this paragraph she came (back) in the shoes of authority while
describing that the masses would be strengthened only when they (we) addressed
their needs in due manner. This manipulative duality persuasively assists ideology in
discourse. There are as many as five different elements which were yoked together in
the chain of cause and effect.
Eighth segment of discourse, following the lines of the former paragraph, also
offered a five-faceted construction i.e. hope, unity, peace, freedom, and progress. The
speaker voiced slogan around this penta-prophecy. She emphasized that her
ideology is the ideology of optimism, integrity, peace, liberty, and progression. She
represented her cabinet-to-be (most probably her party worker of whose assistance
she had already evoked) by using the possessive personal pronoun our. The said five
elements constituted the construction of her message, and she told that they are the
message to the nation. This smart slice appeared to be but a sequel of the earlier. She
supplied her idealism by attempting a smart intimacy towards public. All the signs of
power and authority have been kept confined to the background alone.
In ninth paragraph of the speech, the speaker pondered and lamented the
condition of the country at that present day. She endorsed that the overall situation of
the nation-state (Pakistan) was grave. She described the whole nation (using we) to
be facing a huge challenge, however, the speaker did not name/explain the challenge
in particular. She developed her argument in order to throw the process of a solid
action which followed this development. She proceeded that the grievous state-ofaffairs and the gigantic challenges could not match their (the nations) determination
and sure-footedness to coup with the trials hovered on the national horizon that day.
She, again, put her day and the earlier period in juxtaposition, which was meant to
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criticize the policies and performance of the earlier era. She settled it to be true that
the governments policies during the previous eleven and so years were a plane plan
to perpetuate ones personal power. Such self-feeding policies had played havoc with
Pakistani society, and it damaged the national fabric to the extent that people of the
same country have harboured lingual, racial, and communal difference in full swing.
This paragraph involves three constructs side by side: two in a pair, and one
demanding individual construction. Paired are the daunting challenges and we that
predicts will power; individual construct is the criticism on the past policies. But, in
the third sentence of the paragraph was given the same treatment as was given to the
but of the third paragraph of this speech.
In tenth paragraph, the speaker declared the foreign policy of the previous
regime to be short-sighted. By this condemnation, the speaker meant the foreign
policy offered by her to be a ray of hope for the people. However, reference to her
foreign policy was made in a covert contrast, only by mentioning the evils of the
previous one. She told that the earlier foreign engagements had left the country amid
unnecessary dangers. The word unnecessary did not properly correspond to the phrase
danger because, logically, there are no dangers which could/should be considered as
necessary in any way. She further explored that the economic policies in the past were
ill-founded and they caused destruction of human and natural resources of the
country. Financial policies of the past were based on miscalculated or malafide
thinking which brought the country on the verge of financial bankruptcy.
This paragraph was meticulously a representation of financial mismanagement
of the previous establishment. In this segment, the speaker wove the ideological
construct of we and the others. Further, she had involved material notion of natural
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resources and mental notion of human resources. In order to take the entire nation on
board with the newly elected government, she worked on the peoples complaints
against the earlier setup. She has tried to use the public restless against the
mismanagements of the earlier rule. It could have worked as an effective persuasive
device because such sharing of trouble can play well to near the audience when the
speaker becomes a partaker of their pain involving more than merely a speaker does.
Such nearing, in turn, may have invoked from the side of audience. Such discursive
technique becomes instrumental in welding the speaker and the listeners into a strong
alliance. The same discursive practice has been tried here.
Projecting herself as being one of the masses, in eleventh paragraph, she used
the factor of fear in order to hold the people in the pull of her discourse: she attempted
awe and fright by declaring that the state of affairs had gone to be so serious that the
nation-state is on the edge of destruction. In the very next sentence, however, she
reduced the intensity of the fear of destruction by underlining that the entire nation
was going to fight the hovering disaster she had disclosed in the previous sentence. It
is an effective persuasive strategy pull and lose used in ideological discourses. It is
notable that she relaxed in the very next expression that the disaster had not come yet,
that the nation (in her leadership) would be able to combat the disasters, and that the
people were ready to materialize their aspirations in order to save the nation of the
disaster. She, at this point, covertly threw the undertones of revolution. She owned the
whole ordeals of the people (also her party workers) in the way of that political
process and the victory of democracy: she shared that the peoples sacrifices, their
hard struggle, torturing trials through which they had passed, and the brave manner in
which they had averted death in deadly cells, had added to their will and the way to
change. Such tests hasten the process of change towards democracy, the speaker
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meant. She held that the tribulations taught them to stay determined against the
ongoing blows. She proclaimed further that the said wounds would be healed by the
healthy policies of the new government. It could analytically be inferred that the
speaker brought into work the force of material process of firmed action, and she
encouraged the nation come forward in the direction given by her government. She
planted persuasion for a polite picture but of a purely powerful sort. The ideology at
work appeared to be the ideology of changing the socio-political setup under the flag
of unity. Further, this segment reflected an alliterative tilt: the repeated usage of our,
the sounds w and d are the out-sounding ones.
Twelfth paragraph is clearly the paragraph of prophetic promises. It duly
reflected the progressive ideology on the path the speaker wanted the nation to join
ahead. She firmly gave word that they (the newly elected government) would stem the
tides of difficult circumstances by the dint of three-prong approach involving
toleration, peace, and amity. It is a noticeable structure here that these three elements
purely belong to the area of ethics/morality. It is also a designed twist of discourse
that all the three approaches were set to inspire unbroken (non-paused) fluency of
thought process in the audience as they were not separated by putting commas among
them as usual (in this discourse so far). It was also a strategy to sound fluent in
speaking. The critical analysis of these three moral features explores a discursive
scheme underneath from internal to external and then to collective ends: firstly,
toleration (not tolerance) is an act which could only be practiced within ones self or
within ones internality, it foreshadowed to the internal flexibility of the speakers
person and/or party; secondly, peace is a practice purely to be offered to or required
from/by the others, it foretold the approach toward others i.e. the externality; thirdly,
amity would be the natural consequence when the both of the above said ends are met,
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it referred to that collective amiable environment in which both the speaker and the
others- the internal section and the external i.e. the followers and the opponents- were
proposed to co-exist in the best interest of the state and the nation. In this way,
toleration, peace, and amity supplied the very essence of the ideology being
promoted. A long list of promises has followed in the rest of the paragraph; the
speaker further assured that they would adopt the course of love and affection; they
would bring poverty (hunger) and abasement to an end; they would provide home to
the homeless; they would provide jobs to the jobless; they would propagate literacy
not only in the youth but also in the people who had been left illiterate; the speaker
warned that the unjust division of wealth would not be tolerated as the nation was
already suffering from the evil of poverty unleashed.
This paragraph also involved alliterative pronouncements to the poetic touch.
The repetition of we will not only supplied the spark of strong determination but
also stirred aesthetic side. The range of short sentences serving smart promises
brought the discourse very much near the rhetoric, if not a sermon. It echoed the
slogan of Pakistan Peoples Party i.e. bread, clothe, and home. The whole paragraph
spoke of the ideology in which lied the so called healing of wounds. The paragraph
has been set on the foundation of social realities which represented the discourse
framed in macrostructure.
In the thirteenth paragraph, the speaker refreshed the essentially ideological
flavour of national discourse/narrative with the help of taking temporal shift into the
past. She sensitized the ideological issue by touching the area of faith. She
stimulated the shared belief that Pakistan came into being for living forever. Having
set this faith as foundation of her argument, she proceeded that (since it is an eternal
entity) Pakistan possesses and provides all the components required for strengthening
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suspense, and then to leave it on the audience as to what conclusion from the
description they could draw. The speaker did not disclose whether the hopes of the
working class were fulfilled or not, which depicted that the speaker wanted the
audience to realize themselves the future of those fancies. She successfully employed
a mental construction of silent self-realization i.e. suggestiveness. The tone has gone
narrative. This paragraph parallels the construction of the previous paragraph i.e. the
future has been paralleled by the past, the promises by memories. This paragraph
bears a convincing manifestation of intertextuality as viewed by Norman Fairclough.
Fifteenth paragraph appeared to be the sequel of the previous in the sense that
the previous one related the scenario of pre-partition perspectives whereas the underanalysis paragraphs deals with the post-partition problems. The speaker shared that
the masses of Pakistan have struggled against the lordliness of the privileged stratum
since beginning; she meant that the people of Pakistan have historically been opposed
to the unfair/unnecessary highhandedness and suppression imposed by the privileged
and/or ruling class ever, which predicted that they would never endorse such
highhandedness in Pakistan. In the following lines, the speaker enlisted the chief evils
the Pakistani nation had suffered during the past forty years: the people of Pakistan
had born the martial laws for as many as three times, they had tolerated the annulment
or suspension of as many as four constitutions, and they had to suffer from as many as
four wars.
By way of sharing public sorrow, first the speaker recalled the painful events.
It is a psychological scheme of winning the favour of the audient. However, the lines
were not aimed at purely on persuasion alone, the current and crux of ideology were
found to be accompanying throughout. Mute criticism has been constructed in loud
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description. This paragraph, again, offered suggestive narrative. Authority was found
to be playing in the background of polite suggestions.
The speaker, in sixteenth step of her speech, continued developing the
previous content. She probed the historical context of her rule at length. She traced
that the roots of the said crises are deep in the background. That critical situation had
occurred between the government and the people. The speaker indirectly imparted
that the doings of the wrong-doers are not to be pinned with the others by avoiding
their individual worth: present rule should not be held responsible for the misdeeds of
the earlier. Having matured her argument to the full required extent, she brought in
the remedy of all the narrated socio-political diseases, and she implied this remedy to
be present in her rule. She hinted that only that government can awake the urge and
will in the depressed and suppressed masses which is essentially democratic and, on
that, sincerely sensitive and vigilant to the affairs of its public. Only by creating urge
in the disappointed masses, thus, the disturbed equilibrium could be restored between
the political and economic structures.
Notably, the speaker positioned economic before political, which is clear
expression of preferring economic reforms to political interests. It appeared to be the
preaching of a pro-public ideology in its strongest sense. The closing word
structures predicted the speakers deep insight into the systems i.e. the different
constituent layers and sub-systems which constitute together a super system- society.
It also showed the speakers future planning of structuring and restructuring of socioeconomic and socio-political paradigms, supposedly, in the best interest of the nation.
Removal of imbalance between the economic and political structures appeared to be
main thematic concerns of this stage of discourse. Here, an authorized
tongue/language sounded in the depth of ideological construction.
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the speaker used the phrase as with double effect: explaining to the others, and
explaining to as well as inspiring the party workers.
At this turn, this political discourse has gone extremely complex. It is because
all the discursive structures involved such as ideology, strategy, recollection along
with reiteration, suggestion along with prediction, sharing along with warning, and
tradition along with innovation, feministic echoes along with domineering powerprospective have thrived themselves into one single structure of locution at once.
Reference of Bhuttos saying is altogether an intertextual arrangement according to
Faircloughs theory.
Eighteenth divide of this speech opened, followed the manner of the
seventeenth, with the phrase on this occasion (the previous one opened with the
phrase at this moment). It was a visible try to bring the audience back to the present
since a good deal of relevant experiences of public and national importance had been
refreshed so far. However, the connection between afore mentioned quotation and
theme of this paragraph has not been let go. The ideological exposition of this
segment found perfect backing by the ideas spun before. The story had approached
the masses in the last paragraph out of which sprung the tribute the speaker paid to the
masses in this paragraph. The speaker glorified the fearless striving of the masses
towards the socio-political change for which they had chosen the speaker as a ruler of
tetra-provincial favour. This paragraph rises to be a collection of innumerable
constructs being all of them abstract (nouns): freedom, happiness, livelihood, family,
welfare, democracy, dignity, life, and hope etc. All these abstractions together lent
this apartment a huge impact of mental processes. She lauded the martyrs of political
struggle along with all those who offered sacrifices of freedom, happiness, livelihood,
family, and welfare in order to land the nation-state in freedom, democracy, dignity,
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enjoyment with optimism in life. She stated that there have been rare nations which
pursued their democratization with iron-will. These rare nations gave message to the
world that everything is achievable and every system is reformable/replaceable only if
are the people determined. It is inferred, therefore, that the quest for democracy in
Pakistan also proved to be an outstanding one on the day the speaker was
democratically elected through democratic process of free and fair general election.
Deriving conclusion from the history-nation-democracy argument, the speaker viewed
a Pakistan of the same health. She steered the course of speech to credit her own party
by signifying that it was an opportunity for Pakistan Peoples Party as it had been
entrusted with the most serious responsibility of serving the nation.
This segment appeared to be a party-pivoted piece. By constructing a mental
notion of democracy in the history of the nations, the pavement was made to
appreciate the success of democratic process (general election) in Pakistan which is an
eventful notion from discourse analysis point of view. Then, the gradual merger of
both of the notional constructs has been given to project the democratic and, more
specifically, electoral emergence of Pakistan Peoples Party along with its allies (to-be
as well). The representation of we and the others in the same frame of discourse
has successfully been spun to persuasion, at the same time, sticking with the ideology
of democracy and all the above mentioned abstract ideals. Ideology has been looked
through the strategy of exaggeration.
It is also significant to discourse analysis here that a couple of recent
paragraphs represented a calculated use of schemata (allusive description of prior
knowledge or history) on the part of the speaker.
Nineteenth paragraph represented the speakers confidence in the steadfastness
of her masses to coming forward and strengthening the speakers government. The
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persuasive tactic of pumping through appreciation has been used in order to realize
the indispensable need of the speakers idealism. She sought the support of the masses
of our country which she represented as being fearless. She accentuated the electoral
victory as the victory of our: masses and nation. Next is the reoccurrence of the
recognizable abstract constructions of freedom, hope, dignity, equality, and justice
etc. in connection with the victory and the outcomes thereof. Using the technique of
parallelism on sub-conscious level, the speaker came up with an eclipsing and
deadening description of the triumphant elections. However, such dim description
also served the ideology of hay and hope: it was held that the victorious election
would also bring death to impoverishment, mutual hostility, revengefulness, and
violence. On one hand, the elections would conjure positive characteristics, and on the
other hand, the articulation of killing the negative characteristics has been arranged.
The accomplishment of abstract goals has been vowed with the conditions of material
action such as coming forward and strengthening governments hands. Thus, a
condition was manipulated into a request at the surface.
Twentieth paragraph continued the mental act of appreciating the people, but
here it is in general sense (not party-centered as before). The speaker pronounced the
words of commendation for those among the general public whoever played role in
the democratic process. She falsified the brains which had misperceived that the
people of Pakistan did not deserve to enjoy democracy and, by no means, qualify even
to express this socio-political blessing, she stated that the great democratic struggle of
the masses must be an eye-opener for those who misunderstood and under estimated
the dynamics of Pakistani nation. In this way, the speaker left behind the erstwhile
specific party-oriented and politicians-oriented version of her discourse, and had
come in tune with her public in general. The strategies of praising the general people
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and generalizing the previously typified notion of democracy underlined the ideology
of serving the people regardless of their colour and creed. The speaker emphasized
that her partys basic agenda was to move forward towards supplying prominence to
the exalted principles of Islam i.e. brotherhood, equality, tolerance, and patience. By
denoting such ethical and spiritual notions, she had smartly adjoined her political
fundaments with the historical idea which led to the very creation of Pakistan i.e.
ideology of Islam (also renowned as ideology of Pakistan in the textbooks of
academic curricula). The same ideology became a landmark and motivating force in
the hands of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah at the time of partition of the
subcontinent (India). She attempted the instrument of the same ideology that had
driven the people at the time of partition. By expressing so, the speaker qualified her
political plan to be the only one nearest to the vision of the Father of the Nation.
Accordingly, connecting a purely religious and optative-cum-prophetic construction
of Insha Allah (if God will/ may God will), the speaker exclaimed to create an
atmosphere of peace and friendliness in society so that the nation could be welded
into one single and united whole, and so that a sense of national glory could be
breathed into the nation on the basis of such a system that would enjoy social justice
and social equality in letter and spirit. The speaker constructed a triangular structure
of surety by vowing that the life, property, and honour of the entire citizenry would be
protected regardless of religious, sectarian, racial, and sexual affiliations and
representations. It has involved the so called effect of three as a discursive technique.
She, in the closing sentence, directly involved the mental process of regarding religion
when she prayed to God Almighty (Allah) to bless her with the capability to
materialize her ideals of a prosperity and advancement on the national fronts. By
using phrase Allah in place of God, she maintained the Muslim spirit of her
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101
102
Twenty-sixth paragraph has visualized the place which had been allocated to
freedom of the press in the speakers political ideology. The speaker declared
individual freedom as to be fundamental in democratic systems. She predicted, with
the expression of Insha Allah, her long struggle to be fruit-yielding, but the long
struggle had not been mentioned with reference to anything in particular. Nonetheless,
context insisted that the struggle must be in connection with the individual freedom
and the freedom of the press. The speaker utilized the mental process of hope by
announcing that all such laws as were the obstacles in the way of freedom of the press
would be revoked so that Pakistan could be given the free press. It would, at the same
time, safeguard the right of free-expression of every citizen. The speaker shared that
the National Press Trust would be dissolved so that television and radio could be
provided with due autonomy to become the free translators and representatives of
expression. Only then can they serve the masses so far as uninfluenced and
dispassionate information is required. However, the issue was extended by developing
this paragraph into its second phase where it had been expressed that the freedom of
press did not mean to supply incorrect information or information with propaganda.
The task of restoring the credibility of media was assigned directly to Pakistan
Peoples Party so that the confidence level of the masses could be raised by bringing
them latest and correct information along with a healthy blend of entertainment. The
assigning of this task directly to Pakistan Peoples Party gave an expression that the
speaker would have close coordination in this regard. She further penetrated the issue
of freedom of the press by announcing that the so called press advice would be no
more in practice; she, leaving institutional debate aside, switched somewhat
individual area of journalism and resolved that the rights, honour, and dignity of the
working journalists would be safeguarded; it was also committed that the work-
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conditions and laws relating to the wages of the journalists would be revisited in order
to smoothen the way of freedom of press/expression to the maximum extent.
It had, therefore, been represented that the speaker regarded freedom of the
press as a prioritized component of in political framework. Expectation, intention, and
promise had weaved the flat fabric of this paragraph. After economy and the Centerprovinces relationship, ranking the construction of the press as high as at number
three was a clear indicator of the cooperation which the speaker attached with media
as an institution.
The speaker, in twenty-seventh paragraph, promises to bring back the name of
those people who sacrificed and had to suffer for democracy, and assures to pay them
for their services as compensation. The speaker announces to make monuments to
revive the name of those who were martyred in the journey of democracy so that they
may be alive in the hearts of people forever. The auxiliary verb will instead of shall
with we shows the stress that the speaker is desirous to pay tribute to the martyrs of
democracy. By doing this the speaker proves herself the true embodiment of
democracy. A wave of literariness goes on in this paragraph with the use of certain
adjectives and intensifiers.
Twenty-eighth paragraph opens with the words at this stage which suddenly
calls the attention of the hearers and then she talks about the political prisoners. She
informs them that the lawyers are in touch with the ministry of law regarding the
release of political prisoners since the President of Pakistan had announced her as the
parliamentary leader of PPP. She wants immediate release of the prisoners but the 8th
amendment seems a hindrance in this issue. She says that the liberty of the political
prisoners is of utmost importance. She has acknowledged their services by saying that
they have made sacrifices of their liberty for the sake of the country and assures their
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dignified release from the jails. She has hoped that some decision would be made as
soon as she finishes her speech. In this paragraph the speaker has shattered all the
distances between her and the political prisoners by calling herself as their sister, the
word sister shows her humbleness and meek nature while later on she addresses
them by the word you which is a direct way of calling any person with a level of
intimacy; furthermore, she calls them her brothers which highlights the same element.
She admires their efforts and sacrifices which a true leader does. The sentences seem
to be a bit colloquial yet they are not short.
In twenty-ninth paragraph, the speaker informs the audience that from the
coming day on the law ministry will be the ministry of the people, she meant that the
justice would be made easy and cheap for all; she also says that a positive decision
will be taken for the political prisoners. The speaker once again uses strategic
intensifier like as soon as possible and adjectives like positive and few to make
her tone powerful and persuasive while the wave of claims and promises is still going
on.
In thirtieth paragraph, the speaker informs her audience that her party is of the
view that the oppressed and exploited people should be given their due rights and they
(the government) feel it their duty to safeguard their rights. She in a declarative
sentence has made it clear that forced labour would be banned and the government
would revise the level of minimum wages. She has openly stressed that the laws
introduced by the International Labour Organization would be strictly followed. The
speaker appeared to be well aware of the responsibilities of her government when she
said we are bound to conform the laws of ILO; such words show her devotion,
dedication and sense of responsibility. The tilt of this paragraph sounds to be on the
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side of Fairloughian intertextuality as it has inserted ILO which must have its own
dictates.
Thirty-first paragraph appeared to be the shortest segment of the speech
consisting of almost only one line dealing with rights of minorities in Pakistan.
According to the ideology the speaker has upheld, minorities are sacred trust and
this is the word she has used for the armed forces as well so it is quite apt to view here
that for the speaker both of dimension had almost equal weightage. Though not many
words have been spoken for the minorities yet the selection of such linguistic choices
as pronounced here has rendered the issues of minorities in Pakistan as unordinary.
Then she has vowed to safeguard the minorities living in the country. She has selected
the phrase we are bound to safeguard all the minorities, this is the sentence she has
used in the previous paragraph while informing the people to follow the laws of ILO,
so the repetition of such words shows that she was well aware of her responsibilities,
and seemed determined to bring and introduce the reforms she has proposed. The
persuasive technique of repetition has been set in effective working at this stage of
discourse.
The speaker, in thirty-second paragraph, has emphasized the sorrowful fact
that the floods had harmed the crops to a great extent because of which short fall of
wheat has occurred, and this has badly affected the exports of the country as well.
Such natural disasters and uncertain situations have not only harmed agriculture but
also the industrial sector. The speakers speech is coherent as it has gradually fetched
the burning national issues on by one including health, education, military, economy,
and now in this paragraph it is agriculture. She has lamented the loss to the agriculture
and industrial sectors of the country. It has shown the speakers categorical
acknowledgements of natural disasters and human complications (flood, agricultural
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crisis: export and industrial crisis). However, she has pinned this grave chain of
incidents with the previous regime. The possessive pronoun our shows her faith not
only in unity but also in collective efforts.
In thirty-thirst paragraph, the speaker referred to the foreign loans and their
terms and conditions taken by the previous regime. The speaker tells her audience that
the in hand national exchequer can be sufficient for the development of the collapsing
economy. She is of the view that better circumstances can be achieved if the money is
not used in bribery, and it should not go in wrong hands instead it should be used for
the betterment of the poor and the oppressed. It is a point worth mentioning that the
speaker has invested more words in this paragraph than she would use in the
succeeding paragraphs, which shows her concern over the collapsing economy of the
country; for her, developed economy has appeared to be more important than health,
education and military as the coming paragraphs would unfold concisely. The
linguistic choices have not been made colloquial here yet the diction is easy and
comprehensive to the people from all fields of life, both literate and illiterate. The use
of comparative degree better makes the discourse political as she compares the
conditions of the previous regime.
Thirty-fourth paragraph has laid emphasis on the importance of well equipped,
trained and committed armed forces. The speaker harboured the view that her party
had considered the defense of the country and its territorial integrity as a sacred trust.
The use of adjectives like well equipped, highly trained, committed armed
forces, territorial integrity and sacred trust not only play the role of intensifiers
rather the lines are open for gender discourse as well where women are supposed to
be in the habit of using intensifiers more frequently than the men.
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Thirty-fifth paragraph has been set in relation to the speakers policy regarding
the health of the public and the measures taken in this connection. The speaker has
represented her stance as to be clear regarding health sector that she wanted to provide
modern medical facilities to the people and, for this purpose, will formulate a solid
and comprehensive health plan. The optimistic tone of the speaker along with the
promises is quite visible in these lines too. She has worked through decisive
vocabulary and intensifiers in her language to inspire and project the intensity in her
tone and content. The intensifying techniques used by the speaker in the form of the
words like very shows her language a sort of discourse typical to politicians.
The speaker has given importance to education in thirty-sixth paragraph of her
speech by saying that for an enlightened society education is the foundation, and she
was well aware of the fact that the rate of illiteracy is very high in the country. The
speaker showed her desire to open the door of knowledge to the youth of the country,
and she wanted to take concrete steps in this regard. Not only provision of knowledge
seemed to be her objective but to utilize this knowledge by giving jobs to the youth
has also been emphasized as her motive, so that this knowledge may not go waste in
unemployment. The current paragraph has exposed another aspect of the speakers
ideology in the form of preaching dire need of gaining knowledge and education.
Again the use of first person plural has thrown light on her confidence in collective
effort and belief in team spirit.
In thirty-seventh paragraph, the speaker announces that her government would
promote the standard of higher education and would take it to the international level;
side by side, she seemed determined to establish National Education Fund to promote
education in the country. The word our shows her confidence in team work, and
nowhere in her speech, she used first person singular whether it is the case to take any
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In thirty-ninth paragraph, the speaker has vowed to review all those cases in
which the employees and labourers were exploited either on political grounds or on
account of any conspiracies, she has also stressed that justice will be done.
The element of interdiscursivity is quite visible in this speech which is a
prominent aspect of discourse analysis. Throughout her speech, the speaker has time
and again promised her audience/ nation to promote justice, and in this paragraph too
she has laid emphasis on the promotion of justice. The speaker uses intensifying
techniques here by using the word Insha Allah which is also seen as a form of code
switching from analytical point of view.
In the fortieth paragraph, the speaker has stressed the necessity of a workable
foreign policy, she informed her audience that a successful foreign policy is
imperative and it should be such a policy as could become an ideal one and also such
a one upon which the whole nation may be agreed. She declared herself a strong
proponent of peace in the region that but of such peace as should be based on the
equal regard for rights and justice. She has announced to have strong relations with
USA, and better than ever relationship with the (then) Soviet Union while she wanted
to strengthen further the traditional relationship with the neighbouring country
China. She made a proclamation to be conscious of the rich Islamic heritage, she
favours the rights of the third world especially, she announced, to formally stand by
the Palestinian nation whose cause she claimed as her own. She then has informed the
nation of the visit of Indian Prime Minister, and expressed hope that the tension
between both the countries might be lessened after his visit; she has further
announced that she wanted to have strong relations with India based on equality and
justice. The speakers ideology is quite prominent here in this paragraph.
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The researcher has come across various types of ideologies here including
political as well as national. The proposed strong relationship with USA has given
voice to the speakers bend of mind towards a capitalist ideology while, at the same
time, she did not feel reluctant to extend hand to the USSR (the socialist ideology).
She has shown good inclination towards the promotion of justice, equality and peace
whether it is the case of her own country or any other country of third world like
Palestine. The speaker has revealed herself as a proponent of peace who did not want
any tussle and tension with the neighbouring regimes, and who wanted to remove
tensions with India. This paragraph clearly shows the discourse of a leader after
gaining victory and forming foreign policy. These lines have offered with a good deal
of cohesion and coherence while the element of intertextuality is also quite apparent.
The speaker has covertly inserted her anti-expansionist or, say, anti-neocolonialist
(and in a sense anti/post-colonialist) approach viz-a-viz the issues of Palestine and
Kashmir are concerned.
In forty-first paragraph, the speaker has acknowledged the struggles and
sacrifices made by the women. She has admired their strength and endeavour in the
war of liberation; they remained resolute even during firing and went to jails with
their infants and became victims of oppression and torture in Lahore Fort; but they did
not retreat and remained firm on their stand. She promises to amend all those laws
which played a negative role in connection with womens rights. She has also
promises to introduce such reforms as could uplift their rights: they would be allowed
to work and would freely choose their means of livelihood, justice would be conferred
upon them, they would be granted wages/pays in full accordance of the amount of
work they would do (as practiced mainly in the male segment), and above all, they
would be provided with equal maternity leave.
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The speakers ideology has come to the surface in clear words of these lines
which, according to Foucault, is a construction of reality. It is through the very
language of the speaker that the ideology is constructed and through such ideologies
transformation, production, reproduction and maintenance of domination becomes
possible. The ideology which is evident from the under analysis lines is the ideology
of gender equality, liberation, and emancipation of women. The speaker has wished
and promised the equality of wages at equal labour and also announced to annul those
laws which had been in past a hindrance in the equal rights of women. The under
analysis lines have showcased future tense used in all lines which is akin to the
language of politicians making claims and promises with the public and nation. As far
as the vocabulary of the speaker is concerned, she has knitted such adjectives and
adverbs as boost the spirit of the audience, again a peculiar element of politicians
language.
In forty-second paragraph of the speech, the speaker in a very humble tone has
addressed the audience by calling them brothers, elders and associates, and told them
that it was a long journey of struggle through which she and her party restored
democracy which she has acknowledged as a direct outcome of peoples power. She
expressed that closing the doors of parliament and tearing the constitution by the
previous regime had created difficulties in restoring democracy. But that time was
over, the speaker declared in the immediate paragraph. She was of the view that life
could change soon, but when such change emerges through struggle it seems that the
journey was too long and difficult; when such happenings occur, patience is needed.
She has told that during the whole span of the previous regime which consisted of
eleven years it was assumed by everyone that the patience would bear fruit. She
advises her audience to seek the truth.
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The critical linguists are of the view that language is an integral part of social
change; this is what the present discourse is accomplishing- a positive change (social)
in the form of restoration of democracy after a long journey of efforts as the speaker
herself has informed, so, the language here is offering itself as social act as Halliday
and Fairclough both have viewed so. The speaker being a politician typically followed
the tradition of political discourse and has tried to shorten the distance between her
audience and herself by calling them as her brothers, associates and using the word
our with the nation, hence getting persuasive and influential covertly. Power in
discourse has been an interesting area for the critical discourse analysts and the
present discourse perfectly reflects the power in and through discourse when the
speaker simultaneously announces instructions and also keeps the polite bond
maintained till the end. The frequent use of adjectives like long and sweet reflect
Lakoffs claim which he has attributed to womens language that they use adjectives
quite often in their language. The speaker uses first person plural instead of singular
which again highlights the element of politeness in her language. Regarding the
choice of vocabulary and grammar by the speaker, the discourse analysts are of the
view that these choices are ideologically based which seems true in the case of present
paragraph.
The speaker, in forty-third divide of her speech, has invited her audience to
come forward if she or her party makes any mistake, she was of the view that right
policies are formed through criticism, debate, and forbearance. The political language
of the speaker is full of persuasion and submission here, she has worked through very
meticulous vocabulary, for example she did not used the phrase blunder or error
etc. instead she selected the phrase mistake which refers to a fault which happens by
chance. She has called her audience as sisters and brothers to meet the politeness
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principle in discourse. Her language though political is yet both humble on the one
hand and suggestive on the other hand, and both of the persuasive characteristics are
at work hand in hand. So the discourse of power by the speaker after getting real
power is quite visible here. This is what CDA theorists and researchers have tried to
dig out through such discourses. Hence, the current paragraph has explored the
relationship of power and the struggle for power which, according to Fairclough, is a
way to secure power and hegemony.
In forty-forth paragraph, the speaker has informed the audience that after
gaining victory when she entered the parliament, the people gathered to raise the
slogans that Bhutto is still alive. The lines under analysis reveal the power and
dominance which is the subject matter of CDA according to Van Dijk; however, they
are understood and comprehendible in the background of a specific context- the
victory of the speaker in general election. So, the discourse of the speaker is
analyzable through this particular political cum social context. The speaker has
utilized meek language with the sense of gratitude. The interaction with other
peoples slogans has imported the Faircloughs concept of intertextuality and, at the
same time, Hallidays concept of ideational function of language.
In forty-fifth paragraph, the speaker has supplied the audience with a universal
truth that the person who serves the nation is never forgotten. According to her
thinking, money and bribery are naught, what matter most are the faith and the pride
which being Muslim, the people of the country should rightly have. She has advised
the audience to serve each other. According to the philosophy the speaker has
propagated, as long as people think in terms of brotherhood, no power and force could
defeat them. She made promises with the people to stay with the nation till her death.
She has not given due importance to authority and power rather she has preferred to
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be respectful in the eyes of the people. She has reiterated that she and her party would
serve the nation. The speakers tone sounds to be somewhat rhetorical here, she has
managed to preach, instruct, and persuade simultaneously. Like a typical leader, she
has used persuasive language, as often is used as a tool by the politicians. Robin
Lakoff claims that the women language possess more intensifiers/adjectives and is
more emotional than men which seems appropriate as the speaker has validated
Lakoffs observation through her tone, vocabulary (never, always, should, biggest
etc), and promises. So, the element related to language and gender is also visible in
this paragraph. The way she has asked questions from the people is typical of a
politician and a leader to call the attention of her/his audience, simultaneously, the
vocabulary used by the speaker is both instructive and authoritative.
In the concluding paragraph, which is forty-sixth, of her speech, the speaker
has paid homage to the then President and the chief of the Armed Forces for their
endeavour to restore democracy in the country by using their powers by defeating the
enemies of democracy. She has proposed it as collective duty of all the citizens of
Pakistan and the patriotic to work and strive for a life of dignity. The speaker has
ended her speech by thanking the nation and raising the slogan of Pakistan Zindabad.
The present paragraph seems to offer the crux of the speech- restoration of democracy
after a long period and the speaker very humbly acknowledges the efforts made by the
President and Chief of Armed Forces, the discourse here fulfills Leechs principle of
Politeness, however, instead of thanking them she has the word respect which
retains the powerful status of the speaker. The speaker has used some antagonistic
words in the same speech but to refer to two different categories of people, the words
like respects, restoration, love, strife and self respect are counter to the words
pressure, enemies and postpone; the former referring to positive connotation while the
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later negative. The tone of the speaker is both benedictive and instructive, like an
instructor she has called her audience for a collective stand to strive for a dignified
life, and has condemns the undemocratic set up of the previous regime. She has used
persuasive language as is expected from any statesman holding the expectations of the
nation.
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Above all, his way of outdoing the schemes of his adversaries was extremely
convincing and inviting because he carried his mission ahead by means of law and
constitution. The speaker has tried to stress the role of legality and constitutionalism
in the way to freedom.
This paragraph reads in descriptive style. The overall impact of this section is
that of historical and inspiring pride in the very history. The lines are not only
persuasive but also instructive. The speaker represents her ideology as having been
derived from the ideology of the father of nation. The construct is altogether temporal,
however, slight assistance has also been taken from existential process (centering
around the existence of a particular geography- Pakistan). Micro structure has very
persuasively been expanded into a wider structure of socio-political expositions in a
retrospective fashion. It offers a working application of the circumstances of extent
and location i.e. constructs of time and space at once.
Fifth paragraph of the speech has further carried the speakers stream of
thought relating to the Quaid-i-Azam. Frame of reference remained the same, but the
previous segment related his will and determination i.e. the means to his ends, and the
present paragraph speaks of his leadership and the ends themselves. The speaker
informs of his wide popularity and his having deep roots in the country. Root has
acted at two levels: (1) externally, it gives the impression of the Quaids line and
belonging to subcontinent, and (2) internally, it refers to the ideological roots which
the Quaid-i-Azam shared in full width and depth with the aspirant people of the
subcontinent. The speaker has declared him as the true translator of the peoples
ambitions and aspirations at that particular twist of time. He enjoyed such enormous
dedication in spite of facing enormous opposition. The following sentence has yoked
three different evils by using rule of three: the speaker has told in the next sentence
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that it was the sure-footed resolution of the great leader which brought his ambitious
followers to the shore of redemption out of oppression, fear, and exploitation. His
awaken realization against the ongoing tyrannous clutches of the colonial masters and
the local rule-seekers led the Muslims of the subcontinent to respond him with
deliberated trust in favour of demanding and making a free state for them. This
paragraph sounds to be the continuity of the subject which has been launched through
the recent ones.
This paragraph, like the last ones, has given clarification of the speakers
ideological origins. The speaker has used the description of a sensitively shared
idealism of all. This temporal construction has quite accurately corresponded between
the themes of the present and the past, which are same in nature, offering a crystal
clear vision of the most desired sense of nationalism in the audience. Internal
(ideational) and external (textual) symmetries in this paragraph have been established
on the foundation of ideology along with its roots which found way through a
retrospective frame of time. The discursive behaviour of the speaker tends more to the
side of psychological than physical.
The speaker, in sixth paragraph, declares herself and her party as the bearers
of Quaid-i-Azams ideals; she felt proud to be the follower of him. In the next line she
has explained those ideas and ideals which are the rise of democracy such as
autonomy of the provinces, social and economic equality, the rule of law, and order
and justice in the country; she told the audience that she had strong belief in Allah
Almighty and this is the trust in Almighty that made her party win the elections. The
present paragraph can clearly be called a discourse of ideology where the speaker has
mentioned her ideology harmonizing with the ideology of her party. Like most of the
paragraphs of this speech the present one also has first person plural in many lines but
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this is the only paragraph where the very commencing phrase is we which shows
speakers ideology in unity and collective effort. The speakers vocabulary as well as
tone, both have shows the elements of meekness and politeness.
In seventh paragraph, the speaker has described the felicity of the
Independence Day, she felt proud to be a follower of Quaid-i-Azam who gave three
golden principles: faith, discipline and unity, which are the doors to success, progress
and development. She thinks it the essential duty of her regime and party to follow
these principles. She has vowed on the Independence Day that her government would
save the national unity, and would guard the geographical boundaries of the country.
She also claimed to protect peoples rights and to bring prosperity to the country. She
made promise to maintain law and order in the country. She reminded the people that
her government is the government people of the Pakistan themselves have chosen,
and she is a prime minister the people of Pakistan themselves have elected. She has
called her government as the voice of common man. She shared that she was feeling
pride in addressing the nation as elected prime minister of the country, and
acknowledged the peoples effort in turning the country a democratic state once again
where the green flag flutters in democratic atmosphere. It is a point worth mentioning
here that from first person plural the speaker has changed her tone to first person
singular in this paragraph which is going to change in plural once again in the
succeeding paragraphs. The speaker seemed to be proud, determined, and devoted at
this stage. She made promise with her nation like in a typically political fashion to
make the country progressive and prosperous. The speakers discourse here can be
remarked as truly a political discourse with open ideologies and strategies. She has
used decisive vocabulary which is particularly found in the discourses of authorities.
The persuasive language of this paragraph would change its tone to instructive one in
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the coming paragraphs. The adjectives used in these lines have played the role of
intensifiers while the same role has been offered also by the adverbs involved.
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paragraphs, the speaker has used the first person plural and possessive pronoun in
order to minimize the distance between herself and the audience, and to insinuate
show a connectedness with them.
Once again, through eleventh paragraph of this speech, the speaker has
reminded her audience the glory of the day on which she was delivering her speech,
on that auspicious day of anniversary saluted those who has offered sacrifices of their
lives for the country and those who had suffered in the days of oppression during the
period of earlier government. She also admired the sacrifices and struggles of those
brave men who had defended the countrys geographical borders from Siachen to
Gwadar. She repeatedly presented rich tribute to those workers who sacrificed their
lives while fighting the forces of oppression, tyranny, and darkness before. In this
whole paragraph, the speaker has admired the sacrifices and struggles of all those who
contributed and participated in saving their country. The speaker has again used first
person plural in all the lines of this paragraph, which expresses a sense of
acquaintance, affinity and inwardness.
Twelfth paragraph has revealed that though on a number of occasions in her
speech the speaker has addressed the youth yet in this paragraph she exclusively
pointed out and assigned some duties to the young blood, and bound her expectations
with them. The word on this occasion exhibited the enormity and importance of the
day of independence as well as of this paragraph. She has shown her desire to address
the youth especially in the opening lines of this paragraph. She reminded the young
generation its responsibility, which was envisioned by those who sacrificed their lives
to make Pakistan. She, by directly exclaiming them, informed them that the whole
nations eyes are centered on them. She also told them that nowhere in history such
great responsibility had been expected from a single class of society as was being
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expected from them at that time, because the youth was educated and they had to
support their country men who were illiterate and belonged to a poor country. She
then remembered the days gone with dictatorship when the youth was spoiled by the
self-serving rulers and was poisoned by oppression and lawlessness, hatred and
violence which, in turn, gave rise to regionalism and despise in Pakistan. She
pronounced that the youth was a national asset which cannot grow positively in an
atmosphere where hatred and regionalism dwell. According to her diagnosis, it was
the war of ideas and ideology, and not a war of arms. In such war, on the one hand
lies the ideology of democracy, peace, brotherhood, love and progress while, on the
other hand, insists the ideology of dictators, oppressors, the haters of peace and
development. Pakistan came into being on the foundations of ideas of liberty, justice,
brotherhood and love, and not in the name of oppression and violence. The speakers
powerful vocabulary has flown to height, her intentions do not sound to be concealed,
and everything seems clear from her word. This paragraph represents discourse of
ideology where the speaker very transparently has exposed her ideological veins
which flow in democracy and peace, and which, in turn, can culminate into progress
and development.
Like and instructor, in thirteenth paragraph, the speaker has motivated and
persuaded her countrymen to abandon greed and selfishness, she has appeared to be
an abhorrer of materialism through these words. She has reminded the nation the three
golden principles of Quaid-i-Azam: unity, faith and discipline; the speaker has
disclosed her believe that the secret of countrys progress lied in these three golden
words. She wanted her countrymen to wage war again all the social evils which are
hindrance to progress, success, and peace. To her, the solution of the economic
problems is unity, and all the political problems could be sorted out through the
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supremacy of law and constitution. The under analysis lines look more like a moral
sermon from the pulpit of a moralist, and this effect got more strength when the
speaker used the word jihad which has purely religious connotation. Time and again,
the speaker used the words let us which shows her belief in collective effort and the
philosophy of involving the listeners in discourse by drawing their attention. The
reference of the creator of the country adds to the same effect. She has used such
vocabulary in each line like build, establish and solve as demand of practicality
and solid actions. The possessive pronoun used with countrymen has created a sense
of affiliation and endearment.
The speaker while addressing the people, in fourteenth paragraph, has asked
them to think of the ways which could lead the country towards progress and
development. She inquired as to how much time and effort they could take; she has
also asked them to get stand for alleviating poverty and for lessening the sorrows of
those country men who are suffering. She wanted to know as to what extent the
people can sacrifice their dreams for their homeland. She drew the attention of her
audience towards those children who wander in ragged and torn clothes, towards
those women who are uncertain of their future in utter dejection, towards the youth
who is jobless and highly pessimist, towards the helpless parents who do not possess
any means to get medicine for their sick children; she painted before their mind-eye
the picture of a society where the social evils were prevalent, and then asked them if it
was all they wanted to prevail in their country. Having addressed them in
interrogative tone, she herself replied of her questions in no. By asking questions
and then by herself replying to those questions of hers, the speaker has used a manner
akin to Socratic irony as persuasive device here. The use of the word today has
again pointed out the significance of that day i.e. the Independence Day. These lines
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have launched a chain of questions with the same concern for the country and the
country men. The speakers selflessness, sincerity, and devotion are evident in these
lines; her subject matter throughout the speech has appeared to be her country and
countrymen, and her showing love for them. Her words sounded to be highly
persuasive and emotional expressing the spirit of an enthusiastic leader. The frequent
use of adjectives and adverbs has rendered this speech more forceful. The signs of
exclamation have expressed her emotions associated with the nation which on the one
hand has confirm her a true politician and on the other hand has made this fact clear
that the words are from a lady; as per Lakoff, mens language is comparatively less
charged with emotions.
In fifteenth which is the concluding paragraph of this speech, the speaker has
tried to motivate the nation through her strong and persuasive language to take
initiative for the betterment and progress of the country. Again like an instructor, she
imparted instructions to the nation to move forward with ideas and actions. The
speaker urged the people to envision dreams, boost up confidence, and boldness in
order to make the country earn an outstanding position at international level. The
speaker reminded them the struggles made by their forefathers in order to get
independence at the cost of countless sacrifices. She invited them to take step to make
the country prosperous and progressive which is the real goal. She wanted them to be
united in order to make the country an Islamic welfare state in true sense. The way the
speaker addresses her audience shows her affiliation and respect for them. The words
and tone of this paragraph is right in accordance to the context- the Independence
Day. The speaker has vehemently tried to warm and excite the peoples spirits
through her eloquence and persuasive vocabulary; the repetition of the same inviting
words come has acted as accelerators which is the hallmark of leaders discourse as
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well as politicians. The imperative tone of the speaker in these lines at work, she has
not only addressed rather has made a calculated attempt to stimulate too through the
very imperative tone. The lexical choices like urge, march forward, have
boldness, come, let us create and let us take can exercise a powerful pull of
invitation for collective effort, and are demanding in nature. Therefore, highly
charged and moving vocabulary has been used by the speaker which also imparts a
literary and aesthetic taste when she exposed her choice of the phrase, to dream
beautiful dream. She ended her speech by raising the slogan of her country which,
besides being an official manner and formality, has also revealed her ideology of
patriotism and love for nation.
4.4
Conclusion
Throughout the analysis, Faircloughs propositions and predictions regarding
ideology, power, and language have found full expression in the selected discourse;
evidently, the political leaders really know as how to cast the spell of linguistic
choices by masterly investing in them persuasive techniques at both psychological as
well as physical levels in discourse. Hallidays trends and techniques have also been
analyzed at maximum possible length. However, the over-repeated CDA
terminologies, for instance ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions of
language, material, mental, relational process etc. and different types of Hallidian
circumstances have been given to balanced/reduced description so that unnecessary
monotonous effects could be averted.
The above launched critical discourse analysis of Benazir Bhuttos political
discourse reveals that her discourse, like that of almost all the typical leaders, is
ideological as well as calculatedly persuasive. However, her discourse is found to be
130
different in the sense that a female leader addressed the male-dominated and
religiously conservative society after having won it for the first time in the history of
that nation, and where the socio-national situation had gone already worsened at the
hands of males. However, the overall impacts and implications of her formal speeches
have been analyzed to be free of gender bias. Therefore, her ideological approach is
many-fold, and each fold has further been found multi-dimensional. Though the
element of monotony can reduce the efficacy of AIDA (Attention-Interest-DesireAction) plan yet the use of persuasive strategies has been found in abundance and
smart. She neared and owned the masses with all of their debit-credit; it can be called
hallmark of her formal political discourse. She delivered short and smart sentence,
they are moderate even when they are in maximum length. Development of thought is
found to be systematic and symmetrical throughout the issues addressed i.e. the
lexical choices adequately correspond to the syntactic organization of discourse. Her
choice of diction was noted to be very much simple and comprehensive. Her topical
sentences are forceful, arguments supportive, and closes solid.
131
CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSION
Discourses with their types have outnumbered the theories of discourse
(analysis). All the methods of critical discourse analysis together are but an attempt to
reach the meaning underlying discourses. The quest for reality i.e. the meaning has
yet to advance a long way ahead. Bookish and academic methods are yet inadequate
and immature for unearthing the occult areas of humans linguistic behaviour;
investigation of well-prepared, utilitarian, designed, and politicized discourse
becomes rather super-complex. However, the tools and techniques which could have
been prescribed so far in CDA have provided with a good degree of insight. Critical
discourse analysis, amid such complexity, aims at discovering the reality underlying
the form and content of a particular discourse. Its techniques have been found
instrumental in analyzing a range/variety of discourses, if not all. Whether it is
substance, structure, or situation of discourse, CDA can offer appropriate machinery
in order to, at least, approximate the very meaning of that particular discourse. A like
attempt has been made in this research as well.
5.1
particular notions, expressions, phrases, and facets of the selected discourse the
researcher has critically, discursively, and analytically deemed vital from linguistic
and ideological points of view, and as pursued right from the beginning. A panoramic
overview of this research work and the findings thereof has been supplied through the
following eventful highlights:
5.1.1
132
133
134
Sr. No.
Temporal Constructs
Speech I
Speech II
Total
Future
Modern
New
Now
Past
Present
Time
Today
12
Year
32
14
46
Grand Total
In the light of above table 1, the order of these temporal phrases according to
their frequencies has appeared as follows:
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
135
Above outcome has revealed that it was nothing other than Benazir Bhuttos
today-centered (present-centered) ideology which qualified her for becoming one of
the most celebrated and credible leader of her present time; the above analysis has
shown that her political doctrine was perfectly/maximally configured for the public
needs of that particular time; this (qualitatively as well as quantitatively) maximized
design of her political idealism guaranteed her towering success in a society given to
male chauvinism. Beside, her repeated use of phrase like past, present future, now,
time, year, etc. is an irresistible sign of her being extremely time-conscious; the
temporal tone has pervasively prevailed throughout her (selected) discourse.
At the same time, interestingly, the ideology she represented had not been
examined at the touchstone of national circumstances before. It, then, must have been
a potential reason behind her victory that hers was yet an intact and untried novel
ideological experience for the people of Pakistan.
5.1.2
Addressing the research questions one by one in the light of this analytical
study, the following facts have been discovered:
136
The speaker has, as found in this analytical study, used the ideological
linguistic choices involving different backgrounds and foregrounds; the analysis of
the speakers ideological approach has been conducted from different vantage points
because, as it is, the speakers ideology is motley of various shades. The researcher
has, however, selected for analysis the national, regional, and religious shades of her
ideology; how she has given preference to her party-affiliation has also been
examined; the usage of personal pronouns has also been researched; and her temporal
sensitivity and sensibility has already been represented in detail above (Table 1).
The speakers ideological bent of mind as far as national (internal) affairs and
targets are concerned has been broken down in the following table (2):
Politico-national Constructs
Speech I
Speech II
Total
Armed forces
Country
25
26
51
Defence
Democracy
14
18
Economy
Integrity
Masses
19
21
Minorities
Pakistan
12
21
137
10
12
14
11
People
19
10
29
12
Progress
13
Prosperity
14
15
Sovereignty
16
The Quaid-i-Azam
118
65
183
Grand Total
As per the above table (2), the self-explanatory ranking of these temporal
constructs according to their frequencies emerged to be so:
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV. Armed forces (occurred for 1 time, which is the lowest frequency)
XV.
138
It is, however, striking that some of the most important ideological phrases have,
discursively, occurred in the selected discourse with lowest (single-digit) frequencies;
these are as many as 10 constructs: armed forces:1, defence: 2, economy: 8, integrity:
1, minorities: 4, progress: 2, prosperity: 2, Shaheed Z.A Bhutto: 2, sovereignty: 1, and
Quaid-i-Azam: 6. Seven (defence, economy, integrity, minorities, progress,
prosperity, and sovereignty) out of these 10 are purely the national goals to be
planned and achieved; one (armed forces) is considered essentially a sort ideology
beyond being merely an institution, however, before that it falls among the major
sources towards the said goals, and the remaining two (Shaheed Z.A Bhutto, and the
Quaid-i-Azam) are the sources of ideological and political inspiration from the past.
These lowest frequencies are relevant to the solid/material issues of the country, they
are potential in nature. They deal directly with the future and history (of Pakistan)
alone. On the contrary, the ideological choices (country, people, masses, Pakistan,
democracy, and PPP) are peculiarly the one which could not dispense from being
present at the time the speaker addressed. By this, it may well be meant that the
speaker is altogether conscious of the present moment beyond any other tense. This
finding rationally conforms to the finding established above (Table 1).
It has also been revealed that the speaker harbours strong psychological tilt
towards not only temporal present but also the physically present (entities/things). It
is evident from the fact that all the high frequencies (country, people, masses,
Pakistan, democracy, and PPP) are the ones which, in one way or the other, were
enjoying literal/physical existence/presence at the time the speaker imparted this
discourse in late 1990s, on the other hand, the most of the low frequencies (with
exception of armed forces and minorities) are the ones which were absent or
139
Examining between the lines of high-frequency constructs, another fact has also
been unwrapped that the speaker was psychologically inclined to the
presence/association of multitudes; phrases she set in high frequencies are notable in
this regard (country, people, masses, Pakistan, democracy, and Pakistan Peoples
Party).
Quite noticeably, Shaheed Zulfikar Ali and Armed forces/Defence are
among the ideas of lowest frequency in the selected discourse. It is ironic that these
two references are, undoubtedly, among the most significant ones, but have occured
among the lowest frequencies of discourse. It may relate a story; it may demystify
secretes, or may at the same time be meant to mystify them rather more. Text is born
out of context; therefore, this discursive frame may be full of invitation and
interpretation as being a prophet of the psychological frame of the speaker at that
particular time. It has, after all, revealed that these two references have been set on
one extreme (lower extreme of frequencies). This extreme may be positive i.e.
approval, negative i.e. disapproval, or as well be different for the both of the
references involved. This ironically low occurrence of such outstanding constituents
of ideology may denote as follows:
a. Firstly, both of the entities have been represented as occupying the positive
extreme i.e. the extreme of approval, uphold, and standing them out of the rest.
However, this extreme positivity of theirs has covertly been implied by
rendering them as constructs of the lowest frequency in the selected discourse.
The possible reasons behind this covertness might involve: (I) the speaker
140
might have meant that though the ideology she propagated found roots from
Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhuttos yet it (PPP) is no more a party confined only to
that very particular idealism; instead, in addition to that one, it has gained
ground and growth according to the growing expectations and needs of the
nation with the passage of time. The speaker tried an expression to
acknowledge the founding philosophy of Z.A Bhutto and, at the same time, to
pin with it upgradation, modernism and a sense of todayness, (II) speaker
might have tried to create mere seemingly an impression of downplaying
and/or disallowing an institution as powerful as military in Pakistan viz-a-viz
its political inclination as had been observed in the past in the forms of
frequent martial laws. This ostensibility may be meant to take the audience on
board towards an uninterrupted and purely civilian democratic process on in
the country, and (III) instead of being merely seeming, it might be a covert
expression of no more allowing the said institution with its undemocratic role
in the politics of Pakistan (as observed in the past in the forms of frequent
martial laws). It might actually be meant a warning message for the said
institution as it should stop interfering in the civilian affairs of the state.
b. Secondly, it might as well be probable that one of the references has been
represented on positive extreme whereas the other vice-versa. This probability
can be established on the grounds of a historical fact i.e. one of the most fatal
military-civil conflict in Pakistan appeared between the military ruler General
Zia-ul-Haq and Z.A Bhutto, and it was in the military regime of the same
General Zia that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged.
141
c. Thirdly, the speaker might have represented both of the entities on negative
extreme i.e. the extreme of disapproval and refute. However, this case
qualifies for little probability.
Besides, all the ideological phrases involved here could clearly anticipate the
national areas the speakers socio-political ideology was consisted of. It would not be
amiss if the above ranking reads the psychological priorities of the speakers as far as
all these (16) areas are concerned.
Personal Pronouns
Speech I
Speech II
Total
17
23
You
We
64
22
86
He
12
142
She
They
22
26
116
40
156
Grand Total
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
and I moderately concerned, and you appeared to be the least concerned frame in
the selected political discourse of Benazir Bhutto. It has shown that the speaker is
altogether interested in nearing others (accumulation of high frequencies = We plus
They plus I) into a collectivity.
It has verified the accuracy of the above established findings that the speakers
person enjoyed inescapable psychological engagement either with the
literally/physically present (things etc.) or multitudes; the highest frequencies of we
and I, and we and they can best be the evidence for the purpose respectively.
143
Country Name
China
Speech I
1
Speech II
0
Total
1
India
Palestine
Region(al peace)
Soviet Union
Third world
U.S.A
Grand Total
144
newly elected prime mister. On the other hand, the formal celebration and observance
of such occasion as Independence Day was not an appropriate occasion for the
announcement of such policies.
I.
All in all, only five important states (China, India, Palestine, Soviet Union,
and U.S.A) have been pronounced in the text/discourse; nonetheless, the
whole concerned world has been set inviting between the lines (region and
third world).
II.
III.
Alphabetical arrangement of the countries has touched the wonder for its
thematic symmetry, it is remarkable that:
(a) It starts with China followed by India, both share geographical boundaries
with Pakistan and hence are the nearest states, but one (China) out of the
two is the time-tested best friend and the other (India) is the routine-rival.
Both had opposing geo-political ideas; both were lead-seekers in a
troubled region. Both were mutual adversaries while Pakistan played
between. Pakistan was then pro-China against Indian designs.
(b) Next comes Palestine, which has been existing as one of the longest
burning issues on the face of the globe since decades; its being a Muslim
state has won it a place in the foreign policy of Pakistan. It has been set in
the heart of Benazir Bhuttos proposed foreign policy as it has been
positioned as third among the five, so, occupying pivot of the other four.
145
Impressive parallelism has thus been woven at the either sides of Palestine.
V.
VI.
Naming each country for only once has seeds of diplomacy, and mirrored
the speakers diplomatic insight.
VII.
Having mentioned the said five countries by their individual names, the
speaker then extended her linguistic choice to region, prescribing and
demanding regional peace. Palestinian cause has also been supported for
attaining peace. It indicates that the speaker is, in fact, desirous of peace, at
least regional peace by solving the issues of Kashmir (between India and
Pakistan) and Palestine. Kashmir case is also similar to that of Palestine
lasting from decades. However, reference of Kashmir has covertly implied
in discourse as by stressing that Pakistan desires regional peace.
146
VIII.
The speakers anti-expansionist or, say, anti-neocolonialist (anti/postcolonial in a sense) approach has also been echoed through the foreign
policy section clearly, as she has attached it with Kashmir and Palestine.
However, it is extremely interesting to note that neither Kashmir nor Israel
has been mentioned in discourse. It is again an excellent diplomatic play
upon words as the expansionist designs have loudly been condemned
through a silence most meaningful. Such style is, indeed, a covert carrier
of seasoned diplomatic tendencies.
IX.
Having mentioned region, the speaker then further extended her vision by
referring to all the Third World. It is again interesting to note that Third
World has appeared alphabetically sandwiched between Soviet Union and
USA. It is a symbolic of that Third World was suffering from the
hegemonic global war between the said patrons. Their hot and cold wars
have fixed the Third World in the quagmire of backwardness. Thus, the
speaker has tried to play the role of the representative of the entire Third
World.
X.
XI.
The speaker has appeared to be very much picky and conscious viz-a-viz
Pakistan foreign policy. It is clear from the fact that the speaker has told
the foreign policy of the previous rule as to be short-sighted in the
147
beginning of speech I (tenth paragraph), and she has also disclosed her
proposed foreign policy as to be successful towards the close of the same
speech (fortieth paragraph). Thus, she has offered and compared her
foreign policy as being in juxtaposition and superiority to the previous one.
XII.
Furthermore, the religious shade of the speakers ideology has also been
assessed analytically. The researcher has found following (Table 5) linguistic choices
of religious importance in the selected discourse:
Religious Constructs
Allah/Almighty
Speech I
1
Speech II
2
Total
3
Faith
Insha Allah
Islamic
Jehad
Minorities
Muslims(s)
13
12
25
Grand total
I.
148
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
These religious constructs can be grouped into the following three categories
owing to the reasons as mentioned with each:
I.
The research has called category one as Conviction Category including the
constructs Faith, Allah/Almighty, and Insha Allah. These have been
categorized together because all of these three frequencies pertain to the
speakers conviction. This category of religious constructs reveals that the
speaker has faith in an almighty entity; and she believes that the affairs are
run according to the consent and will of the Almighty.
II.
Category two has included the constructs Muslim(s) and Islamic and,
hence, been named as Islam Category, because both of the two members
of this category represent the typical concepts of Islamic affiliations and
brotherhood. This category reveals that the speaker upholds the religion
Islam in order to connect herself with the Almighty God, and is altogether
conscious of the fellow Islamic world and the Islamic associations on
earth.
III.
Third category has been called Difference Category with only one
construct Minority in it. The researcher has named it so owing to the fact
that it consists of a group (minorities) which represents the concept of
149
Fourth, and the final, category also includes only one construct i.e. Jehad.
Since Jehad is a practice recommended by Islam, the name of this
category has been suggested as Practice Category. It is important to add
that the speaker has invoked Jehad against social evils, more particularly
in Pakistan of that era.
3. Discourse analysis of the selected data could not discover anyway to find
whether the ideology of a political leader remain/become really objective,
masses-oriented, and self(and otherness)-negating, or it merely looks so on
the surface.
4. The critical analysis of the selected formal political discourse reveals that
power cannot be there without ideology; even when power has been exercised
purely for power sake, the power itself becomes ideology. Almost all the
expansionist regimes are the examples of it. Both are directly proportional and
reciprocal to each other and one can frankly be peeped through the other.
Therefore, power has to wear ideology in order to legitimate and justify its
own (abstract) existence.
150
5.1.3
The first three objectives have been achieved through the analysis of data
whereas the remaining two could not be satisfied within the scope of this research
study.
The following five research objectives were pursued throughout this research:
1. To study the manner in which a political leader pursues and propagates his/her
own and/or shared ideology through the use of language.
2. To analyze the formal political discourse of a political leader when she was
unpracticed, and when she got experienced.
3. To evaluate the role of party-politics even when a party proclaims to be
objective in national affairs.
4. To investigate whether political speakers artfully employ persuasive strategies
in order to indoctrinate their selected ideologies or it happens automatically by
impulse.
5. To reach whether their national concerns remain/become really pro-public, or
it remains/becomes merely a manipulative drama.
151
1. It is true that political speeches involve some sort of ideology in one way or
the other, and at the same time, they are always power-oriented. Critical
analysis of data, therefore, proves that only a credible ideology is the real
power in the hands of democratic leaders throughout. Thus, the first
hypothesis set by the researcher has been proved to be correct.
2. However, the second hypothesis i.e. victory of a particular political entity is an
evidence of its credibility, could neither be found true nor false. Therefore, it
stands null.
5.2
Delimitations
This research project has a few delimitations, which are as following:
1. Critical discourse analysis has been conducted of Benazir Bhuttos formal
speeches alone.
2. Out of the formal speeches, only two speeches have been selected for analysis.
3. Both of the speeches are her in-office speeches, and none belongs to the era
when the speaker was not the premier, or when the speaker was in the
opposition.
4. Formal speeches of in-office political leaders are (almost) always written by
someone other (a speechwriter) than the political leader himself/herself. It is
highly probable that the analyzed data was not the speakers own discourse. It
is, therefore, a point of concern.
5.3
152
1. As it was critical analysis of the written version (of the text) alone, this
analysis has not entertained the aspects involved in the spoken version of the
selected political discourse.
2. The research has not focused the comparative study/analysis of the speeches
(formal to formal, formal to informal, informal to informal).
3. The selected speeches have not specifically been analyzed from
gender/feminist point of view, though the general estimate is there.
4. Owing to limited resources, it could not be known whether the selected data
consisted of the speakers own words, or it was drafted by someone else (most
probably a speechwriter).
The future researchers can find direction to conduct analysis of the spoken
version of the same speeches under phonetics and pragmatics. Further, a comparative
analysis of these segments of political discourse can also be worth discovering new
dimensions in such research; comparative discourse analysis of several speeches of
the same speaker may lead to ascertain the presence/degree of credibility in the
discourse of that particular speaker. These speeches can also offer numerous
analyzable facets from the gender/feminist point view especially.
5.4
153
154
Conclusion
This critical analysis of the selected discourse has reached the following
conclusions:
155
156
157
Party References
Speech I
Speech II
Total
Pakistan Peoples
Party/ Party
12
14
14
16
Grand Total
Notably, as in the above self-explanatory table (6), the speaker has boldly and
numerously celebrated and pronounced the name/reference of her parental party
(Pakistan Peoples Party) on the day she had had success in the general election
(speech I); however, she kept the flow of party reference quite controlled and
confined on the occasion of Independence Day (speech II). In the first instance,
therefore, free play and unhesitating demonstration of unbound excitement of success
is clearer than crystal, with a slight tinge of informality; however, in the second
instance the linguistic choices has thoroughly been centered around many things
minus party reference, with a say of formality.
It is pertinent to disclose here that in the selected speech I, which was the
speakers maiden speech in her maiden tenure as prime minister, references to
Pakistan and PPP has been made in equal number i.e. 12.
158
10. Gender may be conscious of power; however, power knows no gender, that is,
gender can matter while being in the race power-attainment; however, (once
having attained it) the powerful little allow the influence of as to what gender
they belong.
11. In the game of power, discourse is always politicized and politics goes always
discursive. No other medium and tool than language/discourse with its
targeted use is available in the hands of politicians to represent their respective
agenda.
12. Regardless the fact the persuasive strategies are employed consciously or
unconsciously, they more or less inspire effect. It is true generally with all
types of discourse and specifically with the political one.
13. Discourse is social practice, and is the only carrier of ideology. Language
yokes ideology through them (discourse and social practice) in order to
preserve and perpetuate it (ideology). Following figure (10) shows the tripletcase ideology inhabits:
Social
Practice
Discourse
Language
I
D
E
O
L
O
Y
159
160
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164
APPENDIX I
Source: http://bhuttolegacyfoundation.com/bhutto/supremacy-of-people-and-nationalintgration/
Supremacy of People and National Integration
Address to Nation
Islamabad: December 2, 1988.
Congratulations. Congratulations to you on your success, on your victory. This
is not the success of Pakistan Peoples Party alone. The election results are the
success of the entire nation and felicitate you on this success.
You have today conferred a great honour on your sister and put a heavy load
of responsibility on her shoulders. I will do whatever is in my power to accomplish
the task.
Pakistan Peoples Party workers, habituated as they are to making sacrifices,
will assist the government in this task. We will also seek the assistance of all those
who took part in the struggle for democracy and restoration of the 1973 Constitution.
But the real source of our strength are the people.
We are from amongst you. Your suffering is our suffering. Your honour is our
honour. Your happiness is our happiness. We are proud of you.
You have elected a government which has support in all the four provinces. As
such, it is in a position to look in an equal measure after the interests of the entire
nation.
We are embarked on a journey undertaken by those who have their hearts set
on a progressive Pakistan, a democratic Pakistan and a Pakistan free from
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exploitation. Our journey began 20 years ago when Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
founded in a party for safeguarding the rights of the downtrodden and deprived people
of our country. In 1971, he saved the country when an earlier dictatorship broke it into
two. He gave power to the people and thereby saved the country.
Today we have to go once forward once again and strengthen our nation. The
nation will gain strength when the people become strong and the people will gain
strength when we give full attention to their needs.
Our message is the message of hope. Our message is the message of unity,
peace, freedom and progress.
Conditions today are, without a doubt, grave. We are face to face with a great
challenge. But we will not be daunted by challenges. It is true that the domestic
polities followed during the past eleven years-and-a-half were aimed at retaining
personal ascendancy. These polities have inflicted a great many wounds on our
society, whose fabric has been torn to shreds by language, race and communalism.
A short-sighed foreign policy has created unnecessary dangers around us.
Economic policies based on wrong thinking have resulted in ruining our wealth of
natural and human resources, and our entire financial system has gone near bankrupt.
We are on the verge of a disaster. But a whole generation is ready to convert
its aspirations into constructive endeavours. Our sacrifices, our struggle, the flogging
that we suffered and the way we mocked death in the death-cells did not go in vain.
These tribulations have firmed up our determination. We will heal the wounds.
We will overcome difficulties through toleration and peace and amity. We will
adopt the path of love. We will end hunger and humiliation. We will provide roofs
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over the heads of those without homes. We will provide employment to the jobless.
We will teach reading and writing to the unlettered. We cannot tolerate abundance of
wealth on the one hand and abject poverty on the other.
It is our faith that Pakistan has been created to live forever, and it has all the
ingredients necessary to make the nation strong and prosperous. Quaid-i-Azam
Mohammad Ali Jinnah reflected the aspirations of the Muslim masses when he
declared at the time of the establishment of Pakistan that it would flourish as a
modern State.
The working class had hoped that in the new State there would be social
justice, that they would be freed from all kinds of exploitation, that they would get rid
of the halter of feudalism, that they would get new opportunities through a new social
economic order, and that the masses would be partners in the governance of the
country.
The history of Pakistan is the history of fearless struggle waged by the masses
against the high-handedness of the privileged ruling classes. During the past 40 years,
they have suffered thrice at the cruel hands of Martial Law, have seen four
Constitutions being revoked or suspended and have fought four wars.
The roots of this crisis are deep. It had been waged between the state and the
masses. A sensitive democratic government alone can create that urge in the masses
which can remove imbalance in our economic and political structure.
At this moment when the nation is beginning a new chapter and establishing
its position in the present history-making epoch, we are distinctly remained of these
words of Shaheed Z.A Bhutto. He had said:
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We who trust the masses must go to the masses. If this path is right then we
must not, on any account, become part of a situation which goes against the interestS
of the masses.
On this occasion, I would like to pay tribute to our masses and their fearless
urges, to our martyrs and to all those who sacrificed their freedom, their happiness,
their livelihood and their family welfare so that we may live in freedom, in
democracy, in dignity, and enjoy a life full of hope. In human history, there has hardly
been any nation which has struggled so much for the restoration of democracy. Our
masses have suffered in quest of democracy, but they remained steadfast. They have
proved to the world that if a nation vows to achieve what it wants to achieve it will
ultimately never be unsuccessful. All of us want to live in such a Pakistan. It is a great
honour for Pakistan Peoples Party that it has got an opportunity to serve the masses
from the pedestal of high responsibility.
We are sure that the fearless masses of our country will come forward and
strengthen our hands. These elections are a victory for our masses and our nation.
They are also a victory for freedom, hope, dignity, equality and justice. These
elections have brought the message of death to poverty, enmity, revenge and violence.
I cannot, also, fail to praise people from all walks of life who have participated
in this great process of democracy. It should, by all counts, open the eyes of people
who had misapprehension that our masses neither deserve democracy nor they can
give expressions to it. Our fundamental creed is that we will continuously strive for
the eminence of the high Islamic principles of brotherhood, equality, tolerance and
patience. We will, Insha Allah, bring about an atmosphere of peace and amity in
society in order to unite the nation and infuse into it an urge for national dignity on
the basis of justice and equality. We will protect the life, property and honor of every
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citizen regardless of his religion, sect, race or sex. We pray to Almighty Allah that He
may bless us with the capacity to follow the straight path.
We will strive to give to all citizens equal social status and to defend human
rights in all its aspects so that 1973 Constitutions and parliamentary form of
government are revived in the country, the feeling of deprivation is put an end to and
the foundations of the State are made secure.
The people are our invaluable asset. We will lift our economy to the status of
self-reliance by making greater and still greater use of our national and human
resources. We will, on no account, let our human and natural resources go waste.
We will end poverty by encouraging the middle class. We will provide for the
welfare of the masses through capital investment and transfer of technology.
We believe that provincial autonomy can be possible only when political and
social authority is vested in the masses. This way the masses will gain greater
confidence which will, in turn, strengthen the Federation.
We will adopt a new vigorous way in connection with mutual relationship
between the Centre and the provinces so that the tussle born out of deprivation is
overcome. This sense of deprivation has become grave during the past eleven-and-a half years and it has led to a feeling of alienation. We believe not only in the
traditional solution through transfer of power from the Centre to the provinces, but
are, also, committed to such transfer of power which may give to the masses a feeling
of participation at all levels. We will try to find out solutions to problems through a
consensus of various viewpoints instead of allowing one province to be at loggerheads
with another province or with the Centre.
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Individual freedom is the basis of a democratic system. Our long struggle will
Insha Allah, succeed. We will revoke all laws and rules which are against the freedom
of the press in order that the press in Pakistan is free. We will dissolve the National
Press Trust we will give autonomy to television and radio so that they may fully serve
the masses. Pakistan Peoples Party will ensure restoration of the credibility of the
media in order to gain the confidence of the masses and freely bring to them correct
information and provide healthy entertainment. The practice of press advice will be
discontinued. We are resolved to safeguard the rights, honor and dignity of working
journalists and to better the conditions of their work and of the laws in respect of their
wages
We will rehabilitating in a dignified manner those who had to undergo
sufferings during the struggle for restoration of democracy, and adequate
compensation will be paid to them. We will build monuments to commemorate the
martyrs of democracy and eternal flames to perpetuate the memories of those martyrs
of democracy who paid the supreme sacrifice of their lives in order that the nations
conscience may live.
At the stage, I will like to say something about political prisoners. Our lawyers
have been in touch with the Ministry of Law ever since the president of Pakistan last
evening announced the nomination of your sister as the parliamentary leader of
Pakistan Peoples Party. I hope that they will, as soon as possible, arrive at some
decision with regard to political prisoners. We have to consider every aspect of matter
wish I could order immediate opening of prisons-gates .But we are told that 8th
Amendment is an impediment is doing so. I will like to tell my brethren among
political prisoners that no impediments will be allowed to stand in my ways and
yours. Your liberty is of utmost importance to the country. You have made sacrifices
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of your liberty and happiness for the sake of the country and we will find a way by
which you can break your fetters in a dignified manner and step out of the prisongates with your heads high I hope that by the time I end my speech some decision
would have been reached between our representatives and the Law Ministry.
From tomorrow, the Law Ministry will take be peoples Law Ministry and this
Ministry will take, as soon as possible, within a few days, a positive decision about
the political prisoners.
Pakistan Peoples Party holds the view that it is the duty of the government to
provide protection to the people against oppression and exploitation. From now on,
nobody will be able to exploit the laborers. Forced labour and kharkari will not be
allowed. We will review the present level of minimum wages. We are bound to
conform to laws framed by I.L.O. for the labour.
Minorities are our scared trust. We pledge ourselves to safeguard all the
minorities.
The Production of cash agricultural crops has been badly affected by the
floods. A short fall of three million tons of wheat has occurred. Our exports will also
be affected. Uncertain conditions and natural disaster have affected not only the
agricultural sector but industrial production as well.
We do not as yet know the conditions accepted by the previous government
for heavy borrowings from abroad. All the same, we would like to say that whatever
handicaps the economy may suffer, there is, in our reckoning, enough money in the
country which, if used properly, can be conducive to development. It is our faith that a
better situation can come about if money is not wasted on bribery and does not go into
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the coffers of wrong people but is spent on safeguarding the poor people and the
oppressed people and the weak sections.
Pakistan Peoples Party attaches great importance to a highly trained, wellequipped and committed defence forces. In our view the territorial integrity of the
country and its defence is a sacred trust.
It is our pledge that every citizen will be provided with modern medical
facilities. For this purpose, we will formulate a comprehensive health plan. We will,
very soon, announce our policies for fulfilling pledges given in our manifesto with
regard to this sector.
Education is the basis of an enlightened society. The rate of illiteracy in the
country is very high. We want to open the doors of knowledge to our youths. We want
that our educated youth should be provided with jobs so that knowledge is not wasted
in unemployment but is of advantage to the country and the nation.
It will be our endeavor to raise the level of higher education to international
standards. We will, as soon as possible, establish a National Education Fund.
A few years ago, students unions had been banned. If we look at our
universities and colleges today, the situation is that students carry arms along with
books. One result of dictatorship has been that lack of respect for law led the people
to disregard the law. Since the government was run at the point of the gun, our youth
got the nation that real power comes from the gun, not through the law. Consequently,
in our universities and colleges where our youth study there did not always exist that
congenial atmosphere which fortifies the portals of education. We think that one
reason for this is the ban on students unions. Ban on students unions means ban on
thought, on forbearance, on debate and discussion. But when students unions are
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allowed and students are able to politically put forth their viewpoints and raise their
voice about problems then attention is gradually turned away from guns. Peoples
Party Government, therefore, forthwith revives students unions, and, along with this,
it also withdraws restrictions on labour unions wherever they have been imposed and
also revives labour unions.
The Government will review all cases in which Government employees and
labour have been retrenched either on political grounds or on political vendetta, and,
Insha Allah, here also justice will be done to all.
It is imperative for conducting a successful foreign policy that the nation has a
clear-cut ideal before it on which the whole nation is agreed. We want regional peace
founded on the basis of equal regard for justice and rights. We want to strengthen our
relations with U.S.A. we want to have better relations with the Soviet Union. We will
further strengthen our traditional friendship with China. We are conscious of our
Islamic heritage, and we will support the interests and rights of the Third World,
including the objectives of our Palestinian brethren, which earlier on and even today
as well as for all times to come we deem it to be a just cause, our own cause. The
Prime Minister of our neighboring country, India, is coming to Pakistan at the end of
this month. I hope the two elected governments will be able to lessen the tension
existing between the two countries and establish their relations on the basis of justice
and equity.
We are proud of our womenfolk. They dauntless took part in the war of
liberation. They remain undeterred by bullets. They want to jails with infants in their
arms. They were tortured in the infamous Lahore Fort. But they did not lose heart. We
will annul such laws which impinge upon the rights of women. They will have the
right to work. They will be able to choose freely their means of livelihood. They will
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be provided with just and congenial conditions of work. They will be entitled to equal
pay for equal work. Besides these, they will also be granted paid maternity leave. We
will introduce reforms with regard to women in accordance with the present social
and economic realities.
My brothers, elders and associates!
This long struggle was not an easy struggle for party workers, for the people
and for our nation. This struggle for the restoration of democracy has reached its goal
through the power of the people. The closing of the doors Parliament and the tearing
up of the Constitutions as if it was an ordinary book had created difficulties for the
country. We hope that those times have ended. Life can change very soon, but
sometimes when struggle is put on for changing life it is felt that it is talking too long.
At such times, we need patience. During these eleven years we used to cheer up
ourselves by saying that patience has its sweet reward. Each one of us should strive
for the sake of truth.
In case Pakistan Peoples Party or I make a mistake in the future. I will expect
my brothers and sisters to come forward and tell me about it. Right policies cannot be
formulated without criticism, without debate and without forbearance.
When you conferred this honour on me and I went inside the parliament to
take the oath of office, people gathered on the occasion raised this slogan.
He lives. Bhutto lives on.
A person who serves his nation is never forgotten by the people. What is
money? What is bribery? We are proud of living in a Muslim country. We should
derive strength from our Faith. We should serve our brothers and sisters. No power
can checkmate us if we do not think in terms of what the government can give us but
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think in terms of what we can give to it and keep the nation and the people in front of
us. I am your sister. I am with you and I will always be with you. This authority is not
a big thing. The biggest thing is that there is respect in the eyes of the people. Pakistan
Peoples Party and I will endeavor to serve you so that there always is respect for us
in your eyes.
In the end, I will also like to pay my respects to President Ghulam Ishaq Khan
and the Chief of the Armed Forces for using all their powers for the restoration of
democracy after the August 17 incident and for taking the country to its democratic
goal despite all pressure by the enemies of democracy to postpone the elections. Now,
it is the duty of all of us who live in Pakistan and love the country to work and strive
together so that everyone gets the opportunity to live in self-respect.
Thank you.
Pakistan Zindabad!
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APPENDIX II
Source: http://bhuttolegacyfoundation.com/bhutto/healing-hands-to-build-this-greatcountry/
Join Hands to Build this Great Country
Address to the Nation on Independence Day
Islamabad: August 14, 1989.
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called him Kafir-eAzam. But the Quaid-i-Azam confronted them all and bested
them. He defeated his adversaries not through tyranny and violence but always
through legal and constitutional means.
The Quaid-i-Azam was a popular leader with his roots in the country. He was
the exponent of the peoples aspirations and ambitions. He resolved to liberate the
people from the yoke of oppression, fear and exploitation. The people reciprocated by
reposing their complete trust in him and by voting for Pakistan.
We, who belong to the Peoples Party, consider ourselves the standard bearers
of the ideals and concepts of the Quaid-i-Azam. We want democracy provincial
autonomy, social and economic equality and supremacy of the law in the country. We
have complete faith in Allah. We were certain that Allah would make us triumphant.
On this auspicious day of independence, we proudly declare that we are the
followers of a leader who gave the principles of Faith, Discipline and Unity. It is the
sacred duty of the Peoples Party government to take a lead from the ideals of the
Father of our Nation, the Quai-i-Azam. On this auspicious day, I declare that may
government will strive hard to preserve the national unity, to defend our geographical
frontiers, to bring prosperity to the people and to maintain law and order. We are the
representatives of the people. We are the voice of the common man. Today, let us
remember that it was our masses who accomplished the miracle of creating a new
country. I take pride that today I am addressing you as an elected Prime Minister. It is
the outcome of the determination and long drawn out struggle waged by our masses
that the national flag is fluttering in a democratic atmosphere.
This fourteenth day of August is not only the day of our independence, it is
also the day when unanimously accepted Constitution came into force. This was the
day when, sixteen years ago, the elected representatives of the people drew up a
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Constitution which was endorsed by the elected representatives of all the four
provinces: This is also the day when, fifteen years ago, the foundation-stone of the
Parliament House was laid. This edifice is the symbol of democracy and the sign of
the peoples sovereignty.
The Constitution ensures the existence of a nation. Our Constitution is our life
blood, our life and spirit. It augurs well that the country is once again following the
path of constitutionalism. We want to uphold the Constitution. We do not believe in
the politics of hatred and violence. We respect political difference, but these
differences should remain within the bounds of the Constitution. All our rights and
responsibilities have been specified in the Constitution. It is our prime duty to fulfil
our constitutional obligations and re-inforce the federation. The federal government
will perform its duties by strictly adhering to the Constitution.
Today, while celebrating the anniversary of our independence, we salute those
who sacrificed their lives for the creation of Pakistan. Today, we also salute those
who lost their lives fighting against the forces of oppression and darkness. We also
salute the valiant Mujahids who laid down their lives defending our border from the
snow-covered Siachen to the shores of Gwadar. We also salute the workers form all
parts of the federation who defeated the dark forces of oppression.
On this occasion, I would especially like to address the younger generation. I
want to remind them that now it is their duty to ach eve the ideals and the dreams
envisioned during our freedom struggle. The nation is looking upto you. Remember,
in human history rarely has such an onerous responsibility devolved on one section of
society as now rests on the shoulders of educated youth of our poor and illiterate
country. It is a painful fact that the contradictions encouraged during the despotic rule
poisoned our youth and gave rise to violence, regionalism and hate. The aspiration of
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