Beyond the Lines of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’: A Positive Discourse Analysis of the Selected Speeches of Nelson Mandela
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The current study identifies a language as a source of social practice which is capable of bringing socio-political changes in a country. The present study is an endeavor to conduct Positive Discourse Analysis on Nelson Mandela’ Speeches, who was an anti-apartheid Leader of South Africa. The researchers have illustrated by taking guidelines from Van Dijk’s Ideological Squarethat how recent strategies are contrary to the conventional strategies. These unconventional strategies have been employed in speech by the orator to break the boundaries between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ based on racial discrimination. It is also found that Mandela used the ‘merger of dichotomies’ in terms of pronouns, positive other’s representation, mitigation through passivization, and replacement of positive words with the words having negative connotations.The purpose of his positive speech was to describe the out-group and the malicious state of affairs to promote inter-racial tolerance and solidarity among the divided groups of his country to attain the goal of an inclusive nationhood. The current study concludes that Mandela’s strategic and unconventional use of discourse enabled him to play a major role in creating peaceful democratization of South Africa and to become a global icon of peace and humanity.
Keywords: apartheid, ideological square, positive discourse analysis, us-them dichotomy
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