Running head: DISCOURSE GENRE AND CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALASIS 1

Discourse Genre and Critical Discourse Analasis

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Discourse and Genre

A genre is described as a socially ratified way of using language in connection to a

specific type of social activity (Sandová, and Sandova, 2015). First, the interview falls under the

genre of political news interview whose main function is to gain information and entertain

audience. This was a political news interview genre since first it involved Charles Peete Rose Jr

the American Television Journalist asking questions and Prince Saud Al-Faisal answering them.

This yield a question-answer sequence with no expansions as shown in the following transcript:

Saud Al-Faisal: Well, if you have a judgment of General Mosely (ph), why don't you just accept

that and say we are wonderful -- wonderful people?

Charlie Rose: Because as you know, I'm interested in history, and I'm interested in why is it

only coming out now, this cooperation? Because –

Saud Al-Faisal: It is not coming out now, and people are now –

In addition, the interviewer Charlie Rose tries to control the dialogue by being the one

who asks questions while Charlie Rose answers them while revealing negative political affairs.

He says, “Prince Bandar in appearances on television has not been talking about the Saudi

cooperation. He's mainly been talking about why he was visiting the White House, because they

were explaining to him.” The sentence structures are argumentative as shown by the choice of

words used by the interviewer and interviewee. Charlie Rose uses contrast words used in an

argument such as “but” and portrays negative political affairs of Saudi Arabia by arguing “They

thought it was not a better way because they thought that somehow he would -- he was not -- you

couldn't overthrow him that way.” To identify a negative sentence there is addition of the word

“not” after the auxiliary verb in a positive sentence.

Words and sentences are emotive with aim of creating solidarity, influence and convince

the public as well as arouse emotions of joy, hate or fear. In the sentence “That's the best way to

achieve an objective, to do it without fighting, a bullet, or killing one person. We thought that if

it at least is tried, it would be worthwhile.” The choice of words by Prince such as showing that

the war of Iraq would not have involved a bullet, fighting or killing of a person only aims at

winning the empathy of the public. Argumentation process involves political class using various

linguistic words to modify the illocutionary force of their words so that they show attachment or

detachment from statements. Prince Saud Al-Faisal is aware that Charlie Rose says “……….

you're arguing to do it in a better way” (Line 69-71) but Prince Saud Al-Faisal corrects him in

line 72 “in a different way” as way of showing detachment from what Charlie says. In political

news interview genre the interviewee has the freedom to answer the questions of the topic or not.

Consider the case where Saudi Al-Faisal in line 78 says “Well, I don't know the reasoning. You

would have to ask the American government for that, but obviously the choice that we suggested

wasn't accepted” by saying that Saudi Al-Faisal chooses not to answer the question directly.

Critical Discourse Analysis

Textual Schemata

Generally, this being a Political News Interview the structures and strategies of

argumentation and conclusions are organized in a political dispute form where standpoints of

others are attacked and those of the political in-group are defended. Throughout, the interview

Prince Saud Al-Faisal continuously attacks the United States for choosing to attack Iraq while

defends Saudi Arabia that their objective was the best in ousting Saddam Hussein. Thus, the

interview follows the principle of ideological squire of positive representation and negative
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representation of the others. As a result of this ideological squire there is usual partisan

polarization in the sentences of the politician. Indeed, to achieve this polarization description of

good deeds by “our” group is done with several words but bad deeds there is short answering.

Creating a sense of minorities and majority in the discourse as seen when Saud Al-Faisal

explains deeply how Saudi Arabia related well with United States during First Gulf War from

line 42-48.

Local Semantics

Further to portray the positive deeds, sematic strategy of generality is seen when

mentioning bad deeds for “our” group while specificity is used in good deeds. Consider in line

63 Saud Al-Faisal is specific he says “Not just wait him out, work on the government and on the

military, to allow for a change of administration without going to war” but when asked about

something that could create controversy he says in vagueness in line 96 “Yes, in a sense that is

true….” and It is not just local meanings that matter but also the lexicon.

Lexicon

In terms of Lexicon there is specific choice and variation of lexicon with special words

used in political language. According to Herman (1992) political language focuses on specific

words which are used in politics and have different political meanings from the common

language. In the interview the words such as “cooperation” in line 2, “troops and equipment” in

line 43 and words such as “dictator” and “murderous dictator” are described by euphemisms.

Syntax
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Apart from manipulation of lexical style, syntactic style manipulations are also common

in political news interviews. According to Van Dijk (1997) during such political conversations

the use of pronouns, varying of word order, use of specific syntactic categories nominalizations

as well as passive and active constructions all indicates how sentence structures in political news

interview. The use of political plural “we” by Saud Al-Faisal in line 24,42,43,47 among others

indicates solidarity with his country Saudi Arabia. Using passive voice such as in line 97-98

when Saud Al-Faisal says “with unconscionable force kept all these problems underground”

indicating the emphasis he was putting on the Iraq problem.

Rhetoric

Additionally, there is use of rhetoric whereby it is used for persuasion and indicative of

argument such as one witnessed in line 101-102 when Saud Al-Faisal asks “where after the

American general enters Baghdad and he wakes up the next day, what's he going to do?” There is

also use of repetition to so as to draw attention and hence earn enough persuasion as shown when

Saud Al-Faisal uses alliterations in this sentence, “with violence ruled a country, with -- with

unconscionable force kept all these problems underground.” There is also “deletion” where

information is needed in a certain part then deleted deliberately, as is the case where Saud Al-

Faisal in line 27 states “It is not coming out now, and people are now…..” and does not

elaborate any more.

References
 DISCOURSE GENRE AND CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALASIS 6

Herman, E. S. (1992). Beyond hypocrisy: Decoding the news in an age of propaganda, including

the doublespeak dictionary. Black Rose Books Ltd..

Sandová, J. K., & Šandová, J. K. (2015). Speaker Involvement in Political Interviews. Peter

Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften.

Van Dijk, T. A. (1997). What is political discourse analysis. Belgian journal of linguistics, 11(1),

11-52.