One of the main concepts of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is its relationship to social problems and the relationship between society and culture. Our analysis focuses on the speech of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who talks about her experience of storytelling and cultural paradigm shifts. Chimamanda Adichie uses many rhetorical questions, thereby convincing the audience of the need to acknowledge the knowledge of their experience in learning about the culture of others (Chimamanda, 2009). In terms of sentence grammar, this speech includes simple or compound sentences with a single adjective.
The author uses relatively simple syntactic constructions in order to draw attention to the importance of each said thought. It is important to note that there are practically no inverse constructions in the text, which outwardly makes the speech even simpler and reduces the distance between the speaker and the listener (Chimamanda, 2009). An essential aspect of this is that in recounting her experiences of discrimination, she invariably demonstrates how she has interpreted them in the context of social problems. Chimamanda Adichie’s story is valuable in terms of the meaning of the speech patterns we use in speech after encountering cultures.
The purpose of analyzing Chimamanda Adichie’s speech is to explore the nature of the relationship between the features of narratives about other cultures after changing one’s beliefs and stereotypes. As mentioned earlier, the study’s primary theoretical or conceptual basis is the relationship between society and language (Lecture 2, n.d.). In the case of Chimamanda Adichie, this could be the apparent facts about Nigeria (presuppositions) that she uses to demonstrate the influence of culture on the features of speech.
Evaluation Table of Study Results
Research Issues in the Framework for Analysis
In discourse, storytellers often have sentences that display the use of pronouns of the I-WE. Basically, the woman uses the first person in the singular because she wants to emphasize her own life experience. However, the speech also features a relatively large number of THEY sentences used when the narrator needs to pay special attention to other characters in his life story. This division is especially noticeable if you pay attention to how the characters of different sentences are depicted.
Parts of the I-WE story are depicted mainly in the first part of the story, after which the narrator decreases their use. This is due to the fact that for qualitative reasoning, the woman first told her own story, which was emphasized. The narrator also uses THEY’s suggestions to describe fictional characters and real people she has encountered. Most first-person images were of the woman herself, her family, and the African continent. While within the THEY sentences, it was often possible to trace the books’ characters, as well as Americans and Mexicans who met along the way of Chimamanda.
Both research questions about using different pronouns in sentences are implemented in discourse by focusing on the meaning of the narrative. Thus, to begin the analysis, it is necessary to identify the general existence of different types of proposals and focus on their features and frequency of use. After these actions, it is essential to study the essence of the use of I-WE and THEY sentences and consider the question of who is meant by these persons. Detailed analysis of these questions can help the listener understand the narrative’s logic and think about what the author wanted to focus on and what issues are the most important for him.
References
Chimamanda, N. A. (2009). The danger of a single story [Video]. TED Talk. Web.
Lecture 2. Critical discourse analysis. (n.d.). PPTX Presentation.