Attitude Analysis of Michelle Obama’s Speech on the Opening Day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in 2016

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Introduction
Language can be used as a sophisticated technique to preserve respective ideologies in modern society.Language reveals many aspects of speakers' attitudes toward themselves and others (Meyrhoof, 2006).Therefore, one of the most exemplary communication skills is knowing how to elicit emotions from the audience.Indeed, language does not have power by itself but is used by influential speakers and politicians to inspire and influence audiences in terms of intended goals and meanings (Woods, 2014).Politicians use speeches to capture public attention and convey goals, visions, and missions during election campaigns.At the end of Barak Obama's presidency, Michelle Obama, as First Lady, gave her speech in Philadelphia to support Hillary Clinton and defeat the Democratic candidate's opponent.On the 25th of July 2016, at the Democratic National Convention, Michelle Obama's speech was thoughtful and practical.Michelle Obama has her own point of view on the two candidates who will be the 58th President of the United States.Thus, Michelle Obama's speech is worth analyzing as it is considered an epic due to its authenticity of giving a speech without text.This study is framed by Martin and White's (2005) appraisal theory to analyze the language used by Michelle Obama in her speech.The appraisal system consists of three subsystems: attitudes, graduation, and engagement, which include resources for expressing emotions, ethics, and esthetics (Hart, 2014).The appraisal framework has its roots in Systematic Functional Linguistics (SFL).Moreover, the appraisal is a way in which "speakers' choice of lexicogrammatical patterns influences the audience's personal response to the meanings in a text" (Butt et al., 2003, p. 120).
are intended to fulfill (Brown et al., 1983).Politicians typically have their speeches prepared by professional speechwriters.Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention was praised for its emotionality.The word emotional appears in about 500,000 links to publications about the speech (Gallo, 2016).Her speech was relatively short and ideal for conveying her emotions to the audience.Indeed, there are several methods for speakers to incorporate emotion into their speeches, and Michelle Obama used them all.This research will contribute to our knowledge of Martin and White's (2005) appraisal system and corpus of research on discourse analysis of political speeches.This research will allow us to gain a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of Michelle Obama's speech by illuminating how she used evaluative language devices to coordinate judgments and the extent to which this language successfully constructed a persuasive rhetorical stance.Specifically, this study focuses on how she used language to coordinate judgment.As a result of analyzing the speech, people gain information for better text perception, which helps to increase their knowledge of semantic discourse, especially the appraisal system.

Appraisal System
The appraisal system is an interpersonal discourse system.With this appraisal approach, Martin and White (2005) hope to move beyond traditional descriptions of speaker/writer evaluation, certainty, and commitment to consider how the textual voice interacts with the other voices and positions in the conversation.Evaluation plays a crucial role in interpreting people's attitudes.Thus, the evaluation system links linguistic choices to the ideological basis of a text/speech.The ability to choose an appropriate expression of the word and the other options (expression of words) allows the reader to predict the author's attitude toward the discussed topic.Appraisal resources are used to negotiate social relationships by telling listeners or readers how one thinks about things and people; in other words, what our attitude is.The appraisal system would help us categorize the opinions expressed in a text and determine whether they refer to things, feelings, or behaviors.Amplification and engagement can provide quantification of the author's commitment to the opinion and the focus of that opinion.Attitude, Engagement, and Graduation are the three main areas of the evaluation analysis framework.Attitude is about evaluating things, personalities, and feelings.Martin and White (2005) categorize attitude into three semantic units: Affect (emotions), Judgment (ethics), and Appreciation (esthetics).Emotions are the positive or negative feelings toward a thing, while Judgment deals with the attitude toward something.Appreciation allows speakers to evaluate objects, materials, semiotics, and processes esthetically.

Related Studies
Political discourse is multifunctional: it can be used for a range of speech acts, such as protest, legitimation, intimidation, and, of course, persuasion.Just as advertising discourse aims to persuade us to buy a product or service, the language used by politicians aims to persuade us to a particular view of political reality and to persuade us to behave in a way that is consistent with that view, for example, by voting for a particular party (Woods, 2014).Rohmawati (2016) analyzes Obama's attitudes toward his inaugural address.Data analysis shows that three types of attitudes were used in the speech: Affect, Judgment, and Appreciation.The speech was divided into several clauses; there were 323 clauses composed of 51 affects, 155 judgments, and 117 appreciations.However, the percentage of attitudes is dominated using judgments.Moreover, Obama uses more positive attitudes than negative attitudes in his speech.Obama's use of positive attitudes illustrates that he was optimistic that the obstacles in his country would be solved.Similarly, Sangka (2017) explains the evaluation tools in Michelle Obama's speech in New Hampshire in 2016.According to Sangka (2017), Michelle used the attitude system 97 times, including 11 positive affects, 13 negative affects, 41 positive judgments, 10 negative judgments, 15 appreciations, and 7 negative appreciations.Michelle prioritized the positive judgments in her speech because she believed that Hillary Clinton could become the President of the United States.Sangka's (2017) study claimed that Michelle was a good speaker with high public speaking skills.Furthermore, Alyfia et al. (2020) analyze the interpersonal meaning in Michelle Obama's speech at Elizabeth Garret Anderson School of Islington in 2011.The analysis of the interpersonal meaning in Michelle Obama's speech showed that in terms of speech functions, the statement function increased by 62 clauses, the question function increased by only one clause, the command function increased by eight clauses, and the offer function remained unchanged.This indicates that the word statement is used quite frequently in this discourse.The analysis results show that Michelle Obama collected 67 clauses in her speech that meet the requirements as declarations, three clauses that are imperatives, and only one clause that functions as interrogative.In terms of sentiment types, the results show that she collected 67 clauses that meet the requirements as declarative.It is clear that the declarative has become the form of expression that Michelle Obama uses most frequently.Based on the speech functions and mood types of results that contained only a question/interrogative clause, Michelle Obama seems to prefer to avoid developing interactions with her audience by asking them questions.
Michelle Obama is rated either low, medium, or high within the modality.According to the research results, Michelle Obama uses a high degree to a greater extent to support her audience and share her ideas with them.She uses four modal verbs with low degrees, three modal verbs with medium degrees, and six modal verbs with high degrees.In addition, she uses an energetic tone in her public speeches and in her efforts to motivate others (Alyfia et al., 2020).

Data
This study uses both a qualitative and descriptive method.The qualitative approach is used to understand Michelle Obama's attitudes as expressed in her speech at the Democratic National Convention.Considering that the speech is of a famous figure, the data type is a speech document.Data from the internet were obtained (i.e., the speech transcript was obtained from the Politics website).The Systemic Functional Language Framework method is utilized in this study, specifying the interpersonal meaning, especially the evaluative analysis, using a set of evaluative items from the speech as data sources.In addition, the researcher was tasked with planning, collecting, reporting, and analyzing the research findings.

Materials
This study aims to describe how the appraisal system expresses Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention (2016).Therefore, the data were collected via the following steps:

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Identifying the video of Michelle Obama's speech which is assumed to contain appraisal theory

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Segmenting the data into clauses • Tabulating the data and numbering the clauses

Procedures
This study uses qualitative and descriptive methods.Based on Martin and White's (2005) evaluation theory, Obama's attitudes expressed in her speech were unfolded using a qualitative approach.Moreover, the descriptive method in this study describes the implementation of interpersonal meaning in her speech.However, due to time constraints, the analysis will focus on attitude theory, especially judgment.Indeed, the sample was sufficient for the aim of this study.
The following steps will be followed to analyze the data: • detecting the transcript by determining and picking its types existing in the specified sentences • analyzing the data by explaining the findings and discovering more about the appraisal theory by Martin and White (2005) • concluding the results by mentioning how the appraisal system occurs in the speech and what types of judgments tools appear in it

Data Analysis
Judgment is the type of evaluation in which a speaker or writer expresses his/her attitude or behavior toward others; it can be positive or negative (Oteíza, 2017).Judgments are divided into two groups: social appreciation and social sanction.Social esteem includes the judgment of normality, capacity, and tenacity to show admiration or criticism.In comparison, social sanction includes the value of veracity and propriety to condemn or praise.Table 1 presents the frequency of the different aspects of judging Michelle Obama's speech.Analysis shows that Michelle Obama's speech praises someone who is her friend and next presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton.Michelle Obama's speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention shows a high level of positive judgment.She highlights the positive aspects of Hillary Clinton's character and praises her for being America's next president.In addition, the analysis shows 66 positive judgments made by Michelle Obama for her daughters, the people of her nation, and the candidate for the next presidential election, Hillary Clinton.

Positive Judgment
1) Remember how I told you about his character and convictions, his decency and his grace, the traits that we've seen every day that he's served our country in the White House?
3) And during our time in the White House, we've had the joy of watching them grow from bubbly little girls into poised young women, a journey that started soon after we arrived in Washington.
In excerpt (1), Michelle Obama uses decency, grace, and served to refer to the character and qualities of her husband, Barak Obama.She used these words to explicitly express a positive judgment of Barak, who served the country with heart and soul during his presidency.In excerpt (3), Michelle addressed her daughters in her speech, characterizing them admiringly with words such as bubbly and poised.Michelle's description implies that her daughters have enjoyed a balanced upbringing; they have not been affected by their White House education.
In excerpt (3), Michelle uses metaphors to assess her daughters, whom she describes as "the center of our world" and "the heart of our heart."She describes how much her daughters mean to her and her husband and that they are apprehensive about how their father, Barak Obama, would raise them now that he is in his new position as president.
4) See, because, at that moment, I realized that our time in the White House would form the foundation for whom they would become, and how well we managed this experience could truly make or break them.

5)
That is what Barack and I think about every day as we try to guide and protect our girls through the challenges of this unusual life in the spotlight, how we urge them to ignore those who question their father's citizenship or faith.
In excerpt (4), Michelle refers to their experience raising their daughters and how they positively managed to bring them up without spoiling or harming them.
In excerpt ( 5), Michelle uses a positive judgment by using the word unusual to indicate that this life of fame could be a new experience for their daughters that they need to shield and prepare them.At the end of this extract, Michelle mentions that her husband's faith is unquestionable, and no one can argue with that.Therefore, by using the word faith, she praises him with a positive moral judgment.
6) How we insist that the hateful language they hear from public figures on TV does not represent the true spirit of this country.
In excerpt (6), Michelle implicitly praises the people, or the citizens, in the United States.She emphasizes that public figures who criticize Barak Obama do not represent the American people.
8) With every word we utter, with every action we take, we know our kids are watching us.We, as parents, are their most important role models.9) And let me tell you, Barack and I take that same approach to our jobs as president and first lady because we know that our words and actions matter, not just to our girls but the children across this country, kids who tell us I saw you on TV, I wrote a report on you for school.
In excerpts (8 & 9), Michelle uses positive judgments.The first one in excerpt (8), when she uses the word know to refer to their awareness and the knowledge as parents that their kids will be watching them all the time as they will listen and hear their speeches because their parents are their important role models.Moreover, in excerpt ( 9), Michelle clarifies that their words and actions matter as a president and first lady of the United States.She uses positive judgment to refer to the importance of their positions in the country.
10) Kids like the little black boy who looked up at my husband, his eyes wide with hope, and he wondered, is my hair like yours?
12) No, in this election, and every election, is about who will have the power to shape our children for the next four or eight years of their lives.
13) And I am here tonight because, in this election, there is only one person whom I trust with that responsibility, only one person whom I believe is truly qualified to be president of the United States, and that is our friend Hillary Clinton.
In excerpt (10), Michelle uses a positive judgment when she uses the word wondered.She implies that the children admire her husband, Barack Obama, so much that they wish their hair looked like his.She is referring to her husband, implicitly making a positive judgment that children do not discriminate between white or black as long as the person is likable and does what is best for them.In excerpt ( 12), Michelle uses a positive and direct judgment to refer to the future president of the United States, who has to have the power to lead this country and pave the road for the children in the coming four or eight years.The word power in her speech does not mean being physically tough or having authority; thus, it means the capacity of that person to lead the country wisely.
In excerpt (13), Michelle shows the judgment of praise as she turns her favor on Hillary as the next president of the United States.She praises Hillary step by step and then declares her support for her election.From this point of view, this is a positive judgment.She uses words like responsibilities and qualified to refer to Hillary Clinton and points out that Hillary is a capable and reliable person.In excerpts (14−19), Michelle states the reasons to support Hillary: "I trust Hillary to lead this country because I've seen her lifelong devotion to our nation's children, not just her own daughter, who she has raised to perfection."In this way, the speaker uses the judgment of praise to support her candidate through a face-saving act, saying she raised her own child to perfection.This is the best example of a positive attitude.Furthermore, Michelle emphasizes that Hillary Clinton is the "right person" to be president by highlighting her qualities and abilities as a mother and national leader in all walks of life.Furthermore, Michelle uses words like relentless, thankless, advocating, fighting, did not get angry or disillusioned, true, and proudly to praise Hillary Clinton.
As she exclaims in excerpt (15), "kids who wonder how they'll ever afford college, kids whose parents don't speak a word of English."This is a judgment of condemnation to show that this country still needs progress in many fields to bring people out of the worst conditions, especially the children in utmost need.
21) But here's the thing.What I admire most about Hillary is that she never buckles under pressure.
22) She never takes the easy way out.And Hillary Clinton has never quit on anything in her life.
23) I want someone with the proven strength to persevere, someone who knows this job and takes it seriously, someone who understands that the issues a president faces are not black and white and cannot be boiled down to 140 characters.

24) Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military in your command, you can't make snap decisions.
25) You can't have a thin skin or a tendency to lash out.You need to be steady and measured, and well-informed.
26) I want a president with a record of public service, someone whose life's work shows our children that we don't chase form and fortune for ourselves; we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed.

27)
And we give back even when we're struggling ourselves because we know that there is always someone worse off.
28) I want a president who will teach our children that everyone in this country matters, a president who truly believes in the vision that our Founders put forth all those years ago that we are all created equal, each a beloved part of the great American story.

29)
And when crisis hits, we don't turn against each other.No, we listen to each other; we lean on each other because we are always stronger together.
In excerpts (21−29), Michelle uses the words such as "strength, know, understand" to show favorable judgment about presidential qualities.In excerpt ( 23), Know means they have the information or the knowledge concerning everything as a candidate.Then, she praises Hillary implicitly step by step until declaring her support.
In excerpt ( 29), this expression is the judgment of praise as she praises her countrymen for staying peaceful during the conflict.This reveals a positive attitude to appreciate the masses of the country.30) You see, Hillary understands that the president is about one thing and one thing only; it's about leaving something better for our kids.That's how we've always moved this country forward, by all of us coming together on behalf of our children, folks who volunteer to coach that team, to teach that Sunday school class, because they know it takes a village.

33)
Leaders like Hillary Clinton who has the guts and the grace to keep coming back and putting those cracks in that highest and hardest glass ceiling until she finally breaks through, lifting all of us along with her.
39) So, in this election, we cannot sit back and hope that everything works out for the best.We cannot afford to be tired or frustrated, or cynical.No, hear me.Between now and November, we need to do what we did eight years ago and four years ago.
In excerpt ( 30), this expression is the judgment of praise to show that all the people forget their differences, ignore their wars, and become one body when the need comes for their own country.
In excerpt (33), the speaker, once again, favors and praises her candidate for the presidency by discussing the candidate's positive traits.This is the judgment of praise and a positive attitude.
In excerpt (39), in these concluding lines, Michelle is also putting the judgment of praise in use to show a positive attitude toward her presidential candidate.She used words like tired, frustrated, and cynical to express the positive capacity of the nation to select the candidate wisely.

Negative Judgment
7) How we explain that when someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don't stoop to their level.No, our motto is, when they go low, we go high.

11)
We're deciding, not Democrat or Republican, not left or right.

20)
And look, there were plenty of moments when Hillary could have decided that this work was too hard, that the price of public service was too high, that she was tired of being picked apart for how she looks or how she talks or even how she laughs.

36)
And because of Hillary Clinton, my daughters and all our sons and daughters now take for granted that a woman can be president of the United States.
Negative judgments are not against Clinton but, in general, against how people use hateful language toward others.For instance, in excerpt (7), the word "bully and cruel" used by Michele shows her negative judgment when she mentions the words like "you don't stoop to their level" to show the judgment of condemnation against Donald Trump.This is a negative attitude because the face-threatening act is used to preach the point.Furthermore, Michelle uses a metaphor, which becomes a famous phrase, "when they go low, we go high."In her speech, they refer to the Republicans; Michelle uses a judgment of condemnation against the Republicans by saying, "they go low," indicating their immorality, while she uses, we to refer to the Democrats.Here, she uses a judgment of condemnation by using the word high, indicating the moral actions and the integrity of the Democrats.Her intention here was someone will always have an issue with you, no matter how good of a person you are or how persistently you dedicate yourself to accomplishing good deeds in the lives of others: this is simply the nature of the human condition.When something like this occurs, and your enemies want to entice you with a low road, you choose the road of morality, the high road.
In excerpt (11), the speaker wants to show another condemnation by saying, "we're deciding, not Democrat or Republican, not left or right," to show that we are not concerned with the parties and elections but with a just country of our own.This is also a negative attitude and evaluation toward the masses, avoiding mixing the country with politics.In excerpt (20), Michelle uses the judgment of conviction "that she was tired of being picked apart for" to show that Hillary has had her hard times as she works under pressure as a politician.In short, it is quite clear that Michelle, as the speaker, has used more laudatory judgments instead of condemnatory judgments.To some extent, the speaker has shown judgment of condemnation but shows more attraction to her candidate, not to show her negative attitude, but a negative attitude.Rather, a positive attitude is used because positive evaluations are necessary for this situation as the speaker wants to support her favorite candidate for the presidency of the United States.The use of positive and negative attitudes by Michelle Obama shows that she is an excellent speaker who can convey her opinion effectively.
Her words show her feelings and thoughts about the future of her country and the next president.Michelle Obama made a positive judgment about Hillary as the next president of the US.

Discussion
Most discourse analysis studies focus on the relationships between language and power in a social context.Thus, people with more power have more access to important resources; in contrast, people with less power have limited access to important resources.Thus, a significant area of SFL research is enabling access to these discourses through literacy pedagogy based on discourse analysis.Another focus of SFL research is on the principles underlying unequal access to meaning and generation, gender, class, infirmity, and ethnicity (Martin & Rose, 2007).Appraisal plays a key role in interpreting people's attitudes.It refers to the power of a text and makes the text meaningful.Interpersonal refers to the way one person interacts with another through the medium of language and the way one expresses one's evaluations and opinions on matters that involve the existence of a need.The political context in which Michelle Obama's speech is delivered shows that the United States admires Obama for her profundity in public discourse.However, citizens' reactions vary greatly depending on how they feel about the speaker (i.e., Republican or Democrat).Wodak (1989) argues that "Intelligibility is a prerequisite of persuasion" (p.97).Michelle embodies various responses of Americans to intense partisanship in contemporary politics.Brown (2019) points out that "As the first black first lady, Michelle Obama's race/gender identity-among other politically salient identities-has influenced every aspect of the traditional measures of how scholars assess the first lady's influence and power" (pp.361−362).Like her husband, Barack Obama, in 2004, Michelle Obama gave an impressive speech on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Philadelphia.There was much praise for Michelle Obama's powerful speech at the Democratic National Convention.It sparked speculation among Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton supporters that she might run for president in the future.Wodak (1989) points out that "there is no such thing as a "pure," unbiased statement.The process of verbalizing thoughts and conveying ideas involves the simultaneous signaling of purposes, goals, and desires along with the message itself" (p.96).A competent public speaker uses both positive and negative attitudes to convey their thoughts and feelings without using text.Over time, Obama became more comfortable in her role as a Democratic Party spokesperson.
Every word Michelle said resulted directly from her fears and anxieties about the relationship with the United States in the future.From her own experience, she conveyed her views on how a country should be run and how candidates should be viewed.Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has tended to focus on semiosis in the service of power, even defining its interest in language and ideology.
SFL, on the other hand, tends to take a broader view in which ideology permeates linguistic and other semiotic systems (Martin & Rose, 2007).This suggests that "every choice for meaning is ideologically motivated; on the other, it focuses attention on the distribution of meaning in a culture" (Martin& Rose, 2007, p. 314).Furthermore, CDA "has tended to concentrate on the analysis of discourse which sustains inequalities" while "SFL is equally concerned with redressing inequality" (Martin & Rose, 2007, p. 315).The main focus of CDA work was on hegemony, exposing the power naturalized in discourse and feeling part of the struggle against it.For example, Michelle Obama used positive judgment to express her support for Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States.On the other hand, the speech showed her strong feelings toward Donald Trump, whom she did not address by name.
Michelle Obama connected how people should treat others and the relationship between a mother and her child.She said Hillary would be an excellent presidential candidate, not only because she raised her own daughter perfectly but also because she dedicated her life to our nation's children.Obama portrayed Hillary Clinton as the embodiment of moral vision, stating that she fought "relentlessly, thanklessly, advocating, and fighting" for particular policy issues.Obama claimed that Clinton's tireless work was not motivated by a desire for personal or family advancement.Instead, she devoted her time and energy to the success of others.Moreover, Obama provided a more precise definition of what it meant to work for the interests of others.For her, it meant ensuring that every single child in the United States was afforded certain rights and saying, "when the crisis hits, we lean on each other."

Conclusion
This study analyzes Michelle Obama's speech on the Opening Day of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in 2016.In her attempt to convince the audience that Hillary Clinton is the appropriate candidate, Michelle Obama used a number of lexical devices to show her support for Hillary.Qualitative and descriptive methods have been utilized to achieve this goal.In addition, the appraisal system tools analyzed Michelle's speech and answered two research questions: 1) How are judgment devices employed in Michelle Obama's speech?2) What evaluative strategies did Michelle Obama use when she presented herself?Michelle explicitly applied positive judgment to praise Hillary; on the other hand, she implicitly showed her negative judgment about the other candidate.According to Butt et al. (2003), social appreciation consists of admiration (positive) and criticism (negative), and social sanction consists of praise (positive) and condemnation (negative).Michelle used all positive tools in her speech to show her positive attitude toward Hillary (i.e., 22% normality, 50% capacity, 9% tenacity, 7% veracity, and 10% propriety).In contrast, Michelle applied negative judgments in her speech (i.e., 12% normality, 12% capacity, and 75% propriety).Thus, while implicitly referring to Trump, Michelle did not apply tenacity (how reliable someone is) and veracity (how honest someone is).Indeed, Halliday (1994) argues that the goal of systematic analysis is challenging because it requires interpretation of the text, its context (context of situation and context of culture), and the systematic relationship between context and text.Thus, speakers use the resources provided by linguistics to influence and persuade their audience.This is because the analysis of the text is not an interpretative exercise but an activity aimed at explaining things with a methodological approach.The close connection between evaluative (emotional, affective, or rhetorical) language and language used to persuade has been observed by speakers.Michelle Obama's use of positive and negative attitudes shows that she is an excellent public speaker who can effectively present her opinions.Her words show her feelings and thoughts about the nation's future and the next president.Michelle Obama has made a positive judgment about Hillary as the next President of the United States.

Table 1 .
The frequency of different aspects of judgment of Michelle Obama's speech