cda of benazir bhutto's selected speeches
TRANSCRIPT
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Critical Discourse Analysis of Benazir Bhutto’s Selected Speeches
Muhammad Munir
A dissertation submitted to Professor Dr. Muhammad Iqbal Butt, the honourable
supervisor, in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of M. Phil English
Fall 2014
Department of English Language and Literature
GIFT University, Gujranwala, Pakistan
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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…………………………………
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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.
……………………………… ………………………………
Dr. Muhammad Iqbal Butt Date
Project Supervisor
……………………………… ………………………………
Dr. Surriya Shaffi Mir Date
Head of Department
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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
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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 Sabohi’s sincere cooperation, and
Fatima Salahuddin’s 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 Bhutto’s 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 Halliday’s perspectives
and Norman Fairclough’s deliberations on hidden meaning, language, ideology, and
power etc. where persuasive strategies have also mattered.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION……………………………………………….................. ii
CERTIFICATION………………………………………………………….
DEDICATION……………………………………………………………..
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………..
ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………..
TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………..
LISTS OF FIGURES AND TABLES……………………………………..
KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS …………………………………………….
iii
iv
v
vi
vii
ix
x
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
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………………………………………………..
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
2
2.1
2.2
2.3
LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………...
Theoretical Background...................................................
What is Discourse?...........................................................
What is Discourse Analysis (DA)?...................................
27
27
27
28
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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
What is What is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)?……
Maturity of CDA…...........................................................
Recent Advancements…………………………………….
Van Dijk’s Socio-cognitive Approach……………………
Wodak and the Vienna School of Discourse Analysis…...
Fairclough’s Contribution………………………………...
Fairclough’s Framework for Analyzing a Communicative
Event……………………………………………………...
Principles of CDA………………………………………...
Previous Analyses………………………………………...
Conclusion: the ‘Hunch’………………………………….
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30
33
34
38
39
42
51
53
58
3
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY…………………………
Methodology....................................................................
Data: Its Source and Rationale……………………………
Procedure…………………………………………………
Conclusion………………………………………………..
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60
62
64
66
4
4.1
4.1.1
4.1.2
4.1.3
4.2
4.3
4.4
CRITICAL DICSOURSE ANALYSIS OF BENAZIR
BHUTTO’S SELECTED SPEECHES…………………...
Brief profile of Benazir Bhutto: Early and Personal Life...
Political Life………………………………………............
Return to Pakistan………………………………………...
Assassination……………………………………………...
Critical Discourse Analysis of Benazir Bhutto’s Selected
Speech I…………………………………………………...
Critical Discourse Analysis of Benazir Bhutto’s Selected
Speech II………………………………………………….
Conclusion………………………………………………..
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67
69
75
76
77
115
129
5
5.1
5.1.1
5.1.2
5.1.3
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
CONCLUSION…………………………………………...
Overview and Findings…………………………………..
Statement of the Problem Revisited………………………
Research Questions Revisited…………………………….
Research Objectives and Hypotheses Revisited………….
Delimitations……………………………………………...
Limitations and Directions for Further Research…………
Recommendations for Theoreticians……………………..
Conclusion………………………………………………..
131
131
131
135
150
151
151
152
154
REFERENCES
APPENDIX I
APPENDIX II
…………………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………………….
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:
Analytical procedure of CDA: how is CDA done?
Extrapolation of Critical Discourse Analysis
Model of power-projection
The ‘Criticals’ of Discourse Analysis
Objective of CDA
Halliday’s discursive functions of language
Halliday’s process types
Texcont-ambit of ideology
Analytical pivot of this research project
Ideology-triplet
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:
Frequency of major temporal constructs
Frequency of major politico-national constructs
Frequency of major personal pronouns
Foreign-policy tilt
Frequency of major religious constructs
Frequency of party references
127
130
135
137
141
151
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Key to Abbreviations
AIDA Attention, Interest, Desire, Action
APA American Psychological Association
CDA Critical Discourse Analysis
CL Critical Linguistics
DA Discourse Analysis
DSF Discourse of Specific Fields
DSS Discourse of Specific Subjects
ESP English for Specific Purposes
EU European Union
ILO International Labour Organization
IPDR International Platform of Discourse Research
IPA International Phonetic Association
M.A.K Halliday Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday
PML-N Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz)
PML-Q Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-i-Azam)
PPP Pakistan People’s Party
SFL Systematic Functional Linguistics
UK United Kingdom
US/USA United States of America
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republic
Z.A Bhutto Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
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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.
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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):
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Figure 1: Analytical procedure of CDA: how is CDA done?
1.1 Politics (ideology), Power, and Language
Politics, power, and language constitute a broader triangle of organization,
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 one’s 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 Evolution of the exercise and expression of Power
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The history of politics is reflected in the origin, development, and economics
of the institutions of government, the state. The origin of the state is to be found in the
development of the art of warfare i.e. confrontation of power(s). Historically
speaking, all political communities of the modern type owe their existence to
successful warfare at their back.
Emperors and other such unshared office-bearers were once considered to be
divine in a number of countries notably China and Japan etc. Inherited royalty was
considered to be rather divine line in many a country of the world (especially ancient)
until French Revolution blocked the way of this "divine right of kings". Nevertheless,
the monarchy appears to be one of the longest-lasting political institutions: roughly,
from 2100 BC Sumerian kingship to the 21st century AD British Monarchy.
The kings of absolute monarchies used to rule their kingdoms with the
assistance of an elite group of advisors- an executive council which was quite
instrumental to the maintenance of their (kings’) powers. As these executives often
had to negotiate for power with the one outside the monarchy, the constitutional
monarchies started emerging. This was, probably, the genesis of constitutional
developments. Before such councils gave way to the embryo of democracy, they
rendered invaluable support and service to the institution of kingship by:
Securing the institution of kingship through heredity.
Maintaining the traditions of the social order under the monarch.
Providing the king with a good deal of knowledge and action dutifully
An unripe conqueror waged war, generally, upon the weak neighbour(s) for
vengeance or plunder, but well-established kingdoms used to prefer extracting
tributes. Councils were also responsible to keep the kings’ coffers full. Another
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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 socio-
political collisions.
1.3 Language of power and power of language
Whenever the word ‘power’ is received/perceived, the impressions which
click the minds first of all are that of influence of one over the other, influence, terror,
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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
instrumentalization of language involves skillful use of political rhetoric,
representation of a particular ideology, and seduction or trap through words i.e.
‘persuasion’. It extends from an individual political speaker to broader/collective
political representations, from speaking-style to the way of thinking, from quality to
the quantity of a political discourse. Implications of power-language also include the
discourses of the dominating (the rulers) and the dominated (the ruled). As far as
convincing through words is concerned (i.e. use of persuasive strategies), powerful
language can be observed in every day matters, display of advertisement, tricks of
marketing, at workplaces, and even at family level.
1.5 CDA perspective of ideology
Kress (1990) holds that any linguistic form when viewed in isolation has no
specific meaning; it enjoys no ideological importance. It denotes that the linguistic
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choices (particularly in political discourse) are indeterminate in themselves; they find
meaning only when they are contextualized in a voluntary set of ideology-oriented
expressions/lexis involving syntactic arrangements. Language does not appear by
itself, it always finds way through the need of conveying/sharing a particular
idea/ideology. It indicates that idea or at least need of it gives birth to particular
linguistic terms and choices. Users of a particular language always bind their
discursiveness with their particular sociology and personality etc.
According to Fairclough (2001a), therefore, ideology indispensably resides in
language, and it should be ranked among the major themes of modern social sciences.
CDA has often resorted to his another definition of ideology which reads ideology as
necessarily joined in power relation. In Teun A. van Dijk’s (2006) opinion, ideology
refers to a set of ideas which appears in the form of a belief-system; it is more a
cognitive composition and less an act of ideological practices and social
performances; ideology is a mark of identity with a particular social group, and it does
not require any verification on both deep (structure) and surface (structure) levels; it is
not only a belief socially partaken, but is also instinctively fundamental and
unavoidably axiomatic in nature; it is acquired and not learnt, and can change but
through life time(s) or generations. He has also defined ideology as the sole driving
force behind the socio-political cognition of a specific group. From Simpson’s (1993)
point of view, politico-cultural believes and assumptions together with the
institutional exercises in a particular society shape the mosaic pattern of the ideology
there.
1.6 Function of ideology
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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:
self-representing of a particular social group
maintaining the identity and membership of its members
prescribing and influencing their socio-cultural practices and struggles
promoting the interests of its members against the other social (ideological)
groups
1.7 Ideology and discourse process
It is a widely acknowledged assumption that ideology can only be acquired
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 power-
play of policy, however, lends rather a curious charm to the political discourses when
states meet.
1.8 CDA perspective of power
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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 people’s 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 people’s perspectives and
practices, and which has tended to be universal, right and just, and frankly close to
common sense.
1.9 Discourse and types of power
Norman Fairclough declares one is in the possession of power if one could
exercise it to coerce the others to getting along with one’s 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
power behind 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
influence the discursive activity of a powerless or less powerful participant. These
constraints may be of relations between the (powerful and powerless) participants,
and the subjects and contents of their discourse. These constraints find roots in the
discourse-types conventions. The powerless or less powerful participant is readily
constrained by the powerful participant via selecting an appropriate and relevant
discourse type. Discourse types refer to that particular ways and formations of
discourse which take birth owing to the mutual relation (nearness and distance,
powerful and otherwise) between the participants of discourse, and which changes
right when the relation between the participants changes; it also includes the particular
discourse situation (also speech situation) which definitely affects the manner and
nature of discourse on the part of the participants involved. Fairclough views that it
conform to the common sense assumptions, and the reciprocated discursivity between
them is right and natural.
Fairclough’s these insights can be very helpful in conducting critical discourse
analysis because they have dictated the need to observe the very context of the
discourse to be analyzed: recognition of participants and their relationship, and the
background of the discourse situation (speech situation in pragmatics) are a few of the
contextual connections Fairclough has brought into limelight. The same can guide an
analyst to approach the way the power exercises in discourse, the way it go through
discourse, the way it influence the stylistics of the participants, the way it controls the
behaviour of the participants in discourse.
However, this insight has mainly centered on the dominating discourse of the
powerful participants and the resisting passivity of the powerless or the less powerful
participants has been entertained at the least; though passive yet continuous power
11
struggle inside the non-powerful participant reduces/minimizes the very passivity in
its own active way.
Ian Hutchby (1996) has found power as a set of potentials; these potentials are
socially ever present, and the social agents can variably exercise, shift, resist, and
struggle for these potentials. Foucault (1977), on the other hand, has maintained that
power is not something possessed by one and lacked by the other; rather, it is a socio-
political potential involving equally the powerful and the (ones) accepting or resisting
the powerful.
The issue of dealing with the discourse of the participants, who get engaged in
discourse while being in different temporal and geographical zones, becomes more
interesting and striking too. This sort of discursive interaction mainly goes through
mass media: television, radio, and newspaper etc. In this age of internet, social media
has surpassed all the other modes of media for its everyday discursive interaction
involving the entire globe. There is no doubt in that discourse aired through media is
altogether different from the one face to face. It is rather a type of one-sided
discourse. In such sort of discourse events, the nature of power does not appear to be
so clear. The discursive activity, in this case, falls to be an abstraction at large for the
interpersonal and material implications of the participants are filtered out through the
broadcast.
1.9.2 Power behind discourse
Norman Fairclough has examined as how the order of discourse is itself
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 one’s discourse, and
power behind one’s 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 Discourse and power
It is evident that groups/individuals having more power are more likely to use
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 people’s 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 participant’s 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
people’s 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 one’s communication. This, when used by a
14
political leader, can be instrumental to control the discourse of general public; the
more the people’s discourse is controlled, the greater their minds are dictated.
1.11 Discourse as social practice
CDA holds discourse as a social practice. The idea of social practice denotes
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 Difference between discourse and text
Though the phrases discourse and text have been used interchangeably yet
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
Discourse (Schiffrin 1994):
“is utterances... Discourse is "above" (larger than) other units of language...
[it] arises not as a collection of decontextualized units of language structure, but as a
collection of inherently contextualized units of language use.” (p. 39).
Text (Schiffrin 1994): “the linguistic content of utterances: the stable semantic
meanings of words, expressions and sentences... the "what is said" part of utterances.”
(pp. 378-9).
In the light of above mentioned propositions, discourse analysis enwraps not
only text-analysis but also analysis of the productive and interpretive backgrounds
and foregrounds of text. While analyzing discourse, the analysts have to examine not
only the text but also the processes of production and interpretation, the production-
text-interpretation relationship, and the context of course i.e. immediate as well
remote socio-personal and institutional implications behind the text. These facets can
concisely be triangulated as figured below (Figure 2):
Text production
Social practice Discourse practice
Figure 2: Extrapolation of Critical Discourse Analysis
The differences within CDA community are noticeable because there is no
unanimous agreement on the steps and applications taken up by CDA practitioners so
far. Difference analysts may find different procedures to be useful in their analytical
applications, and it chiefly hinges on what definitions of ‘discourse’, ‘critical’, and
Critical
Discourse
Analysis
17
‘analysis’ an analyst proposes. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis vary in being
context-centered, text-centered, and interpretation-centered. What method or
combination of methods is to be adopted for analysis principally depends on to what
goals and expectation an analyst pins with discourse before/while processing it.
1.13 Power lies in language or speaking?
There is a critical distinction between language and speaking: language is
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 efficacy-
oriented.
1.14 Indispensability of language
18
By and large, all legitimate and illegitimate authorities indispensably have to
rely on the play of language; the undeniable significance of language renders it as one
of the most vulnerable spots in the exercise and assertion of command and control.
Analysis of language can also predict the consequences one might have to face in case
of obeying or disobeying the command. Undoubtedly, other than being merely power-
oriented, language can become the best tool of rhetorical persuasion whatever be the
purpose thereof. Every attempt of persuasion through language is, at heart, an effort to
convince the others and to make them understand and comprehend a particular
agenda. It evidently means that persuasion is directly proportionate to comprehension.
Nothing is as much influential as is the non-violent force of convincing argument.
1.15 Inequality and power: -ful versus -less
Inequality is the mother of (the concept of) power. Power generally implies
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 one’s 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
Figure 3: Model of power-projection
Dictates of power are very much necessary and healthy for the dominating
and, at the same time, for the dominated. It is the dictum of power which can maintain
a peaceful balance and distance between the ruler and his subjects, between the
powerful and non-powerful. Language of power also clearly demarks the safe zone of
activism the counter-players have to act within. In this way, language of powerful
people can be taken as a calculated guarantee of their own assertions as well as the
security of the people who have less or no power against them. This is how language
can play magic in certain political deadlocks and other types of negotiations, and can
turn the tables gradually and sometimes within no time.
1.16 Empowerment through languages
Power-plugged language can make another wonder happen, and that is
empowerment through language. It is an attractive end offered by the leaders and
preachers to their audience. Power-possessed language has enough momentum to
charge and wash the brains of the audience towards some specifically designed end.
20
Such practice of empowerment through language is observable significantly in
democratic societies where the ruler and political leaders have to be more pro-public
and less self-centered, where they are, theoretically at least, more offering and less
taking/usurping. In such communities, political speakers pay special attention to their
political discourses. They acquire special skills and rehearsals in order to lend more
and more refinement and momentum to their discourse(s). Quoting as the real power
is the common man has become the core catch-phrase of the leaders in democracies
throughout the planet. It is, essentially, a sort of empowerment of people through
discourse. Sociolinguists and feminists have also entertained the show of power and
vigour in language in connection with gender. It is, most probably, because the gender
in most of the communities of the world may be determined as well as empowered
through language socially if not biologically.
1.17 Efficacy of language in religious and mythical texts
It is the exertion of power working behind words which decides the fate of
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 Transitivity: tracing true trends
Detection of the underlying meanings in a particular discourse can be tried
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. Halliday’s 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 This study and its significance
22
This research has conducted critical discourse analysis of Benazir Bhutto’s
selected formal addresses with reference to the treatment of ideology and the use of
persuasive strategies as exercised in the selected data. It tried to evaluate the selected
speeches from a triangulated point of view: ideology, power, and language. The data
has been investigated in the light of Halliday and Norman Fairclaugh’s theoretical
reflections on reaching the core implications structured in discourse including the
representation of meaning, power and ideology. Persuasive strategies have also been
examined as used in the data.
This study is an attempt to critically and objectively analyze as to how Benazir
Bhutto invests her discursive input for the indoctrination of the ideology her political
party advocated. In capacity of being the chief representative of a political faction, she
has been found to be exercising calculated play upon words in her speeches. Amid the
then troubled political phase faced by the country, she represented her political
agenda as being fully fair, rightful, needful, and democratic. She referred to the
political vision of her late father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and Qauid-i-Azam Muhammad
Ali Jinnah as being the origin and inspiration of her idealism. Though given to a tough
contest by the competitors, she attempted to convey her democratic blueprint, and to
convince her audience that the country cannot afford dictatorship, and that
democratization is the only way Pakistan must go ahead. She not only imparts a
particular political ideology but also uses rhetoric strategies carefully calculated to
persuade the audience.
Significance of this study lies in that it critically analyzed the political
discourse of a political leader who, at the same time, was:
1. A leader
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
Pakistan’s 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 Statement of the problem
In democratic states, the political leaders belong to a particular political party
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. In spite of harbouring self-centered motives of authority (power), can the
formal words of a political speaker really convey an ideology covering all or
majority of the individuals/segments of society?
2. How does a political speaker play his/her propaganda to persuasion?
3. Does the ideology of a political leader remain/become really objective,
masses-oriented, and self(and ‘otherness’)-negating, or does it merely look so
at the surface?
4. Can there be power without ideology?
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 day’s 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:
Figure 4: The ‘Criticals’ of Discourse Analysis
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
Before proceeding to what CDA is, it appears to be facilitating to refresh as to
what discourse and discourse analysis are. Discourse has been referred to the creation
and organization of the segments of a language above as well as below the sentence. It
is segments of naturally occurring language which may be bigger or smaller than a
single sentence but the adduced meaning is always beyond the sentence. The term
discourse applies to both spoken and written language, in fact to any sample of
language used for any purpose. Any series of speech events or any combination of
sentences in written form wherein successive sentences or utterances hang together is
discourse. Discourse cannot be confined to sentential boundaries. It is something that
goes beyond the limits of sentence. In other words, discourse is any coherent
succession of sentences, spoken or written.
2.3 What is Discourse Analysis (DA)?
Discourse Analysis (DA), or discourse studies, is a general term for a number
of approaches to analyze written, vocal, or sign language use, or any significant
semiotic event. The objects of discourse analysis i.e. discourse, writing, conversation,
communicative event etc. are variously defined in terms of coherent sequences of
sentences, propositions, speech, or turns at talk. In contrast to conventional linguistics,
discourse analysts peruse not only language use beyond the sentence-boundary, but
also analyze naturally occurring language use, and not devised language and
examples. Text linguistics is a closely related area. The essential difference between
DA and text linguistics is that it aims at revealing socio-psychological characteristics
of individual(s) rather than text structure as in text linguistics. DA has been taken up
in a variety of social and philological sciences like communication studies, linguistics,
education, sociology, anthropology, social work, cognitive psychology, social
psychology, area studies, cultural studies, international relations, human geography,
29
and translation studies etc. Each of them is subject to its own assumptions,
methodologies, and dimensions of analysis.
2.4 What is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)?
Van Dijk (1998a) holds that Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) refers to a
method which studies and analyzes written as well as spoken language/texts to
discover the issues related to power, potency, differences and bias, associations, and
other possible propaganda in a particular discourse. It investigates the maintenance
and reproduction of these factors in relevant socio-political environment and in its
conventional frames. Likewise, Fairclough has described (1993) CDA as a discourse
analysis which systematically unearths often blurred relationships between discourse
practice, texts and contexts, and the broader socio-cultural patterns, connections and
operations; it also tries to evaluate as to how all these discursive phenomena are
formed out of ideology, power, and the practical links between them (ideology and
power); it further involves the investigation as to how the relationship between society
and discourse is itself a tool to attain power and hegemony. (p. 135).
CDA is, therefore, a framework designed for not only determining but also
clarifying the possible syntheses and analyses of socio-discursive patterns-and-
practices from socio-political and psychological points of view within a given society.
Following figure (5) reads the broader objective Critical Discourse Analysis hunts:
30
Figure 5: Objective of CDA
2.5 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):
Figure 6: Halliday’s discursive functions of language
In addition to these three functions, Hallidian School has prescribed six
different process types of language when set in a particular discourse. It is held that
the verb of each clause in a sentence determines its process type. These process types
are: material, mental, relational, verbal, behavioural, and existential. The following
figure (7) further explains the work and worth of these process types involved in
discourse analysis:
32
Figure 7: Halliday’s process types
The afore-mentioned linguistic functions and process types discursively
operate in collaboration with a range of discursive circumstances which include:
extent and location, manner (means, quality, and comparison), cause (reason,
purpose, and behalf), contingency (condition, concession, and default),
accompaniment (comitative and additive), role (guise and product), matter and angle.
Critical discourse analysts take Halliday's notion of language as a "social act"
and central to their practice (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999; Fairclough, 1989, 1992,
1993, 1995b, 1995a; Fowler et al., 1979; Fowler, 1991; Hodge & Kress, 1979).
According to Fowler et al. (1979), CL is close to sociolinguistics because it also
suggests "there are strong and pervasive connections between linguistic structure and
social structure" (p. 185). Sociolinguistics, however, finds "the concepts 'language'
and 'society' are divided…so that one is forced to talk of 'links between the two'", but
CL views "language is an integral part of social process" (Fowler et al., 1979, p. 189).
CDA and SFL agree that speakers exercise choices of vocabulary and
grammar; these choices are consciously and/or unconsciously "principled and
33
systematic"(Fowler et al., 1979, p. 188). These choices, hence, are ideology-based.
According to Fowler et al. (1979), the "relation between form and content is not
arbitrary or conventional, but . . . form signifies content" (p. 188). Language is,
therefore, purely a social act, and operates, so, ideologically.
2.6 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, CL’s 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 Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach
Van Dijk is one of the most sought-after and oft-quoted discourse analysts in
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 press-
news, 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 Dijk’s approach that it distinguishes his
approach from other approaches in CDA.
According to van Dijk, this approach is the sociocognition—cognition at
personal as well as social level—it 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 Wodak and the Vienna School of Discourse Analysis
In the works of Wodak and her colleagues in Vienna (The Vienna School of
Discourse Analysis), another direction in CDA is also found which is called
Discourse Sociolinguistics. Wodak’s (1995) model is based "on sociolinguistics in the
Bernsteinian tradition, and on the ideas of the Frankfurt school, especially those of
Jürgen Habermas"( p. 209).Wodak (1996) believes that Discourse Sociolinguistic is a
sociolinguistics which involves not only the study and analysis of the text in context,
but also attaches the same importance to the both factors. This approach can identify
and explain the underlying mechanisms and disorders in discourse which are traceable
in a particular context. They may be in the structure and function of the media, or in
institutions like a hospital or a school. They undoubtedly affect communication/text as
well. (p. 3).
Wodak has expanded his research in various institutional setups such as
courts, schools, and hospitals, and on a number of social issues such as sexism, racism
and anti-Semitism. Wodak's work on the discourse of anti-Semitism in 1990 made
way for another approach which is called discourse historical method. The term
historical carries main importance in this approach. Wodak (1995) has tried through
this approach "to integrate systematically all the available background information in
the analysis and interpretation of the many layers of a written or spoken text" (p. 209).
The results of Wodak and her colleagues' study (Wodak et. al., 1990) revealed “the
context of the discourse had a significant impact on the structure, function, and
context of the anti- Semitic utterances" (p. 209). The feature of using historical
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 Fairclough’s. Over the recent decade, his theory has come to enjoy central
position in CDA.
2.6.3 Fairclough’s 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 Halliday’s,
the researcher has applied Fairclough’s 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, Fairclough’s 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
Figure 8: Texcont-ambit of ideology
2.6.3.1 Fairclough's framework for analyzing a communicative event
Fairclough prescribes the investigation of three different facets of discourse
i.e. text, discourse practice, and sociocultural practice.
A) Text: Text is the first analytical concern of Fairclough's (1995b) three-part view.
Analysis of text includes linguistic analysis in the sense of vocabulary, grammar,
semantics, the sound system, and cohesion-organization above the sentence level (p.
57). Linguistic analysis is applied to text's lexical-grammatical and semantic
properties. These two aspects affect each other (pp. 57-58). Following SFL,
Fairclough also perceives text as multifunctional. He believes that analysis can be
offered to any sentence in a text in the sense of the articulation of these functions,
which he has renamed as representations, relations, and identities:
Particular representations and re-contextualizations of social practice
(ideational function) -- perhaps carrying peculiar ideologies.
Discourse
Context
Text
43
Particular formations of writer and reader identities (for example, in terms of
what is highlighted -- whether status and role aspects of identity, or individual
and personality aspects of identity)
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
presences as well as absences in texts that could include "representations, categories
of participant, constructions of participant identity or participant relations" (p. 58).
B) Discourse practice: According to Fairclough’s findings (1995), there are two
aspects of this dimension: institutional process (e.g. editorial procedures), and
discourse processes (changes the text going through in production and consumption).
(pp. 58-59). For Fairclough, "discourse practice straddles the division between society
and culture on the one hand, and discourse, language and text on the other" (p. 60).
The main concept of this approach is intertextuality. This concept can
profoundly explain discourse processes. Fairclough’s (1995b) ‘intertextuality and
intertextual analysis’ assumes that while there is linguistic analysis at the text level,
there is also linguistic analysis at the discourse practice level. When analysis is at both
these levels, Fairclough calls it "intertextual analysis" (p. 61). According to
Fairclough (1995b), intertextual analysis is concerned with the borderline between
text and discourse practice in the analytical work. Intertextual analysis is looking at
the text from the perspective of discourse practice, and looking at the traces of the
discourse practice in the text. (p. 16).
According to Fairclough, "linguistic analysis is descriptive in nature, whereas
intertextual analysis is more interpretative" (p. 16). Fairclough (1992) defines
intertextuality as,
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"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 sub-
reports 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
"traffickers" becomes "peddlers"), (2) by changing the written monologue of the
official document to a conversational dialogue. That is, the newspaper turns an
official document into a popular speech that inspires a good deal of appeal all around.
This example of intertextuality shows that though The Sun report relates to
previous text, it responds to the future utterances and expectations of its readers by
changing the original text into its own discourse type.
Fairclough (1995) believes that intertextual properties of a text are identified
“in its linguistic features” since it is assumption that texts “may be linguistically
heterogeneous.” (p. 189)
Nevertheless, Fairclough (1995b) asserts that, linguistic analysis is descriptive
in nature, while interpretative analysis is more interpretative. Linguistic features of
texts provide evidences which can be used in intertextual analysis, and intertextual
analysis is a specific kind of interpretation of that evidence. (p. 61).
C) Sociocultural practice: For Fairclough (1995b), analysis in this dimension involves
three dimensions of the sociocultural context of a communicative event: economic
(i.e. economy of the media), political (i.e. power and ideology of the media), and
cultural (i.e. issues of values). (p. 62).
According to Fairclough’s approach, it is not necessary to perform analysis at
all levels but any level that may "be relevant to understanding the particular event" (p.
62).
Fairclough (1995b) posits,
"an account of communication in the mass media must consider the economics
and politics of the mass media: the nature of the market which the mass media are
operating within, and their relationship to the state, and so forth" (p. 36).
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).
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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.
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In view of the significant role of (political) discourse in the legitimization,
implementation, and organization of power, critical discourse analyses of a number of
political discourses (texts/talks) have so far been conducted. Different studies have
applied different frameworks as the basic tool to their analyses.
2.8 Previous Analyses
Hassna Alfayez (2009) conducted critical discourse analysis of Martin Luther
King’s famous speech “I Have a Dream” by in the light of different theories in
general, but inclining to the observations by Wodak, O’Hallaron, and the speech-act-
theory pragmatician, Austin. The researcher found that Critical Discourse Analysis
claims to be a significant and tool for the critical examinations of the texts. The texts
imparted through media may often be incomprehensible for the audience. In such
case, critical discourse analysis offers a range of frameworks towards the
demystification of such texts. Hence, critical discourse analysis is capable to explore
the concealed and underlying meaning in a text which apparently appears to be
calculatedly (en)coded and meaningless.
The Reverend Martin Luther King’s style in rhetoric, it is found by critical
analysis of his famous speech ‘I have a dream’, was unique and effective. He could
make his speech deeply inculcated for those who listened to him physically before
him and for those too who received him electronically at home. The researcher has
found special significance of the persuasive strategy ‘repetition’ as the speaker has
repeated his topical sentence ‘I have a dream’ for a number of times throughout his
speech. This speech has been found of vital interest for critical discourse analysis. The
speaker has rendered it not rich not only in ideological expression, but also in the use
of employing a variety of persuasive techniques from discursive point of view. The
54
speech addressed, at once, several ideological flash points involving mainly socio-
political inequality, racial segregation, and conflict of interests in that day’s 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 King’s
theory; it has multiplied the persuasive impact of the speech. It has been analysed that
the speaker’s 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 Obama’s “Keynote Address at the
2004 Democratic National Convention”. They applied Halliday’s Tansitivity
framework in order to reveal meaning hidden in the speaker’s persuasive
constructions. Alvi and Baseer (2011b) made another investigation of Obama’s 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) Obama’s another speech ‘The Great Need of
the Hour’ he delivered during 2008. This speech was given to Aristotle’s three-
pronged framework of rhetoric consisting of ethos, pathos, and logos, along with
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Halliday’s framework of transitivity. The results showed that the factors of Ethos and
Pathos are found to be in frequent use in Obama’s 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 Bhutto’s 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
Halliday’s 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 Jinnah’s famous speech addressed to the first ever Constitutional
Assembly even before the birth of Pakistan on 11th August 1947.Theyviewed that
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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 Jinnah’s 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
Fairclough’s 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
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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 day’s 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.
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Ghulam Haider (2014) has analytically applied the Aristotelian modes of
rhetoric: ethos, pathos, and logos on the speech addressed by MalalaYousaf Zai to the
United Nations Youth Assembly on 12th July, 2013 (Malala Day).Though this speech
did not fall under the heading of political discourse in its real sense, it essentially dealt
with conflict of ideologies (Malala and Taliban) in front of a number of political
leaders representing the world wide ruling community. The researcher has not only
applied all the three notions but has also explained the meaning thereof categorically
out of Aristotle’s work Rhetoric. The researcher has discussed and applied each (of
the said three) parameter prescribed in afore mentioned Aristotelian framework. He
has investigated the speech from both the nation and international points of views.
The researcher has taken into account not only the text of the speech, but sufficient
light has been shed on the context also. He has attempted to explore various
persuasive aspects and ideological patterns enwrapped in the selected discourse. He
has graphically viewed and traced that his speaker (Malala) is well aware of the
persuasive techniques to be applied through the use of language persuading the
audience. She is also well versed with the use of those techniques. She convinced that
her speech was worth being listened to; her discourse exercised momentous steering
to the ideology of change; thus, her speech was found to be ideological as well as
efficacious i.e. thematic as well as organized. The researcher held this speech a
paragon of incredible belief, daring hope, emotion, passion, and skill; this speech has
been analyzed to be outstanding in substance as well as oratory.
2.9 Conclusion: the ‘hunch’
Being a remarkable multidisciplinary approach, CDA gained currency and a
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
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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.
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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’
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necessitated a multi-level and multi-theoretical critical discourse analysis. Under such
circumstances, instead of applying different frameworks on different parts (of this
research), it was considered most befitting that the whole project should be given to a
uniformed treatment as far as application/approach is concerned. Therefore, an
eclectic approach has appropriately been adopted to the critical analysis of selected
discourse. The Hallidayan and Faircloughian fundaments, however, remained to be
the gardening lights throughout. It is, however, also to be acknowledged that Van
Dijk’s critical contributions (in the overall body of Critical Discourse Analysis) have
also been advantageous in parts.
Paradigms, parameters, and practices of qualitative research have thoroughly
been used for to the accomplishment of this project; a few statistical indicators have
also been tabled through (tables included). Need of these tables was indispensably felt
owing to the representation and examination of the frequency of certain expressions
and constructs used in the selected discourse. The researcher has formatted and laid
out the whole work of this project in the light of recommendations and prescriptions
of American Psychological Association (APA).
The researcher has tried to the best to prefigure the significant constituent
parts and passages of this research project in the preliminary part of the same (chapter
1).
Literature behind this research work has very categorically been reviewed with
maximum possible care. It has been sought out at two levels: from the viewpoint of
theoretical background, and from the viewpoint of the applications of these
background theories; firstly, it has been reviewed as to which and how many major
theories have been developed and prescribed in the background of Critical Discourse
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 Data: its source and rationale
Since almost all the formal addresses delivered, today, by important political
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-national-
intgration/
2. http://bhuttolegacyfoundation.com/bhutto/healing-hands-to-build-this-great-
country/
The texts of these speeches have been appended as appendixes: selected
speech I as appendix I, and selected speech II as appendix II.
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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
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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 sentential-
‘paragraphic’ 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):
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Figure 9: Analytical pivot of this research project
3.4 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.
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CHAPTER 4
CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF BENAZIR BHUTTO’S SELECTED
SPEECHES
Critical Discourse Analysis of Benazir Bhutto’s 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 Brief profile of Benazir Bhutto: Early and Personal life
Benazir Bhutto was born at Pinto Hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, on 21st June
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 O-
level 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
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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
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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 People’s 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
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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 Bhutto’s 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 women’s 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
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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 Bhutto’s 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
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of Musharraf’s holding the Presidency with Bhutto as Prime Minister. On 29 August
2007, Bhutto reported that Musharraf would step down as head of the armed force. On
September 1, 2007, Bhutto promised to come back to Pakistan “very soon”, paying
little heed to whether she agreed with Musharraf on power-sharing plan or not.
On September 17, 2007, Bhutto blamed Musharraf's associates for pushing
Pakistan into critical situation by their disallowing the activities promoting democracy
and law. A nine-member penal of Supreme Court considered six petitions (involving
one from Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's largest Islamic faction) holding that Musharraf
should be disqualified from getting the position of the president of Pakistan. Bhutto
showed possible of her party’s joining one of the opposition benches, most probably
that of Nawaz Sharif.
Musharraf intended to play an altogether civilian role by leaving his position
of military head. Despite everything, he confronted other lawful hindrances to running
for re-decision. On 2 October 2007, Gen. Musharraf named Lt. Gen. Ashfaq Kayani,
as vice chief of army. Beginning October 8 with the purpose that if Musharraf won
the presidency and surrendered his military post, Kayani would get to be the military
head. In the mean time, Minister Sheik Rashid Ahmed expressed that authorities
consented to concede Benazir Bhutto amnesty versus pending allegations of
corruption. She has stressed the smooth transition to civilian rule, and has asked
Pervez Musharraf to shed uniform. On 5 October 2007, Musharraf signed the National
Reconciliation Ordinance, offering amnesty to Bhutto and other political leaders other
than the exiled previous head Nawaz Sharif. The Ordinance came a day prior
Musharraf reached the point of a critical poll for presidency. Bhutto's opposition party
(PPP) and the ruling party (PMLQ) got engaged in negotiations to reach a mutally
viable deal. Consequently, Bhutto and the PPP concurred not to boycott the
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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.
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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 PML-
Q 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
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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 Bhutto’s 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 Critical Discourse Analysis of Benazir Bhutto’s Selected Speech I
Supremacy of People and National Integration
Address to Nation
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Islamabad: December 2, 1988.
In the first paragraph of the speech, the speaker congratulated the audience on
her success, and impressed that her success is not only hers, but it was the success of
the audience, the nation. It has put two important Hallidian functions of language,
textual and interpersonal, at use at once as it is notable that she has repeated the word
‘congratulations’: firstly, without any other association, and secondly, in association
of the second person ‘you’ which stood for the entire nation. The repetition of this
phrase indicated her parallel approach between being subjective and objective
respectively in both of the utterances of the same word. Then right in the first
sentence, she repeated two times another construct of being a winner. She
congratulated the nation on its ‘success’ and ‘victory’. Both of these ideas represent
the same meaning, and the meaning is triumph. Thus, she in the very first sentence of
this discourse impressively employed the persuasive strategy of repetition. She paved
the way for introducing the ideology of her choice by assuring the people that it was
not only her who succeeded, but it was also the victory of the nation in its entirety.
The speaker’s you-attitude is essentially a sign of her humbleness and generosity at
the very outset. The use of emotional appeal and giving credit to others sounded to be
an effective use. She elaborated the same foreword(s) of her speech in the very next
sentence by declaring openly that it was not the success of her political party
(Pakistan People’s Party) alone; the success in general elections was given to the
nation who participated in it and who expressed confidence in the leadership of the
speaker and her political party. It was the very first entry of her particular ideology in
discourse. Though she negated the monopoly of Pakistan People’s Party in this
success, the purpose of this accentuation was to highlight the entity (the speaker
and/or her political party) that was showing so much giving nature. It is a well
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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 self-
signifying 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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called relational process and interpersonal function of language. The speaker
acknowledged two things with which she had been ‘conferred’ and loaded: one is the
‘great honour’, and the other was the ‘heavy load’ (the responsibility). Receiving both
of the things supplies a sense of anti-thesis because great honour and heaving load are
the symbolic of rejoice and stress respectively, and this parallelism enjoys purely an
antithetic charge between them. However, the overall effect remained of the happy
acknowledgement of the both- the great and the heavy. This precise piece started with
‘you’ and was concluded again with a sentence focused on personal pronouncement
with power-inspired ‘I’: the speaker close the paragraph in a confident tone of
assurance that she (I) would do whatever she could i.e. whatever her power could do.
It is again an antithetic weaving, and is in the continuation of the last antithesis: she
expressed lately that the task entrusted to her was burdensome, but she pronounced of
possessing power in the closing sentence under discussion. It sounds to be a sort of
paradoxical manipulation on the part of the speaker to discursively achieve her
ideological ends. Further, alluding to the accomplishment of the given task appeared
to be the last phrase in the last sentence, which concluded that the speaker is very
much considerate to power vested then in her by the nation-state. However, she
persuasively tried to minimize the use of power-constructs in this paragraph. It has
been an instrumental device to remove or, at least, to disown the expression of
‘otherness’, and has successfully been employed to get the ideological tendencies
absorbed in public. Verbal process of language is at apex.
Both of the previous paragraphs were started with ‘you’ and ended with ‘I’.
Third paragraph has directly been referred to the political party to the speaker
herself belonged. It became the doorway to enter the subjective and individual area of
discourse where the heart of the proposed ideology lied. The whole nation became
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masses to the ruler- the speaker, and pointing out the workers of the Pakistan People’s
Party rather instrumentalized them among all. It showed the speaker’s 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 People’s 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 (speaker’s reference to her political party in particular and the nation in
general), and Fairclough’s intertextuality (speaker’s 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 People’s 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 Leech’s (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 sandwich-
approach: 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 People’s Party’s
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 speaker’s 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 speaker’s father, established a political party (Pakistan
People’s 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 pro-
public 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 Pakistan’s East Wing (1971) is concerned. The incident of 1971 is
purely an ideational representation in the light of Halliday’s 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 (government’s)
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 government’s 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-of-
affairs and the gigantic challenges could not match their (the nation’s) 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 government’s policies during the previous eleven and so years were a plane plan
to perpetuate one’s 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 people’s 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 people’s 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 one’s self or
within one’s internality, it foreshadowed to the internal flexibility of the speaker’s
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 People’s 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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the nation. It sounded to be an exaggerated rather mythical maneuvering, and an
emotional play of jingoism at large. It was rendered more a faith-related discourse
when the locutioner fetched the description of the Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali
Jinnah, the father of the nation, into discourse. She represented his point of view
(from her own point of view) viz-a-viz his vision of Pakistan was concerned. The
speaker described Mr. Muhammad Ali Jinnah as being the source and ideal of her
ideology. She played on the past in order to persuade public to the perception that she
was the real inheritor of the Quaid-i-Azam. She advocated Pakistan as being a modern
state as per the vision of the Father of the Nation. She disclosed that the Quaid-i-
Azam translated the aspirations of all the Muslims of the subcontinent when he
prophesied/recommended Pakistan to be a modern state. Here, the speaker covertly
wanted the audience to take her as the true propagator as well as practicer of the
Quaid-i-Azam’s proposed policies. It is an example of politicizing the ideology.
Fourteenth paragraph took a direct turn to a particular group in masses, which
was related to the overall contents and contours of the proposed ideology, and that
group was the working class. The speaker attempted representation of the
expectations and dreams of the working class associated with the new state (the newly
born state of Pakistan). She regarded the hopes of those workers when they aspired
for social justice beyond all the feudal and other types of exploitations; the working
stratum hoped that they would avail themselves of the opportunities provided by a
new socio-economic order in a modern and welfare state; they desired and expected
that they would be offered to participating in as well as contributing to the governance
in the new state.
The issue of hopes of the working class, from discursive point of view, was
left unfinished by the speaker. It indicated her plan to create a sort of stress and
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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 under-
analysis 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 speaker’s 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 speaker’s future planning of structuring and restructuring of socio-
economic 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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Seventeenth paragraph of this speech served to be a juncture between
retrospection and reflection. The speech followed, so far, the path of the past
(experiences) when the speaker related is with the present moment (of her day). It,
being a mental notion, inspired an influential temporal treatment in the minds of the
audience when she, after declaring the day of her success a landmark day in the
history of Pakistan as far as the progress and prosperity of Pakistan was concerned,
recollected the words of her father and the founder of Pakistan People’s Party,
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. She referred to his saying in perfect mode ‘he had said’, which
demonstrated that she was regarding Mr. Bhutto’s words to be prophetic because ‘he
had (already) said’. Before proceeding to the quoted words, it is pertinent to mention
that the speaker had pronounced the name of the founder of her political party for two
times so far; each time she named him, ‘Shaheed’ became the preface/title of the real
name. This notion can be taken as a sign of pride which the speaker finds in the death
of her father-leader as he received death in the way of his political struggle. It is also
demonstrated that her relation with the ‘Shaheed’ was not that of political and
biological natures alone, it was rather suffused in the sacred colour of intellectual and
spiritual affinities like philosopher and mentor. It was emotion of the speaker;
however, such emotions become discursive motions dispatched to the audience
especially when the discourse is political. She next quoted a corresponding saying of
Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, which reads that those who depend on the force/strength
of the masses must approach the masses, and must not be a part of any venture which
goes against them (their interests). This quotation by the very founder of the speaker’s
political organization supplied strength to the speaker’s effort of brightening her
ideology in both covert as well as overt manners. By referring to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto,
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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 power-
prospective have thrived themselves into one single structure of locution at once.
Reference of Bhutto’s saying is altogether an intertextual arrangement according to
Fairclough’s 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 People’s 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 People’s 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 speaker’s confidence in the steadfastness
of her masses to coming forward and strengthening the speaker’s government. The
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persuasive tactic of pumping through appreciation has been used in order to realize
the indispensable need of the speaker’s 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 government’s 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 party’s 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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ideology. This purely Islamic construction provided an evidence of sharing the
ideology of the majority population in intact form. This paragraph altogether
represented her ideology as being the same one on the basis of which the very nation
became a nation-state by gaining independence. The speaker had endorsed and joined
the ideological reason of the existence of Pakistan. This segment represented the
religio-historical orientation of the speaker’s political idealism.
The twenty-first slice of this political text is, in essence, the continuity of
promises. Apparently words ‘power’ and ‘authority’ were not set in the text, but these
concepts alone provided guarantee of the fulfillment of all the promises undertaken.
The speaker assuredly disclosed that the equal social status and basic human rights of
all the citizens would be ensured and safeguarded so that the Constitution 1973 along
with the parliamentary form of government could gain strength as being in revival.
She confided in ceasing the sense of depravation, and vowed to concrete the
foundations on which the state settled.
This paragraph has well echoed the aspects of Grice’s (1975) Cooperative
Principles. Significant effects (the proposed revival of the 1973 Constitution and
parliamentary form of government) have logically been provided with a material
cause/action (ensuring equal social status and human rights of the citizens). Thus, the
use of reason and rationality has been tried to win the audience.
Twenty-second paragraph showered rich significance on the masses; the
speaker declared the people to be a priceless asset in her plan (of action). She had
expressed her extreme dependence on the force and support of the masses. It is a
construction representing Leech’s Politeness Principle of giving maximum
importance to the others by minimizing one’s own. By signifying the people, the
speaker arranged to reach to describing the value which the national and human
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resources of Pakistan excelled. Following sentence, therefore, enclosed the greater
significance of the national and human recourse. Coming of ‘national’ prior to the
‘human’ clarified the speaker’s mental design in favour of being one in the form of a
nation more than staying in flat humanness though with resources.
After the working class in the fourteenth paragraph, it is here in the twenty-
third paragraph that another ‘class’ was referred to i.e. the middle class. The speaker
repeated the confident gesture of putting an end to poverty, but this time she had
envisioned the course of action by which this target would be achieved. She employed
a solid concept of action-taking as a discursive strategy here by predicating that the
middle class would be encouraged. She further elaborated her economic vision by
sharing that the welfare of the general public would be brought about by capital
investment side by side with transfer technology. All these constructs were set in
work together for targeting the main construction of poverty. Masses and their
economic concerns appeared to be the foundations of the speaker’s political doctrine.
Twenty-fourth paragraph has represented the belief of the locutioner in
provincial autonomy. The speaker had visibly steered into the side of relationship
between the federal government and the provincial governments. In accordance with
her repeatedly stressed on masses-oriented political philosophy, she demanded that
the so called provincial autonomy would be possible only after had authority been
vested on grass root level i.e. in the masses. As much the masses gain strength, so
much they grow confident; in turn, more the masses become confident, more the
federation feels strengthened.
This brief paragraph presented a web of logical construction as far as linkage
between the Center and the provinces was concerned. At this point, the discourse
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necessitated a power-devolution plan in order to reach the real strength in a political
process.
The speaker illustrated the same issue (of the Center-provinces relation) in the
next (twenty-fifth) paragraph. She informed that a new and robust approach will be
implemented in order to flourish healthy and cooperative connection between the
Center and the related provinces. She declared the Center-provinces conflicts to be the
outcome of depravation. She again referred to the previous eleven-and-a half years to
have waged this sense of depravation between the said organs of the State. She, in a
way of typically an elderly sympathy, represented the likewise grief of the federal side
by having admitted that, that unnatural sense of depravation had played between the
Center and the provinces to the unfortunate estrangement. However, the speaker held
that not only the traditional solution of this relational problem but also the new
measures would be consulted and carried out to this effect. By new measures was
meant the speaker’s commitment to replace, in the provinces and masses the sense of
depravation with the sense of participation at all the levels of governance. The speaker
idealized that consensus would be developed to solving this problem instead of letting
the provinces loose in strife with one another or with the Center.
This paragraph is a detailed picturing of the deep structure behind the so called
micro-structure of discord. The speaker showed her full vigilance towards the issue,
and tried to ensure the nation of a solid action to solution.
From the twenty-fourth paragraph on, the speaker addressed the issues of
institutional nature which appeared vital to the national interests. The development of
the same is found in twenty-sixth paragraph as well.
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Twenty-sixth paragraph has visualized the place which had been allocated to
freedom of the press in the speaker’s 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
People’s 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 People’s 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 Center-
provinces 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 speaker’s 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 speaker’s 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 speaker’s 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 speaker’s
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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responsibility or to celebrate any achievement; this is not the quality of an ordinary
type of discourse rather this has exposed clearly the caliber and the character of a
political leader. Taken by the way of persuasive methods, this has come to be the way
to capture the affiliations of the public and nation which is the heart and hallmark of
politicians’ discourses.
In thirty-eighth paragraph, the speaker sounded of the view that the previous
dictatorial regime had promoted the rule of gun, and had diminished the writ of law
since it was based on oppression and the ideology of torture, this is the reason that the
Alma-maters of the country are enjoying topsy-turvy state of affairs whereas their
sold purpose was to enrich the youth/nation with the precious supply of knowledge.
The ban on student unions has done much hazard to the rule of law and, the speaker
lashed, ban on such unions was the negation of forbearance and freedom of
expression while such an oppressing step imposed halt of knowledge too. She has
opined that the student unions could pave way for better circumstances in the
education institutes through listening and giving weight to the viewpoints of the
students. In this way, their attention can be distracted from the guns and rule of arms.
By laying emphasis on the importance of the presence of students-unions the speaker
has declared to revive such unions as well as the labour unions; she announces to
withdraw restrictions on such unions. One more ideology of the speaker has go
expression here, that is, she rose to be a proponent of freedom of speech. She acted
like a pacifier who did not want oppression, injustice and rule of arms anywhere,
neither at national level nor at international level. She, therefore, has tried to impress
the audience by becoming a true supporter of democracy for which, according to her
view, she and her party had struggled for a long time.
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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 speaker’s 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 speaker’s 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 women’s 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 speaker’s 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 politician’s
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 people’s 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
Lakoff’s claim which he has attributed to women’s 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
people’s slogans has imported the Fairclough’s concept of intertextuality and, at the
same time, Halliday’s 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 speaker’s 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
Lakoff’s 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 Leech’s 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.
4.3 Critical Discourse Analysis of Benazir Bhutto’s Selected Speech II
Join Hands to Build this Great Country
Address to the Nation on Independence Day
Islamabad: August 14, 1989.
The speaker, in the very first sentence of the first paragraph, has taken help of
Halliday’s relational process by relating herself with her audience as she has broken
her speech with the phrase ‘we’; the phrase ‘gathered’ also adds to the relational
effect of the speech. It stresses that the speaker has set her social distance aside in
order to take part in the sacred commemoration of the Independence Day i.e. the day
of highest symbolic significance in connection with the existence of Pakistan. Act of
commemoration refers to the shared observance; it has, thus, multiplied the relational
value of this paragraph right at commencement. Phrases ‘our’ and ‘motherland’ have
involved emotional association of shared nationalism which is again mutually shared
inheritance of the speaker as well as the audience. ‘Momentous’ inspires momentum
i.e. the application of mental process indicating power, force, and pride in the shared
heritage of the gathering. ‘History’ has imported circumstantial importance into the
expression as per Hallidian recommendations, it has not only referred to the temporal
extent of some happening (the act of getting independence) very clearly, but also has
offered an echo of geographical location as well. Nonetheless, the word ‘here’ and
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‘motherland’ have considerably qualified to involve the circumstance of location. The
speaker extended the purpose of gathering there into two more shades by informing
that they gathered there to observe the anniversary of ‘our’ freedom, and also to hoist
the flag of Pakistan so that it could duly express the confirmation of the identity and
liberty of the people of Pakistan. It is notable that the speaker has categorically
referred to the colours of the flag i.e. green and white. The question arises that what
might be the purpose behind describing the colours of the flag instead of using the
plain phrase ‘flag’. The answer lies in the same sentence and that is the two references
towards the close of this sentence (as well paragraph), these reference are of identity
and liberty. It appears that the speaker has tried to relate green with identity and white
with liberty.
Other than relational nearness, the rule of three has been employed as an
effective persuasive tool: they have gathered for the sake of (1) commemoration, (2)
observance, and (3) hoisting the flag. Slight tinge of jingoistic treatment has lent this
paragraph the flavours of emotional attachment and shared possessing. It has resulted
in a convincing arrangement of interactivity at the very outset. Further, the use of
colour symbolism in purely a political text sounds to be an attempt to reduce the
politicization of this discourse with the use of an artistic and aesthetic device
(colours). It has also widened the scope of the said flag by associating it not only with
identity and liberty, but also with optimism and positivity. It is, indeed, the cognitive
shade of mental process. This paragraph has equally dealt with the ideational,
interpersonal, and intertextual aspects of transitivity.
The tone and organization of second paragraph is similar to that of the
previous one: same relational nearness (we and we), like sense of unanimity and
solidarity (assembled and gathered), like process of activity (celebration and
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commemoration), like approach to history (‘anniversary of our freedom’ and ‘most
momentous day of the history’), and like affiliation with a certain geographical
location (‘the Muslim of the sub-continent’ and ‘our motherland’). Since such
repetitive design and cohesiveness is found between two paragraphs, it can perfectly
claim to be an effective show of coherence; further, both of the paragraphs represent
cohesion within themselves separately. It is a good discursive illustration of
Beaugrande’s (1981) Seven Criteria in part. The speaker has further told that the
Muslim of subcontinent have secured the foundation of Pakistan by their untiring
efforts and indefatigable sacrifices. Pakistan was achieved following the exalted
precepts and unshakable will power, the following sentence revealed. The speaker has
used the extent of time in order to represent the material process on the part of the
freedom-fighters of the Movement of Pakistan. She has emphasized the time-tested
credibility and concreteness the people of Pakistan possess beyond any shade of
doubt. At this spot, the textual interactivity has fully corresponded to the mental
process thrown here: the textual fabric ‘no denying the fact’ has corresponded to the
thematic current of the sentence ‘strong will of our people’; it is to say, both of the
phrases claim surety, strength, and confidence. However, the under reference sentence
has offered three parts as mental feast: one part advocates the strength of the people’s
will-power, the other part deals with their staunch affiliation with sublime ideals, and
the third part of this sentence celebrates the outcome of the afore said both activities
(will-power and affiliation with sublime ideas) described in this sentence i.e. being
victorious. Hence, this sentence set a sort of equation which can analytically be
illustrated in following manner:
Strong will (cognitive) + Attachment to lofty ideals (cognitive) = Victory (cognition
metalized)
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In this way, this sentence has discursively exposed a cognitive formula of
success which, according to the speaker, the then people (most probably the freedom-
fighters of the Movement of Pakistan) had adopted. The next sentence has extended
the full credit to the people. Here the word ‘people’ offered double function. First of
its functions is that it refers to the people of Pakistan in general, and second role this
word has played is that it has translated the speaker’s brain regarding democracy.
Here people are not merely people; this phrase has also stood for a higher socio-
political reality revealing democratic approach of the speaker. In this sense, the
speaker is quite justified in representing the people and holding them fully creditable
for the success being celebrated. In other words, the first function of ‘people’ is
relational and that of material processes whereas the second function of the same is
ideational and cognitive/perceptive. It carried, therefore, ideological connotation and
as well as persuasive appeal at once. The last sentence is a strong one with the
echoing rule of three. The speaker articulated in this sentence that people may be
facing menace of poverty, they may be suffering with impoverishment and hunger,
but they are never wrong. It may also be meant that they should not be taken wrong.
Again, the word ‘people’ has been supplied with full thematic force; it has occurred
here in an institutionalized and democratized sense.
The third paragraph has again mental material with the same retrospective tilt
which the speaker has exercised in the last two segments of this speech. Interestingly,
this paragraph again starts with we-impact as commences with ‘our’, and this
possessive pronoun has related itself again with the previously honoured doers
‘forefathers’ (the Muslim of the subcontinent). The speaker has discursively tried to
weave an atmosphere of taken-for-granted endorsement and unquestionable
acknowledgement of Pakistan’s indispensable establishment; she has informed that
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the decision of demanding a separate homeland were not a haphazard or sudden
decision, instead it was invested with prolonged meditations and deliberations over
generations. The forefathers had opted for getting a free state because it was the most
needful measure in order to preserve the distinct religio-cultural identity they claimed.
The covert application here is that the audience needs not to think over the reason as
what was the need behind establishing this free and sovereign state, rather the
audience should have faith in that their forefathers rightly decided to have such an
ideational state. They should be the believers of their parents. The speaker has
advocated the decision and the step taken by the forefathers without raising any
question on them. Speaker has disclosed an ideology-merger at this point by reading
her ideology as being completely in debt to the ‘parented’ one in the sentence under
discussion. The next sentence of this paragraph, which has also concluded it, brought
a piece of advice which taught the audience to preserve Pakistan as the priceless
legacy of their elders. It is their duty to keep the flag of Pakistan flying ever. A
powerful ruler can be traced behind the adviser of this line.
The speaker, in the fourth paragraph, has paid great homage to the father of
nation- the Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The subject of this paragraph is to
validate the efforts of the Quaid-i-Azam, and to expose the narrow-mindedness of
those who were opposed to him in his struggle for freedom. Out of the forefathers
discussed in the previous section, one was the Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah
who led the freedom movement in spite of innumerable external as well as internal
pitfalls. The speaker presents salutation to the great leader. This paragraph, again,
reflects the force and fastness of the will power treated in the recent lines. The
speaker, having started this paragraph with ‘today we’, has thrown an expression of
the nation’s being one and singular in paying tribute to the unshakable determination
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and affirmation. In contrast to the speaker’s references to the historical events of
freedom movement in the previous paragraphs, this paragraph has been set into
motion with the commencing word of ‘today’. This temporal shift was an attempt to
invoke inspiration and revival of the same ambition, will, and force of action as the
Quaid-i-Azam had shown. The speaker has given tribute to the great leader for
bestowing on them national uniformity and solidarity, and as a direct consequence of
the Quaid’s undaunted struggle people enjoyed the said triangular oneness i.e. of flag,
leadership, and manifesto. He and he alone could unite the Muslims of entire
subcontinent on one single point so that they could run and strengthen the movement
of Pakistan. The speaker has underlined the will power of the Quai-i-Azam who, by
dint of his determination, tackled the harbingers of a different ideology (the ideology
of the opponents), an ideology the followers of which were strictly opposed to the
creative idea of Pakistan. The speaker has related a short story of how the Quaid-i-
Azam made it possible to convince the people for attaining a free state, and what
ideology stood in the way of his ideological success. It is to be noted that the speaker
has hinted to conservative idealists of his time. They could not afford even to imagine
the establishment of Pakistan. Notwithstanding, the iron will of the great leader
proved to be capable of materializing even what was held unimaginable. The Quaid
also faced severe blows of opposite winds, but his insurmountable determination did
not let him quit the struggle for freedom. His adversaries went to the extent of
declaring him Kafir-e-Azam (the biggest non-believer). In spite of such intense
confrontations and purely of ideological nature, the great leader remained an astute
struggler. He was not only himself confident of his direction, but also supplied
confident to the hundreds of thousands of the people who felt neglected and rejected
in a sandwiched situation between two other communities hungry for mere rule.
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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 speaker’s 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 Quaid’s 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 people’s
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 speaker’s
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-Azam’s 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
speaker’s ideology in unity and collective effort. The speaker’s 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 people’s 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 people’s 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 speaker’s 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.
Regarding the importance of 14th of August, in the eighth paragraph, the
speaker made it clear that on that day not only the nation got independence but a
mutually accepted constitution also came into being which was drawn by the elected
representatives of the four provinces along with their warm endorsements. She told
her audience that on the same day the foundation of parliament was laid, so the day of
14th August holds much importance in the history of the Pakistan; hence, this day is
the symbol of democracy. It is interesting to note here that the speaker has used those
peculiar intensifying techniques whish are generally thought and regarded as the
characteristics of women’s language; therefore, an element of ‘gender and language’
can also be observed while analyzing the present speech.
In ninth paragraph, the speaker has laid stress on the importance of
constitution. According to her viewpoint, constitution has a status of backbone
presence of which ensures the very existence of the state itself. To her, constitutions
are a nation’s blood, spirit and life. While describing the importance of constitution,
the underlying expression of disgust for oppression is worth noting here. She wanted
to uphold the constitution on high pedestal. She said that she respected the political
differences if they were within the bounds constitution because all rights, differences,
responsibilities, and rules have been mentioned in constitution. It is, therefore, the
duty of every citizen to obey the rules given in constitution. Similarly, the federal
government would also follow the constitution, the speaker has assured. In order to
highlight the importance of constitution, the speaker has attributed some human and
living characteristics to it, like, ‘blood’, ‘life’ and ‘spirit’. Once again, as in the other
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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 country’s 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
nation’s 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 speaker’s
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 country’s 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 speaker’s 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, men’s 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 people’s spirits
through her eloquence and persuasive vocabulary; the repetition of the same inviting
words ‘come’ has acted as accelerators which is the hallmark of leader’s 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, Fairclough’s 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. Halliday’s 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 Bhutto’s 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
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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-Desire-
Action) 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.
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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 Overview and findings
It is pertinent to mention that this research has tried to scan through only those
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 Statement of the problem revisited
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In democratic states, the political leaders belong to a particular political party
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
same time and space, and amid such situation where everyone claims to be right, only
one particular political party has to and manages to stand out by retaining or making
most of the public believe in it (that 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.
Having analyzed the data, it has been found that it is extremely difficult to
determine the health of a particular ideology as far as its credibility and workability
are concerned. All the political parties bring their respective representatives in the
arena of political contest, and all of them have claim to genuineness, truth, and
credibility. However, the clear victory of one single party seals the fate of that
particular nation for, at least, a few years to come. The clear lead of one single
political ideology may connote:
1. Only the winning party has credible substance in its ideology, and others have
merely pretended to be so.
Or
2. The winning party has more credibility in their ideology, and the others have
less or no truth (partially credible and partially pretentious, or wholly
pretentious).
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However, both of these connotations appeared to be improbable. Generally, in
democracies, all the political players have substantial credibility and workability in
their proposed ideologies.
There may hardly be one fake, and hardly can there be one perfectly credible;
the middle way with its varying proportions of credibility and incredibility appears to
be the most probable case. Generally, others (the losing party) are neither fake nor
less true (partially true and partially fake). However, the winning party represents and
ideology emerging maximally or fully designed and configured according to the
public needs at that particular juncture of time.
Another possibility is that one may be hailed with one’s ideology only because
the very ideology has not been tested before; thus, the qualities of being intact, new,
and untried can also qualify an ideology for triumph.
In the like manner, it is found that the ideology with all of its socio-political
and socio-economic dimensions which Benazir Bhutto has represented in her formal
political discourse must be the most wanted one at that turn of national history. Hers
must be the discourse which maximally mirrored the aspirations of the masses of a
country which had been surrounded by an army of crises. Evidence of this finding is
that the speaker has abundantly made the use temporal frames in her political
discourse under reference. Analysis has shown that her maximum emphasis remained
on currency. She has highlighted the ‘todayness’ even by the contrast projecting of the
past. In order to signify the present situation, the speaker has structured temporal
phrases in her discourse for as many times as shown in the table below (Table 1):
Table 1: Frequency of major temporal constructs
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Sr. No. Temporal Constructs Speech I Speech II Total
1 Future 1 1 2
2 Modern 2 0 2
3 New 5 1 6
4 Now 2 2 4
5 Past 3 0 3
6 Present 3 0 3
7 Time 5 2 7
8 Today 5 7 12
9 Year 6 2 8
Grand Total 32 14 46
In the light of above table 1, the order of these temporal phrases according to
their frequencies has appeared as follows:
I. Today (occurred for 12 times, which is the highest temporal frequency)
II. Year (occurred for 8 times)
III. Time (occurred for 7 times)
IV. New (occurred for 6 times)
V. Now (occurred for 4 times)
VI. Past (occurred for 3 times)
VII. Present (occurred for 3 times)
VIII. Future (occurred for 2 times, which is the lowest temporal frequency)
IX. Modern (occurred for 2 times, which is the lowest temporal frequency)
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Above outcome has revealed that it was nothing other than Benazir Bhutto’s
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 Research questions Revisited
1. In spite of harbouring self-centered motives of authority (power), can the
formal words of a political speaker really convey an ideology covering all or
majority of the individuals/segments of a society?
2. How does a political speaker play his/her propaganda to persuasion?
3. Does the ideology of a political leader remain/become really objective,
masses-oriented, and self(and ‘otherness’)-negating, or does it merely look so
at the surface?
4. Can there be power without ideology?
Addressing the research questions one by one in the light of this analytical
study, the following facts have been discovered:
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1. In spite of accommodating his/her self-centered motives of authority/power,
the formal political discourse of a political leader can manage to represent an
ideology covering all or majority of the individuals/segments of the relevant
society. It can, however, happen only when the leader has maximally modifies
ideology according to the needs and situation of the present hour.
The speaker has, as found in this analytical study, used the ideological
linguistic choices involving different backgrounds and foregrounds; the analysis of
the speaker’s ideological approach has been conducted from different vantage points
because, as it is, the speaker’s 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 speaker’s ideological bent of mind as far as national (internal) affairs and
targets are concerned has been broken down in the following table (2):
Table 2: Frequency of major politico-national constructs
Sr. No. Politico-national Constructs Speech I Speech II Total
1 Armed forces 1 0 1
2 Country 25 26 51
3 Defence 2 0 2
4 Democracy 14 4 18
5 Economy 6 2 8
6 Integrity 1 0 1
7 Masses 19 2 21
8 Minorities 2 2 4
9 Pakistan 12 9 21
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10 Pakistan People’s Party/Party 12 2 14
11 People 19 10 29
12 Progress 2 0 2
13 Prosperity 0 2 2
14 Shaheed Z.A Bhutto 2 0 2
15 Sovereignty 0 1 1
16 The Quaid-i-Azam 1 5 6
Grand Total 118 65 183
As per the above table (2), the self-explanatory ranking of these temporal
constructs according to their frequencies emerged to be so:
I. Country (occurred for 51 times, which is highest frequency)
II. People (occurred for 29 times)
III. Masses (occurred for 21 times)
IV. Pakistan (occurred for 21 times)
V. Democracy (occurred for 18 times)
VI. PPP/ Party (occurred for 14 times)
VII. Economy (occurred for 8 times)
VIII. The Quaid-i-Azam (occurred for 6 times)
IX. Minorities (occurred for 4 times)
X. Defence (occurred for 2 times)
XI. Progress (occurred for 2 times)
XII. Prosperity (occurred for 2 times)
XIII. Shaheed Z.A Bhutto (occurred for 2 times)
XIV. Armed forces (occurred for 1 time, which is the lowest frequency)
XV. Integrity (occurred for 1 time, which is the lowest frequency)
XVI. Sovereignty (occurred for 1 time, which is the lowest frequency)
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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
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comparatively, say, abstractions. It has, thus, duly illustrated the presence of
Halliday’s material process in the selected discourse.
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 People’s
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
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might have meant that though the ideology she propagated found roots from
Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s 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.
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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 speaker’s 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.
2. Political leaders, generally, disseminate their propaganda with the help of
various persuasive techniques. There can be a range of persuasive strategies
which are worked to persuade the masses: they are of formal, informal,
emotional, psychological, institutional (like religious, political etc.) spatial,
temporal, and purely communicative and statistical in nature (like repetition,
and using rule of three etc.); they are applied voluntarily as well as
involuntarily; the function of these persuasive strategies may generally be
informative, reformative, and manipulative. The speaker has used following
gestures in form of personal phrases for nearing the audience to inspire
national unity; such nearing is one of the most used persuasive techniques in
discourse. The table (3) has shown it in below:
Table 3: Frequency of major personal pronouns
Sr. No. Personal Pronouns Speech I Speech II Total
1 I 17 6 23
2 You 7 2 9
3 We 64 22 86
4 He 6 6 12
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5 She 0 0 0
6 They 22 4 26
Grand Total 116 40 156
Predicted by above table 3, priority of the speaker’s inclination to personalized
pronouncements (of persons i.e. personal pronouns) can be noted from the
frequencies of major personal pronouns, and the order of personal pronouns
according to their number of occurrences has been found as under:
I. We (occurred for 86 times, which is highest frequency)
II. They (occurred for 26 times)
III. I (occurred for 23 times)
IV. He (occurred for 12 times)
V. You (occurred for 9 times)
VI. She (occurred for NIL times, which is the lowest frequency)
Study has, thus, found that ‘we’ has been the most concerned frame, ‘they’
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 speaker’s
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.
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Such findings have, so far, allowed an undeniable symbolic explanation of the
speaker’s ideological mind, and that is: the speaker was deeply/psychologically time-
trained, existence-inclined, collectivity-conscious, pro-public, nation-oriented, and
state-centered at heart.
In addition to the analysis of the speaker’s internal politico-national idealism,
the researcher has also tried to trace her external i.e. foreign agenda as included in her
ideology. This try has, therefore, led the researcher to categorically fill the following
table (4), which represents the foreign shade of the speaker’s ideology:
Table 4: Foreign-policy tilt
Sr. No Country Name Speech I Speech II Total
1 China 1 0 1
2 India 1 0 1
3 Palestine 1 0 1
4 Region(al peace) 1 0 1
5 Soviet Union 1 0 1
6 Third world 1 0 1
7 U.S.A 1 0 1
Grand Total 7 0 7
If one has to find anything of utmost discursive and textual as well as
psychological equilibrium in this (selected) discourse, one should peruse the fashion
of the foreign policy as it has been sketched, filled, encoded and arranged therein.
Each country has respectively been addressed only once. The whole of the foreign
policy has found expression in Speech I alone, as it was delivered on an occasion
when the demonstration of foreign policy was needful, because it was the start of a
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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.
The researcher has explored the excellencies of this segment of discourse in
the following dimensions:
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. The weakest (Palestine) has been addressed by involving the strongest
(Soviet Union and USA).
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 Bhutto’s proposed foreign policy as it has been
positioned as third among the five, so, occupying pivot of the other four.
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Though it is geographically situated somewhat away yet it has been owned
right at the center of the policy because it belongs to the same religious
ideology as enjoys Pakistan; Palestine is found to be the only Muslim state
among all the referred.
(c) Next are approached Soviet Union followed by USA; both are situated at
gradually increasing geographical distances respectively: Soviet Union is
far, and USA farer; former was a messenger of socialism whereas the latter
a prophet of capitalism. Both had opposing geo-political ideas. Both were
the competing giants of a vacillating and dwindling bi-polar world. They
also were adversaries while Pakistan played between. Pakistan was then
pro-America against Soviet Union.
IV. Impressive parallelism has thus been woven at the either sides of Palestine.
V. The speaker has selected such five different countries to speak of as
represent five different ideologies respectively. It denotes that she has, in
fact, dealt with five different ideologies.
VI. Naming each country for only once has seeds of diplomacy, and mirrored
the speaker’s 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.
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VIII. The speaker’s anti-expansionist or, say, anti-neocolonialist (anti/post-
colonial 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. Such foreign-policy planning appears to be prophetic in a sense, as
Pakistan today plays role between China and USA, the pivot once
provided to Palestine has been availed by Pakistan itself as Pakistan has
become geographical hub among China, India, Russia, and to some extent
USA too as far as her geo-strategic and geo-political interests in the region
are concerned.
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
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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. It is also notable that no other neighbouring or major Muslim country like
Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arab etc. has been focused in connection
with Pakistan’s foreign policy.
Furthermore, the religious shade of the speaker’s ideology has also been
assessed analytically. The researcher has found following (Table 5) linguistic choices
of religious importance in the selected discourse:
Table 5: Frequency of major religious constructs
Sr. No. Religious Constructs Speech I Speech II Total
1 Allah/Almighty 1 2 3
2 Faith 3 3 6
3 Insha Allah 3 0 3
4 Islamic 2 1 3
5 Jehad 0 1 1
6 Minorities 2 2 4
7 Muslims(s) 2 3 5
Grand total 13 12 25
According to the noted frequencies as reflected in the table (5) above,
positioning of the speaker’s tendencies within religious frame has been found as
follows:
I. Faith (occurred for 6 times, which is the highest frequency)
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II. Muslim(s) (occurred for 5 times)
III. Minorities (occurred for 4 times)
IV. Allah/Almighty (occurred for 3 times)
V. Insha Allah (occurred for 3 times)
VI. Islamic (occurred for 3 times)
VII. Jehad (occurred for 1 times, which is the lowest frequency)
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
speaker’s 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
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religious difference. However, this representation is not in the sense of
‘otherness’ here rather it is in the sense of nearing, owning, and caring for
these groups according to the peaceful regulations prescribed for them by
Islam.
IV. 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.
The above arranged break-down of the religious aspects as constructed by the
speaker has translated that though the section lacks a prayers category yet she has
addressed the religious implication in (nearly) an all-inclusive fashion including
conviction, associations, differences, and practices.
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.
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5.1.3 Research objectives and hypotheses revisited
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.
However, it can be considered in connection with the Objective 4 that the
matter of employing persuasive strategies artfully or genuinely in discourse varies
from person to person.
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.
As far as hypotheses are concerned, the engagement/disengagement of the
research objectives has led to check the both of the hypotheses as follows:
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 Bhutto’s 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 speaker’s own discourse. It
is, therefore, a point of concern.
5.3 Limitations and directions for further research
Limitations of this research include:
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 speaker’s 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 Recommendations for Theoreticians
1. CDA has to heavily rely on linguistics (language), and partially on
communication and sociology (society plus ideology). It has been observed,
however, that CDA frankly undertakes a number of linguistic concepts and
theories, and moderately from the field of communication whereas it appears
merely inclined towards sociology; it has interacted with sociology,
comparatively, at the surface. It has, so far, hesitated to duly involve
153
sociological studies as compared with linguistic studies. The researcher
suggests it to be fruitful if the sociological side is also frankly utilized.
2. Developing a more sensitive discursive tool/method of analysis for detecting
presence of credibility and/or measuring the degree of credibility can
revolutionize the overall working of CDA.
3. Frameworks of CDA/DA are specific for the analysis of language, but
CDA/DA has not so far specified as to what sort of language can be analyzed
through CDA/DA. By ‘sort’ the researcher has meant a particular area/field of
knowledge, or subject.
If the answer is that CDA/DA is capable of analyzing all sorts of
languages (i.e. belonging to all the major fields of knowledge such as religion,
literary studies like literature, literary criticism, literary theory etc., natural
sciences, social science, philological sciences, management sciences etc.), it
should be declared necessary for CDA/DA to involve the study of the
nomenclature coming of all these major fields, which has, however, altogether
lacked in the body of CDA/DA as yet; rather appropriate is this to say that
CDA and DA cannot or very hardly have dared to attempt such broader,
unusual (from CDA/DA point of view), and extensive analytical endeavours
so far, instead it has gone intensive within the boundaries of mere political,
media, and literary discourses mainly, and practices and applications of
CDA/DA have remained restricted within linguistics, and partially
communication and slightly social studies. It has appeared, therefore,
problematic and unreasonable for CDA/DA to have claim of analyzing
language when it has not emphasized to studying and entertaining the
terminologies and typicalities of particular fields/subjects.
154
If the answer is that CDA/DA is limited to analyze only particular sorts
of language(-use), it does not appear to have particularized those types in clear
cut terms.
Therefore, CDA/DA neither has clearly accommodated the
language/nomenclature of all the (at least major) fields of knowledge or
subjects nor has it defined areas of its application distinctly.
It can either arrange its body of theories, frameworks, and
presuppositions by innovating a head DSF i.e. Discourse of Specific Fields, or,
more typically, DSS i.e. Discourse of Specific Subjects (as ESP i.e. English for
Specific Purposes, in Applied Linguistics), or specify the fields/subjects of its
workability but by devising and defining a universal parameter which could
explain and allow as to why certain fields/subjects can/should have DA/CDA
while the resting can/should not. The discourse analysts of certain
specifications are recommended to aggroup under this proposed DSF/DSS
according to the fields of their interests and affiliations.
4. This could be managed under an International Platform of Discourse
Research (IPDR) as in the manner of International Phonetic Association or
IPA (https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/), and other such
regulatory groups of the like nature. In order to exactly define, sensitize, and
revolutionize the body, applicability, and outcomes of CDA/DA, such a
platform is initially yet highly recommended to be established.
5.5 Conclusion
This critical analysis of the selected discourse has reached the following
conclusions:
155
1. As examined through the selected formal political discourse of Benazir Bhuto,
hers was a circumspect, extensive, multi-faceted, and comprehensive socio-
political ideology involving all the major facets a socio-political group
necessitates: she has been found to be psychologically time-trained, existence-
inclined, collectivity-conscious, pro-public, nation-oriented, state-centered,
peace-pursuer, and anti-expansionist (anti-neocolonialist or anti/post-
colonialist in a sense) at heart; this study has unearthed her as having a
calculated, balanced, decided, and diplomacy-based foreign-policy design in
connection with the then socio-national issues; she has been discovered in the
enjoyment of a healthy/proportioned religious approach as it has appeared to
be (nearly) an all-encompassing one in a moderate fashion; this study has also
analyzed the degree of party-affiliation in the speaker’s discourse i.e. she has
boldly carried with her the emblem of her political party at every platform.
Hers has been found an effective oratory from all the four viewpoints
i.e. discursive, thematic, structural, and stylistic. The analysis has revealed that
she could masterly employ overt and covert persuasive devices towards her
ideology-indoctrination.
The research did not face any difficulty while tracing and analyzing the
aimed Hallidian and Faircloughian elements in the discourse because, it has
been found, the discourse is replete with their effective arrangement worth
examining throughout.
2. Power can be demonstrated/ represented/ exercised without having referred to
it in political discourse. Therefore, the practice of authority does not
necessarily require show of authority.
156
3. Nature of the concept of ideology is varying; it is, at once, theory as well as
practice, cause as well as effect. It mainly denotes the abstract (e.g. progress,
democracy, economy, and a proposed system etc.); however, it also embraces
comparatively material (or nearly material) phenomena (e.g. geography, war,
material, and violence etc.). The nature, number, and ratio/proportion of the
components of an ideology remain changing according to the socio-political
needs and aspirations of the masses. It is hard to define it as being social,
political, and economic etc. It is an umbrella-concept, and concept of
concepts.
4. Societies and social groups are always ideologically charged whether they
realize/proclaim it or not. They may be or may not be political, but they are
always ideological. They are ideology-given and ideology-driven even when
the ideology is not practiced there in letter and spirit. Every big and small
social group exists within the dimensions of a particular ideology. It is
ideology and ideology alone which prescribes, defines, and indentifies the plan
of existence at micro (individual) as well as macro (collective) levels.
Including the most liberal and secular ones, there can be no society without
having well-defined or roughly-defined ideology.
5. Fight among ideologies is nothing other than fight of/for power and control:
fight to dominate and fight to subdue, fight to prevail and fight to surpass, and
fight to stand out of all.
6. Credibility of one’s ideology can very hardly be confirmed and/or measured
through one’s formal discourse alone.
7. No theoretical tool is available to detect credibility and/or measure its degree
in discourse.
157
8. It is hard to ascertain whether the persuasion is achieved by sharing genuine
affiliations with public interests and problems at ideational level, or it is
merely ‘devised’/manipulative at textual level.
9. Party’s affiliations and interests cannot be compromised. References to party
politics found in the selected discourse have been shown in the following self-
explanatory table (6):
Table 6: Frequency of party references
Sr. No. Party References Speech I Speech II Total
1 Pakistan People’s
Party/ Party
12 2 14
2 Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali
Bhutto
2 0 2
Grand Total 14 2 16
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 People’s 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
speaker’s 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 triplet-
case ideology inhabits:
Social
Practice
Discourse
Language
I
D
E
O
L
O
Y
159
Figure 10: Ideology-triplet
14. Ideology, text, discourse etc. all are the products of language. Only language
can ensure the existence of such indispensable abstractions and social
practices thereof. Since he is social, man is essentially linguistic animal;
language speaks man.
160
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APPENDIX I
Source: http://bhuttolegacyfoundation.com/bhutto/supremacy-of-people-and-national-
intgration/
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 People’s 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 People’s 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
165
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
166
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:
167
“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 People’s 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
168
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.
169
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 People’s 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 nation’s
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 People’s 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
170
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 prison-
gates 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 people’s Law Ministry and this
Ministry will take, as soon as possible, within a few days, a positive decision about
the political prisoners.
Pakistan People’s 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 People’s Party attaches great importance to a highly trained, well-
equipped 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. People’s
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 People’s 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
People’s 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-great-
country/
Join Hands to Build this Great Country
Address to the Nation on Independence Day
Islamabad: August 14, 1989.
We have gathered here to commemorate the most momentous day in the
history of our motherland; to observe the anniversary of our freedom and to hoist the
green and white flag symbolising our identity and our liberty.
We have assembled here to celebrate the anniversary of our freedom won by
the Muslim of the sub-continent with their sweat and blood. It was achieved through
adherence to sublime principles and indomitable will power. There is no denying the
fact that at very critical juncture in our history the strong will of our people and their
attachment to lofty ideals made them victorious. This is because the people are never
wrong. They can be poor, they can hungry, but their thinking can never go astray.
Our forefather opted for freedom after prolonged deliberations. They decided
to achieve an independent and sovereign homeland after weighing all facts. It is our
duty to preserve this legacy and keep our flag flying.
Today we salute the great leader of our freedom movement, the Quaid-i-
Azam. We salute his unflinching determination and resolve. It was he who provided
us one flag, one leadership and one manifesto. It was he who, gathered the Muslims of
the subcontinent under one banner for the creation of an independent state. The
Quaid-i-Azam had a lot of adversaries but he faced them gallantly. There were people
at that time who did not believe that Pakistan would come into existence and they
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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 people’s 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 People’s 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 People’s 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 people’s 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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youth to transform the world is a national asset. But is cannot flourish in an
atmosphere of violence and hatred. The struggle to transform the world is waged in
minds of men. It is a war of ideas, not of weapons. The struggle for Pakistan was
based on ideas and democratic principles; we did not resort to arms. Its objectives
were social justices and civil liberties, not hatred and prejudice.
Today, I urge my countrymen to resist greed and self-interest. Fried with the
lofty principles of Unity, Faith and Discipline, let us join hands to build this great
country. Let us wage jehad against all social evils. Let us unit to solve our economic
problems. Let us establish political institutions based on principles and the supremacy
of the Constitution and law.
Today, let us all ponder what we can do to make Pakistan a great nation; how
much time and effort we can put in to alleviate poverty and the sorrow afflicting our
fellow countrymen; what dreams we can sacrifice for Pakistan. Let your mind dwell
on thoughts of children who lack clothing, women who despair about their future,
wilting faces of unemployed youths, unfortunate parents who cannot afford medical
care for their sick offspring, the atmosphere that breeds crime, and then ask yourself --
- Is this all that we desired? No.! Never!
My sisters, my brothers, my elders!
I urge you to step forward. March forward with ideas and deeds. Have the
boldness to dream beautiful dreams. Have the boldness to stand up for your beliefs.
Come, let us create for Pakistan and outstanding position in the comity of nations.
Come, let us take the path illuminated by great struggle of the Muslims of the sun-
continent and march towards the goals of national prosperity. Come, let us unite to
make Pakistan and Islamic welfare state.
Pakistan Zindabad!