Kennedy’s moon mission speech and walmart annual report analysis (CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS)

CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

The fact that a person cannot completely depend on the knowledge and insight of those who are in power or have higher authority. Socrates was the one who demonstrated that a person may have high position or power and yet be utterly illogical and confused. He taught us the importance of asking questions deep questions before we accept any ideas worthy of belief.

Critical Discourse analysis is breaking a discourse (statement /speech etc) into several questions to reach a valid point by using tools of analysis. It is an approach to the study of textual practise and language use.

TOOLS OF ANALYSIS

 

1) Robert Dilts Pyramid  

  • The neurological levels in Dilts model are useful in problem solving.
  • Beliefs and values drive behaviour.
  • Identify the level that the problem is represented at.
  • To solve the problem, go to a different level.

The levels are – Environment, Behaviour, Capabilities, Value and Beliefs, Identity and Purpose.

2) John Grice Method –

  • Maxim of Relation: Be relevant, check material presented should be relevant to the target audience.
  • Maxims of Manner: Be perspicuous (clear) and don’t try to avoid ambiguity.
  • Maxims of Quantity: The information provided should be enough to make discourse clear, there should be fine balance of information.

 

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  • Maxims of Quality: Be truthful, avoid false information to impress the target audience.

3) Rudyard Kipling – Six questions

Kipling’s six men taught him all he knew according to his poem.

They were – What? Why? When? How? Where and Who?

This is somewhat similar to Robert dilts pyramid method. Break the discourse by asking these questions and you will reach the conclusion.

Analysis of John F Kennedy speech (September 12th,1962)

“We choose to go to the moon”

It was a hot sunny day as John F Kennedy mentioned in his speech. The day when United States saw their president speak about how they are going to get into competition with Soviet Union? How they are going to lead the space exploration programme? How USA will make the world follow them? The speech was given with the purpose of  inducing people of united states to support the effort of landing a man on the moon and returning him back safely to the earth. So on September 12th, 1962, the president of United States delivered his speech in front of thirty five thousand people at Rice University Football Stadium, Texas, Houston. He started his speech mentioning him a lecturer whose first lecture will be very brief and precise.

Kennedy kept playing with the language and kept rotating everything between science, knowledge and technology. He repeated ‘we go to the moon’ thrice to create an impact on his audience. His another language trick can be noticed by marking whenever he said  ‘we will lead’ he wanted his audience to feel that their nation is meant to lead not to follow which indeed got him a powerful response with applauses. Kennedy excessively used ‘we’ in the speech and intelligent repetition of which brought out the idea that he wanted his audience to know that America is a unified nation and they stand together in this space race and nobody is alone.

Kennedy used Aristol’s four kind of explanation to give an idea about how he is planning to put first man on the moon. Aristol’s four kind of explanation includes material cause, formal cause, efficient cause and final cause. In the starting he stated why this mission is important for people of America. He gave a description about the rocket comparing it with the football stadium of rice. President beautifully explained why this mission is a challenge and how it can be accomplished. He introduced his audience to something new, exploration of which can do wonders in future making other nations follow America.

The speech used several strategies;

-Articulation of time that locates the endeavour within a historical moment of urgency and plausibility

-A strategy that invites his audience to live up their pioneering heritage by going to the moon

-An identification of outer space as a beckoning frontier.

(Jordan, John W.,2003)

The speech very smartly utilized Ruyard Kipling’s six question formula to impress the target audience and explain the whole idea behind making America the leader of exploration of space. President’s whole speech is a great example of division of Ruyard Kipling’s six question tool to make the discourse clear. There was clarity of purpose in the speech and it exactly made its audience hear what they wanted to hear.

The speech followed all maxims of grice and was arranged accordingly.  Kennedy persuaded his audience explaining all the elements of his powerful mission. His purpose of argument was very clear, he explained all the important factors and generalised the speech obeying all the maxims of quality, quantity, relation and manner.

 

Analysis of a statement in walmart annual report

David Cheesewright – President and CEO international market

 

Wal-Mart stores, inc. Is operating various retails stores in different retail stores in different formats around the world. The company’s philosophy of pricing is “Every Day Low Pricing” the company is working in 3 different business sections, Walmart U.S, The Sam’s club and Walmart international. David cheesewright is CEO and president of Walmart international which is one of the main growing sector of Walmart’s operations worldwide handling more than 6400 stores internationally  and over 7,96,000 associates in 26 countries excluding the United States. David’s Walmart career began in 1999 at ASDA which is now the second largest super market chain by market share. He was named to his current position as CEO and president of Wal-Mart in year 2011 for Europe, Middle East, Canada and Africa region.

President report within the Walmart’s annual report plays an important role in providing the information which will benefit their customers, shareholders and other interested people. It also talks about the investments, key points, achievements and milestones that have been achieved. The report intents about Walmart’s main objective which is to become the lowest cost operator in the market by raising their investments and it also mentions about their steps taken in Brazil, Chile, China and Mexico to strengthen their position but fails to explain any of them. The purpose of the report is to set an optimistic approach by highlighting the increment in net sales, opening of new stores and future investments.

The report has mentioned some of the key achievements of the company’s growth in e – commerce business. Cheesewright gave three examples which are ASDA, Brazil e-commerce and Yihaodian. Where he wanted his readers to know that the sales grew twice for e- commerce in Brazil and ASDA in UK and Yihaodian which he indicated is ‘one of the fastest growing website now in China’.  According to him the company has also planned to increase investments in Canada and Mexico to push growth but all these achievements had no proof of being valid plus it didn’t attract or impress company’s target audience. The information provided in the report for the international business is not enough for the readers to believe.

Cheesewright used argumentative moves in his report where he assured Wal-Mart of delivering EDLP (every day low price) by making more investments and gave examples of ‘worry free’ pricing in China and ‘ASDA’ price in UK which builds trust in customers and saves them good money. He said that Walmart’s main objective is to provide lowest cost in every market in every segment. To make his part more interesting and attracting he has showed 2 collages with different images giving a caption about every image. Cheesewright also wanted his readers to know that Wal-Mart is further looking to invest and expand its chain of stores by purchasing the international brands internationally and gain exceptional profits.

The statistics provided by the cheesewright doesn’t follow Grice’s maxims of quality and quantity. The information given by him on growth percentage was not true; it was only given to impress the target audience as the actual stats were 1.3 % or 136 billion not 4.6% or 140 billion. Even the information content was not enough to make his discourse clear therefore he failed to follow the maxim of quantity.

The purpose of the speech was persuasion by using language tricks and explaining what has been done in the past what is to be done in future on the basis of data present but it failed to create an impact on the target audience as it lacked content was not able make his discourse clear.

Comparison

Both speech and statement have different purpose. The general purpose of a speech is to inform, persuade and entertain audience while on other hand statements are intended to give shareholders and other interested people information about the company’s activities and financial performance. The speech is the idea or statement that gives your views direction beyond the general purpose. The annual report is a comprehensive report on a company’s activities throughout the preceding year.

Kennedy used both technical and specific scientific language to excite American scientists and people for the greatest adventure that lay ahead. Kennedy’s arguments were valid as he explains what he observed. During the delivery of the speech there were notable pauses and breaks to allow the significance of the statements. He raised his voice at strongest part of the speech which is notable when he said ‘we choose to go to the moon’.

The purpose of the report was not clear there were no examples to attract Wal-Mart’s target audience and shareholders. The content of Cheesewright report lacked maxim of quality as the information given by him didn’t match the statistics but the presentation of the report was attractive as it used 2 different collages with short captions to gather their target audience and tried to be short and precise. The pictures talk about EDPL strategy which is Wal-Mart’s backbone, it also talks about growth in china and future investment in ASDA which will be £ 1.25 billion.

Kennedy cleverly strategized his speech which in the end enabled him to win over his audience, obtaining their full support by bringing them together for a great mission which half of the nation never thought is even possible and to a mission which offers unlimited exploration. He smartly chose his words which defined the whole persuasive purpose of his speech and led him to gain the vast support of American people. Kennedy’s speech was given to create an everlasting impact on his audience, for which he segmented the speech using Grice Maxims and Ruyard Kiplings six questions; he also used Aristol’s four explanations to explain his purpose which evoked positive and flattering response from his audience. The language used by Kennedy was designed to have persuasive impact.

Both of them played with language to impress their target audience. Kennedy and Cheesewright repeated words to make their arguments strong enough for the respected audience. Kennedy’s speech was well organised while on the other hand Cheesewright’s statement was short and precise but at the same time failed to connect with his readers and to give an idea about company’s future investments and new policies.  Kennedy’s insight was an exception and was possible at the same time he was able to segment his speech in such a form that he could get most out of the audience. David’s report couldn’t get the most from the reader as it failed to follow any tools of analysis to make the discourse clear. David used argumentative moves to assure the reader, an example of which can be noticed when he assured that Wal-Mart will become the lowest cost operator in the market by investing a big amount.

So, reaching the end it is clear that strong arguments don’t convince everyone. However, a good benchmark for an argument would be the one that is clearly understood.

References

 

 

  • DeGroot, Gerard. “The dark side of the moon” History Today 57.3 (2007).

 

  • Roberts, B., & Berg, N. (2012). Walmart: Key Insights and Practical Lessons from the World’s Largest Kogan Page Publishers.

 

 

  • Grice, Paul (1975). “Logic and conversation”. In Cole, P.; Morgan, J.Syntax and semantics. 3: Speech acts. New York: Academic Press. pp. 41–58.

 

 

  • Walmartstores inc., 2014, media corporate. Available from: < corporate.walmart.com/66/e5/…/2014-annual-report.pdf>. [21 may 2014].

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