Abstract

Financial discourse is generally considered to be objective, impartial, unambiguous and least ideology-ridden.
However, in recent years, this viewpoint has been challenged by people in the field of mass communication,
sociology and linguistics as well. Based on the theory of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and mainly adopting
Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework of CDA, this paper, focusing on the financial remarks of Ben S.
Bernanke who is said to be a careful, non-ideological person, intends to testify that although language of
financial remarks is always claimed to be neutral, credible and undistorting, it is nevertheless ideology-loaded.
With the linguistic instrument loaned from Halliday’s Functional Grammar, the analysis will be conducted step
by step from a description of the textual features of the speeches, to the interpretation and explanation of the
speeches from discoursal and social aspects to uncover the hidden ideological messages. It is hoped that this
study can provide some implications for pedagogical application and be helpful for those in the field of finance
who follow closely Bernanke’s or the present Chairman’s financial remarks.

 

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