A Critical Discourse Analysis of Financial Remarks: A Case Study

Shaohui Zheng
2014 International Journal of English Linguistics  
Financial discourse is generally considered to be objective, impartial, unambiguous and least ideology-ridden. However, in recent years, this viewpoint has been challenged by people in the field of mass communication, sociology and linguistics as well. Based on the theory of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and mainly adopting Fairclough's three-dimensional framework of CDA, this paper, focusing on the financial remarks of Ben S. Bernanke who is said to be a careful, non-ideological person,
more » ... ends to testify that although language of financial remarks is always claimed to be neutral, credible and undistorting, it is nevertheless ideology-loaded. With the linguistic instrument loaned from Halliday's Functional Grammar, the analysis will be conducted step by step from a description of the textual features of the speeches, to the interpretation and explanation of the speeches from discoursal and social aspects to uncover the hidden ideological messages. It is hoped that this study can provide some implications for pedagogical application and be helpful for those in the field of finance who follow closely Bernanke's or the present Chairman's financial remarks.
doi:10.5539/ijel.v4n5p105 fatcat:ei36hhs5zbdgtazcop5jmgu5wu