Application of Fairclough’s Model on Joe Biden’s Victory Speech: Corpus Assisted Analysis of New US Vision Versus World Voices

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to carry out the critical discourse analysis of Joe Biden’s victory speech to reveal his ideologies and the new US vision in the modern world’s socio-political and pandemic perspectives, and how a national and international audience perceives it. The mixed methodology is used to uncover the layers of his linguistic choices by applying the Fairclough 3D model (1989). The data is collected and analyzed using Corpus tools AntConc, WebCorp Live, and WORDCounter in terms of keywords and concordance lines. The findings reveal that the speaker made intentional choices of words, pronouns, and repetition to convey his inclusion and unity ideology. He did it by negating the racial, ethnic, political discrimination and inequality in the US and showing seriousness to the economic-Pandemic crisis, and balancing future strategies toward other nations in general. He is fully aware of the future challenges and suggested first-hand solutions for them. The textual analysis of the study helps to understand how ideologies are constructed through discourse.