A critical discourse analysis of education talks by Sir Ken Robinson Trần Thị Long Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Luận văn ThS. Chuyên ngành: English linguistics; Mã số: 60 22 15 Người hướng dẫn: Prof. Nguyen Hoa Năm bảo vệ: 2013 Keywords: Phân tích diễn ngôn; Tiếng Anh; Ngôn ngữ học Content PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale Language has been playing a very important role in the development of mankind through the history of society. We use language to communicate with others. Language helps us to express inner thoughts and emotions, make sense of complex and abstract thoughts. It also helps us to establish and maintain relationship. Moreover, it is a tool to help us get what we want and need. Therefore we usually use language with specific and clear purposes in our mind. We know we can transmit our ideas and affect other people’s mind through ideology embedded in the language lexically and syntactically. Thus, it is undoubted that language and power have a close connection. Language can be a tool for social change. On the other hand, language is shaped by social structure. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is an approach of discourse analysis which is based on a speech act theory that says that language is used not only to describe things but to do things as well (Brown and Yule, 1985). Therefore, CDA focuses on language as it is used by real people with real intentions, emotions, and purposes. According to this approach, there is a correlation between linguistic production and social variables because people are members of the society and their speech is a reflection of a set of experiential, relational, and expressive values (Fairclough, 1992). Through CDA, we can clearly see the close relations among language, power and ideology. Moreover, Fairclough adds that CDA is an orientation towards language, which associates linguistic text analysis with a social theory of the functioning of language in political and ideological processes. By doing CDA, we are identifying these processes which help to identify the internal building of discourse and the connotations it implies. In this paper, I will examine two talks delivered by Sir Ken Robinson at TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference which is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, under the slogan “ideas worth spreading”. These talks are also put online at the website www.ted.com for those who may concern. Sir Ken Robinson, an educationalist from England, supports teaching the arts in schools. He frequently criticizes the current system for being too centered on math and language, and he argues traditional schooling not only limits students’ potential, but actually destroys their creativity. He has spoken around the world on the subject – in Europe, America, and Asia; and two of his most well-known presentations were at a TED conference in 2006 – titled “schools kill creativity” and in 2010 – titled “bring on the learning revolution”. I will analyze these talks, using as a base, the framework for CDA described by Fairclough (1989), which I feel provides a suitable set of analytical questions for the data I have chosen. The speaker of these talks does not belong to authority system as other speakers of political talks; thus he also has less power on the audience. However, language is still an effective tool for him to transmit his ideas and affect the audience. Therefore, when analyzing these talks I also focus more on the relation between discourse and ideology. 2. Significance of the study Political and social-matter-related discourses are considered to be the targets of CDA. Plenty of speeches on these issues by George Bush, Barack Obama, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, etc. have been critically analyzed. However, there is no CDA of speeches delivered by Sir Ken Robinson though he is a well-known speaker on education in the world. Moreover, social-matter-related issues embedded in the discourses which have been critically analyzed usually are globalization, nuclear weapon, population and anti-terrorism war, environment, etc. There is rare analysis on the issues of education, though education is also among the most concerned ones today. Therefore, the thesis hopes to discover and prove how effective language is used to transfer ideas, affect people’s perception about things in education in particular and affect society in general. 3. Scope of the study In this thesis, I only chose to analyze two talks delivered by Sir Ken Robinson at TED conferences because they are not only among Robinson’ most popular talks but also have a considerably large number of views on Internet. In addition, I just focus on the transcript of two talks. Hence, the spoken version (including non-linguistic features, gesture, voice of speaking, stress, etc.) is temporarily neglected. The thesis is a linguistic study rather than an educational one; thus not all information surrounding education, creativity and innovation is explored. The thesis only tries to explore the speaker’s use of language first, then and more importantly to make explicit his ideologies of education, creativity and innovation. In addition, this is a CDA research and “critical” here could be understood as “having distance to the data… and having focus on self-reflection as scholars doing research” (Wodak, 2002: 9). That means critical discourse analysts have to take a clear stance or explicit position in understanding and analyzing discourse. Therefore, in this thesis I take a social view to look at the two talks by Ken Robinson because the main themes of both talks are related to social – matter issues. However, as stated above, the main object of this study is still linguistics, not social matters. 4. Aims of the study and research questions By doing a critical discourse analysis of these talks, the author aims at discovering the relations among language, power, and ideology, especially the relations between language and ideology, then finding out the ideas of the speaker implied by the language he uses, and prove how he can use language as a tool of action. To fulfill these purposes, the following questions should be answered: 1. What and how is Robinson’s ideology (and/or power) reflected lexically and syntactically in the talks? 2. What is the relationship between texts, their producers and consumers and the social environment in which text production and interpretation occur? 5. Methodology This study uses, as a base, the analytical framework of Fairclough. It includes three discourse analysis stages: description, interpretation, and explanation. This framework will be described in detail in part B, chapter 1, and section 1.4. Quantitative and qualitative methods are also employed through three stages, with the dominance of the later. Quantitative method will be used to analyze linguistic features (vocabulary, processes, etc.). Qualitative method will be used in the description stage to assess the effects of such linguistic features on expressing ideology, and/or power, and the persuasiveness of the talks. This method is also used in interpretation and explanation stage. The data of the study, two talks, is collection from the website www.ted.com. Some of his online articles on the websites of HuffingtonPost, The New York Time are also collected to provide more insight in the production and interpretation of the text. To understand more about the background of two talks, including Sir Ken Robinson – the speaker, TED conferences, and the main theme of two talks, an overview will be provided in the next part. 6. Background of the data Sir Kenneth Robinson, or Ken Robinson, (born 4 March 1950) is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources in education and in business. He was Director of The Arts in Schools Project (1985–1989) which influenced the formulation of the National Curriculum in England, Chairman of Arts work - the UK’s national youth arts development agency (1985–1989), Professor of Arts Education at the University of Warwick (1989–2001). In 1998, he led a UK commission on creativity, education, and the economy and his report, “All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture, and Education”, was influential. He was knighted in 2003 for services to education and in 2005 he was named as one of Time/Fortune/CNN’s “Principal Voices”. He has served as advisor to a succession of high-profile public and private organizations - including the governments of Hong Kong and Singapore, the European Commission, and Paul McCartney's Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. He is currently senior advisor to the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles. A popular speaker at TED conferences, Robinson has given two presentations on the role of creativity in education – “schools kill creativity” in June 2006 and “bring on the learning revolution” in May 2010, viewed via the TED website over 18 million times (2013). Robinson’s presentation “schools kill creativity” is the most watched TED talk of all time (2013). TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) founded in 1984 is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate “ideas worth spreading”. The two annual TED conferences with about 1200 participants, on the North American West Coast and in Edinburgh, Scotland, bring together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers such as Bill Clinton, Jane Goodall, Malcom Gladwell, Al Gore, Gordon Brown, Bill Gates, Google founder Larry Page, etc., who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes or less). They address a wide range of topics within the research and practice of science and culture, often through storytelling. Since June 2006, the talks have been offered for free viewing online through Ted.com. 7. Design of the study This paper consists of three main parts: Part A: Introduction. This part contains rational, significance, scope, aims, research questions of the study and background of the data Part B: Development. This part includes two chapters. Chapter 1 literature review includes an overview of discourse, critical discourse analysis, the relations among language, power and ideology, and Fairclough’s analytical framework, including systematic functional grammar’s roles in CDA. Chapter 2 is the CDA of two talks which consists of the textual description (vocabulary and grammar analysis, macro structure and argumentative strategy analysis), the interpretation (situational context, intertexual context and presuppositions) and the explanation. Part C: Conclusion. This part includes the findings, the conclusion, and suggestion for further study. REFERENCES Book references: 1. Bloor, M. & Bloor, T. (2007). The Practice of Critical Discourse Analysis: An Introduction. London: Hodder Arnold. 2. Brown, G. and Yule, G. (1985) Discourse Analysis. Cambridge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 3. Chouliaraki (L). & Fairclough (N.). 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