Prof. Ahmed Sahib Mubarak, PhD1. Mawi’l Firas Abdul-Mun’im2
University of Babylon, College of Education for Human Sciences, Iraq.
Email: asjam72@gmail.com
University of Babylon, College of Education for Human Sciences, Iraq.
Email:mawilalsalhi@gmail.com
HNSJ, 2023, 4(3); https://doi.org/10.53796/hnsj4322
Published at 01/03/2023 Accepted at 12/02/2023
Abstract
Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA) is an approach of discourse analysis in which the discourse that empowers, energizes, inspires and motivates the frustrated addressees, is a cornerstone. Charlie Chaplin’s motivational speech at the end of his film “The Great Dictator” (1940) reflects the ideology of solidarity in order to make the depressed people ,especially during the early days of the World War ɪɪ , solidarize with each other and unite against the oppressive rulers. The present study is concerned with analyzing Chaplin’s speech according to three levels, namely, micro (sentence types), macro (repetition) and ideological (emphasizing positives and de-emphasizing negatives) aiming at identifying the discursive strategies and how they are positively used to make social changes.
Key Words: Positive Discourse Analysis, Solidarity, Motivation, Motivational Discourse, Discursive Strategies.
عنوان البحث
التضامن في خطاب تشارلي شابلن التحفيزي (1940): تحليل خطاب إيجابي
أ.د. أحمد صاحب مبارك1، موئل فراس عبد المنعم
1 جامعة بابل ، كلية التربية للعلوم الانسانية ، العراق. بريد إلكتروني asjam72@gmail.com
2 جامعة بابل ، كلية التربية للعلوم الانسانية ، العراق. بريد إلكتروني mawilalsalhi@gmail.com
HNSJ, 2023, 4(3); https://doi.org/10.53796/hnsj4322
تاريخ النشر: 01/03/2023م تاريخ القبول: 12/02/2023م
المستخلص
تحليل الخطاب الايجابي هو نهج لتحليل الخطاب و فيه الخطاب الذي يمكِّن ، وينشط ، ويلهم ، ويحفز المُخاطبين المحبطين ، حجر الاساس . خطاب تشارلي شابلن التحفيزي في نهاية فيلمه “الدكتاتور العظيم” (1940) يعكس أيديولوجية التضامن من أجل جعل الأشخاص المكتئبين ، خاصة خلال الأيام الأولى للحرب العالمية ، يتضامنون مع بعضهم البعض ويتحدون ضد الحكام الظالمين. تهتم الدراسة الحالية بتحليل خطاب شابلن وفقًا لثلاثة مستويات ، وهي: الجزئي (أنواع الجمل) ، الكلي (التكرار) والأيديولوجي (توكيد الإيجابيات وعدم توكيد السلبيات) بهدف تحديد الاستراتيجيات الخطابية وكيفية استخدامها بشكل إيجابي في إجراء تغييرات اجتماعية.
الكلمات المفتاحية: تحليل الخطاب الإيجابي ، التضامن ، التحفيز ، الخطاب التحفيزي ، الاستراتيجيات الخطابية.
1. Introduction
The present study is in the field of positive discourse analysis (PDA, henceforth). It attempts to investigate the discursive strategies used positively by Charlie Chaplin in his motivational speech at the end of the well-known film “The Great Dictator” (1940) in which he criticizes Adolf Hitler, through which he empowers every frustrated and depressed human being all over the world motivating, encouraging and energizing them via positively using particular discursive strategies. Investigating these strategies is the problem of the present research. Such a problem is summarized into the following questions that need to be answered :
1. How is solidarity reflected in Charlie Chaplin’s (1940) motivational speech?
2. What are the discursive strategies used in Charlie Chaplin’s (1940) motivational speech positively to make positive social changes?
3. What are the functions of these strategies?
The present study aims at (1)investigating the way solidarity is expressed, and (2)identifying the discursive strategies used by Charlie Chaplin in his (1940) motivational speech with their frequency of occurrence and the positive function.
It is hypothesized that the ideology of solidarity is reflected through a variety of linguistic as well as non-linguistic strategies that are used positively in order to make positive social changes. Those strategies are syntactic, rhetorical and ideological.
The methodology of the present study is systematically represented in (1)making a brief theoretical survey about PDA, (2)developing a workable model for analysis, (3)analyzing the data under study qualitatively according to the developed model, (4)classifying the data into a number of single sentences, then (5)doing a quantitative analysis including frequencies of occurrence for the discursive strategies used by Charlie Chaplin’s (1940) motivational speech.
The present study is hoped to be of theoretical significance since it makes use of a developed model for PDA then applying it to Charlie Chaplin’s (1940) motivational speech and explaining how positive social changes are made via certain discursive strategies. Practically, it helps researchers who are interested in the field of discourse analysis make use of such kind of data as well as the model of analysis in further studies.
2. Theoretical Background
2.1 PDA
In addition to CDA, there is another approach to DA that is, PDA which represents the cornerstone of the present study.
Martin (1999:51-52) believes that it is necessary for any discourse analyst to select discourses that motivate, energize and empower social group members in a particular society to emancipate their freedom from the domination of the oppressive behavior of the dominant powerful group in that society.
PDA is a linguistic term that is firstly established by James Martin in his paper (2004) entitled “Positive Discourse Analysis: Solidarity and Change”.
Martin’s (2004) PDA is suggested as a complementary perspective to CDA, whose main function is to make the surrounding world a better place to live. In other words, the relationship between CDA and PDA is complementary since PDA complements CDA in taking the positive aspect into consideration, rather than contradictory since they both aim at identifying the ideology embedded in speech.
Macgilchrist (2007: 74) refers to the point that PDA is a new direction of CDA that is concerned with describing what a given text does well and gets right in the eyes of participants. In addition, she points out that PDA depends on the same premises of critical approaches that is why it is not considered as a separate field, but a new complementary direction of CDA. In other words, positive discourse analysts are interested in doing analyses which have effects on the social world, i.e., making positive social changes.
2.2 Solidarity
The term “solidarity” refers to the social ties in any society which bind people together as one single group in terms of belongingness. It is used in various branches of knowledge like philosophy, sociology and bioethics (Stanistaw et. al : 2013).
Solidarity as claimed in Douwes, R. et.al (2018) focuses on the mutual dependency between the social-group members in a particular community. It leads to make the individuals feel that they are capable to reinforce the lives of others through trying to make certain positive social changes.
Valerie Forgeard (2022) agrees with Douwes (2018) and points out that “community solidarity” is one of the most significant aspects of building and rehabilitating a well-organized successful community. That means the social-group members in a particular area feel that they belong to each other regardless of any social differences such as gender, age or ethnic group. Solidarity contributes to strengthen societies since it brings citizens closer to each other, reduces social struggles, and motivates them help one another when there is a need. So, every citizen gets benefit from belonging to the same society, no matter how large or small.
2.3 Motivational Discourse
Motivational discourse refers to a particular speech that publicly inspires an audience to make positive social changes in their lives. Motivational discourses are produced for a variety of uses such as reinforcing personal development, inspiring people to take a particular problem, giving a new suggestions to overcome a given challenge, creating confidence and developing the workers’ performance. Once a motivational discourse is made influentially, the audience can be triggered to make serious social changes in their lives (Indeed Editorial Team:2021).
Discourse has various types, but the pivotal type for the present study is the “motivational discourse”. Barot (2021) considers motivational discourse as a type of discourse that is used intentionally for persuading or motivating the audience to be energized for doing needs or desires.
The motivational speech aims at motivating, inspiring, energizing and empowering a particular audience to make them able to do something. In persuasive speech, the speaker attempts to persuade the addressee to believe in a certain ideology meanwhile the motivational speaker attempts to inspire and encourage the audience to do something seems impossible to do. So, the motivational speech is a specific form of persuasive speech. Slutsky and Aun (1997) refer to the point that the motivational speech is sub-categorized into four types: Hero, Survivor, Religious, and Success .
Motivational speeches can be analyzed critically because they aim at making positive social changes although there is no social inequality or injustice via concentrating on the positive side. In other words, there is no conflict between two contradictory social groups since there is no negative side at all, but there is only a positive one that can be analyzed positively to make the targeted positive social change. Trying to make social changes does not necessarily require having two conflicting groups (in-group and out-group) or different types of social inequality.
3. Data Selection and Analysis
The motivational speech under study was performed by Charlie Chaplin at the end of his well-known film “The Great Dictator” (1940) addressing the general public. When performing the speech, Chaplin was playing the role of a fascist dictator instead of a barber. The film was first released in 1940 during the early days of the World War ɪɪ (WW2; henceforth) tackling a fascist dictator and a Jewish barber both played by Chaplin. The film is satirical criticizing Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, fascism, antisemitism and Nazis. As far as the present study is concerned, the motivational speech of Charlie Chaplin in his “The Great Dictator” (1940) is going to be analyzed according to three levels, namely: Micro, Macro and Ideological.
3.1 Micro Level Analysis
The first level of analyzing Chaplin’s speech is the micro level in which the unit of analysis is the single sentence, i.e., within the sentence-limit. Accordingly, the sentence structures used by Chaplin is of major concern since each sentence has its own structure.
3.1.1 Syntactic level
Once it is time to deal with sentence-structure, it is worth-mentioning that sentences can be classified into various types according to a number of criteria, e.g., complexity, function and relevance, etc. .
3.1.1.1 Sentence types
Sentences in general have different types. Such sentence types vary in accordance with the criterion by which the sentences are classified. What is of much concern here is the function which any sentence plays. According to function, sentences are classified into declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamatory sentences (Quirk & Greenbaum: 1990). In Chaplin’s speech, there are neither interrogative nor exclamatory sentences, but there are only declaratives and imperatives as will be shown below. Definitely, using these two sentence types is not arbitrary, but for certain reasons.
3.1.1.1.1 Declaratives and Imperatives
Chaplin uses many declarative and imperative sentences. After counting the total number of the sentences which Chaplin’s speech consists of, forty one sentences have been found including both declaratives and imperatives. The declarative ones are thirty one out of forty one while the imperatives are ten out of forty one as illustrated in table (1) :
Table(1): Sentences Classified according to Functions
| Total no. | Declarative | Imperative |
Interrogative |
Exclamatory | |||||
| 41 | Freq. | % | Freq. | % | Freq. | % | Freq. | % | |
| 31 | 75.6 | 10 | 24.4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
As has been illustrated in table (1) above, the declarative sentences are used more than the imperative ones by Charlie Chaplin in his (1940) motivational speech while neither interrogative nor exclamatory sentences are used. That means the declarative, then imperative sentences are more useful for the speaker than the interrogative and exclamatory ones when performing a motivational speech. Declaratives are used by Chaplin for thirty one times (75.6 %). The positive function of the declarative sentence is that it functions as a statement conveying a particular message to an audience. Since there is no intimacy between the speaker and the audience, the imperative sentences could be less influential in conveying the targeted message. For that reason, Chaplin uses the declarative sentences more
frequently than the imperative ones in that he uses imperatives for ten times only (24.4 %). As shown in Table (1), no interrogative or exclamatory sentences are found (0 %) since the motivational speaker found that such types have no positive influential impact on the audience. That is, the listener here doesn’t want to be asked or informed with exclamations.
3.2 Macro Level Analysis
The second level in analyzing Chaplin’s motivational speech is the macro analysis in which the linguistic tools exceed the sentence-limit. In other words, there is an extra-sentential dimension added to the analysis , namely, rhetoric.
3.2.1 Rhetorical Level
When rhetorically analyzing Chaplin’s motivational speech, rhetorical devices must be used to achieve various purposes. The rhetorical device in Chaplin’s speech is ‘repetition’ including its lexical and grammatical types.
Chaplin uses various lexical items repeatedly in his speech. There are 329 lexical words used in Chaplin’s speech, four lexical words are repeated more than once. Similarly, Chaplin’s speech includes 285 grammatical words in which five ones are repeated more than once. Consider table (2) below :
Table (2) : The Rhetorical Device of ‘Repetition’ in Charlie Chaplin’s (1940) Speech
| Total no. of lexical items | Repeated Lexical
Items |
No. | % | Total no. of Grammatical items | Repeated Grammatical items | No. | % | ||||
| 329 | Let us | 7 | 50% | 285 | You | 13 | 33.4% | ||||
| Soldiers | 3 | 21.4% | Us | 12 | 30.7% | ||||||
| democracy | 2 | 14.3% | We | 8 | 20.5% | ||||||
| Unite | 2 | 14.3% | I | 4 | 10.3% | ||||||
| Total | 14 | 100% | Our | 2 | 5.1% | ||||||
| Total | 39 | 100% | |||||||||
In Table (2), Chaplin frequently uses an influential tool which is ‘repetition’ whether lexical or grammatical. Concerning the lexical repetition, there are four repeated lexical items in Chaplin’s speech. “Soldiers” is used three times because though Chaplin is addressing the general public, he specifies soldiers since they are the most targeted social level especially during the early days of the 2nd World War.
Additionally, “Let us” is mentioned seven times during the speech referring to the social solidarity that Chaplin tries to convey to the audience. Chaplin uses ” let us ” to indicate that the speaker and the addressee belong to one group rather than two groups.
The term “democracy” is also repeated two times referring to be free from being obliged to say and decide what anyone wishes, enabling the audience to solidarize with each other since there is no dictatorship.
The verb “unite” ,which is used two times by Chaplin, represents the essence of solidarity. The message Chaplin tries to convey through repeating such a term is that solidarity is achieved through unity. Another positive function of the lexical repetition is to make such terms and notions deeply-rooted in
the minds of the audience so that the possibility to make the positive social changes will be increased. Even though it is not important for the positive discourse analyst to know how much the positive social change is successful, using tools like repetition contributes to achieving that success since it is concerned with persuasion.
There are five repeated grammatical items in Chaplin’s speech surely for particular functions. As is shown in Table (2), some pronouns are mentioned repeatedly in Chaplin’s speech, namely : we, our, us, I and you.
The pronouns “we“, “our” and “us” are positively repeated in Chaplin’s motivational speech to express solidarity by considering the participants as one single group. In other words, Chaplin here uses “we” to reflect the unity and to convey a message indicating that there are no two conflicted groups, instead, there is only one group for all, i.e., all people live together in the same society although they are socially, religiously, racially different.
The pronoun “you” is used thirteen times in Chaplin’s speech. Chaplin uses the pronoun “you” only in the part in which he addresses the soldiers, because the army includes soldiers from all social classes, religions, races and affiliations. When Chaplin uses the pronoun “you“, he considers the soldiers as one group solidarizing with each other; otherwise, the army will be disintegrated and weakened, leading to the social collapse as long as the army is considered as a mini-society.
The pronoun “I” is only repeated four times at the beginning of Chaplin’s motivational speech. The pronoun “I“, according to Chaplin’s stance in the film ” The Great Dictator “, refers to the voice of humanity. When Chaplin was asked to talk to the people as the ruler, he addressed them indicating that he was sorry and he did not want to become a ruler who controlled
their destinies especially because they were free rather than slaves, but he believed that his duty was to help all people whether Jews, Christians, black or white. Therefore, the use of the pronoun “I” here functions positively to deliver two messages, the first manifests the characteristics of a true ruler, and the second motivates people to free themselves from the tyranny of unjust rulers.
3.3. Ideological Level Analysis
When analyzing a particular text from an ideological perspective, it is necessary to know the ideological tools that the speaker uses in his speech to send specific hidden messages to the audience. As far as the present study is concerned, there are two ideological tools used by Charlie Chaplin in his motivational speech (1940), which are emphasizing positives and de-emphasizing negatives to reflect the ideology of solidarity within this speech for the sake of motivating whoever listen to that speech especially during the early days of the WW2.
3.3.1 Emphasizing positives
Charlie Chaplin emphasizes positives in his speech to send a specific message to the audience during the early days of the 2nd World War. The targeted message depends on the positives that Chaplin emphasizes in his speech. Consider the following:
1. I should like to help everyone – if possible – Jew, Gentile – black men – white. We all want to help one another.
Chaplin here points out that religious or racial differences should not have an impact on the lives of people in societies, so that he believes in helping others, even if they belong to different religions, races or social classes. In other words, Chaplin reflects the ideology of solidarity via his belief in the idea that the right of getting and offering help is guaranteed to all, regardless of their religious, sectarian or ethnic affiliations.
2. In this world there is room for everyone.
Chaplin here refers to point that all the social members have the same chance to live together in the same place (society). In other words, he emphasizes equality; all are entitled to live decently.
3. More than machinery we need humanity.
Chaplin believes that machines are products of the science development and have provided many facilities for humans, but according to Chaplin’s perspective in this extract, humanity has disappeared among the members of the same society despite the development of the means of communication and travel. Therefore, Chaplin indicates that the role of humanity is more important than the scientific development accompanied by estrangement and the absence of humanity that unites the members of the same society regardless of their class and ethnic differences. In addition, machines created distances between people who should not allow this. Solidarity here is expressed through Chaplin’s call for humanity instead of machinery.
4. To those who can hear me, I say – do not despair.
Chaplin here delivers a motivational as well as solidary speech which reflects solidarity since Chaplin addresses all people and does not specify a particular social group, that is, he directs his words to the general public indicating that people should solidarize with each other since they are human beings. Also, Chaplin’s speech here is motivational, because he encourages and motivates the addressee and reinforces them to avoid despair, not to give up, and to attempt repeatedly until they succeed.
5. Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes – men who despise you – enslave you – who regiment your lives – tell you what to do – what to think and what to feel! who drill you – diet you – treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men – machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate – the unloved and the unnatural!
Chaplin addresses soldiers in this extract. Normally the army includes soldiers from all social groups and races similarly to the civil society in which people from different religions and sects live with each other reflecting the notion of solidarity. A motivational voice here is also noticed for the soldiers by empowering them against the brutes who exploit, enslave and treat them like cattle. Chaplin here attempts to convince the soldiers that they are neither cattle nor machines, but they are human beings who love humanity and do not know hatred because the natural man loves and does not hate anyone.
6. Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!
In this extract, Chaplin addresses the soldiers motivating them to fight for themselves, for their life rather than for the others’ benefits. That is, the ideology of solidarity from Chaplin’s viewpoint here is reflected by persuading them to unite their aim which is to fight for freedom instead of slavery in order to be free.
7. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then – in the name of democracy – let us use that power – let us all unite.
Chaplin believes that people themselves have the power to create happiness. Only people are the ones who have the power to create a happy life for all social members to live a beautiful and happy life peacefully solidarized with each other. Chaplin also believes that people should unite to live freely and make life a wonderful adventure. Chaplin encourages people in the name of democracy to unite and to use that power which will make their happiness and freedom. At the end of this extract, solidarity is expressed by Chaplin’s call addressing all people to unite and solidarize.
8. Soldiers! In the name of democracy, let us all unite!
Chaplin has repeated this extract for the second time in his speech. Surely, such repetition is not arbitrary in that Chaplin stresses the importance of societal unity in lights of democracy. The ideology of solidarity is expressed in this extract via Chaplin’s call for the soldiers to unite and solidarize.
3.3.2 De-emphasizing negatives
1. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone.
Chaplin here focuses on a negative point which is controlling others’ fate, indicating that he does not like to have such power that makes humans vulnerable slaves. In this extract, Chaplin denounces the power that unjust rulers have, through which they destroy the lives of others.
2. We don’t want to hate and despise one another.
Chaplin ,in this extract, abhors the hatred between people who live in one society. In addition, Chaplin here underestimates people’s contempt for each other, because such behavior weakens the social relations and leads to a disintegrated society devoid of respect.
3. Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.
Chaplin here refers to greed asserting that it has poisoned the souls of people who seek for money and power to practice their inhumane practices with others. Chaplin also indicates that such greed has led human beings to a miserable life full of bloodshed because that greed has dominated the world.
4. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical.
Normally, the machines made by humans provide abundant facilities in their lives, but Chaplin believes that these machines, which should be so, have left people in constant need. The knowledge by which human beings created machines made them pessimist. Therefore, in this extract, Chaplin criticizes the human abuse of these machines, which they made with their knowledge. Such an abuse has led to disintegrating the social life. For this reason, Chaplin invites people to solidarize through the correct use of machines.
5. We think too much and feel too little.
In this extract, Chaplin refers to the relationship between thinking and feeling. Chaplin believes that one of the negative points is overthinking with the absence of feeling towards others. According to Chaplin’s view, the ruler should take into consideration what the people feel and their needs should be met. But the problem that Chaplin has presented here is the overthinking beside the lack of feeling, which led to the miserable life that people live under the rule of dictators.
4. Conclusion
The findings identified previously lead to the following concluding remarks :
1. The ideology of solidarity is reflected through several strategies including both linguistic and non-linguistic. These strategies are used positively in order to be an attempt to make positive social changes. They are syntactic strategies (sentence types), rhetorical strategies (repetition) and ideological strategies ( emphasizing goods and de-emphasizing negatives ).
2. The discursive strategies mentioned in conclusion (1) are used frequently for a variety of specific positive functions. The function of :
A- declarative sentences is conveying particular messages through statements in order to change the others’ beliefs ( Persuasion ).
B- imperatives sentences is making positive orders to positively affect the audience.
C- repetition is persuasion through making things deeply-rooted in the minds of the addressees.
D- emphasizing goods is focusing on what contributes to achieve the social solidarity
E- de-emphasizing negatives is underestimating all what may abolish the social solidarity.
References
1. Macgilchrist, F. (2007). Positive Discourse Analysis: Contesting Dominant Discourses by Reframing the Issues. Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines 1 (1): 74-94
2. Martin, J.R.. (1999). Grace: the logogenesis of freedom. Discourse Studies, 1 (1), 51–52
3. —————-. (2004) Positive discourse analysis: power, solidarity and change. Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 49, 179–200.
4. Slutsky, J., & Aun, M. (1997). The Toastmasters International® guide to successful speaking: Overcoming your fears, winning over your audience, building your business & career. Chicago, IL: Dearborn Financial Publishing.
5. Stanistaw, A ; Ewa, C ; Damian, W. (2013). “Social Security in Poland – cultural, historical and economical issues“. Copernican Journal of Finance & Accounting. 2 (2): 11–26.
Web Sources
1. Barot, H. (2021). 10 Reasons Motivational Speech Is Important.
https://franticallyspeaking.com/10-reasons-motivational-speech-is-important/
2. Forgeard, V. 2022. What Is the Role of Solidarity in National and Global Community Development.
https://brilliantio.com/what-is-the-role-of-solidarity-in-national-and-global-community-development/
3. Indeed Editorial Team. 2020. How To Write a Motivational Speech (With Example).
https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-write-motivational-speech
4. Renate Douwes, Maria Stuttaford, and Leslie London. 2018. Social Solidarity, Human Rights, and Collective Action: Considerations in the Implementation of the National Health Insurance in South Africa.
Arabic 
English