A critical discourse study on Meghan and Harry’s CBS primetime interview
This study focuses on Meghan and Harry’s narratives in the CBS Primetime interview with Oprah Winfrey where they highlighted the issues they faced before moving to America. During the interview, the couple raised several bombshells ranging from the lack of freedom, to Archie’s royal title and sec...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
2022
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/19929/1/50965-184483-1-PB.pdf http://journalarticle.ukm.my/19929/ https://ejournal.ukm.my/gema/issue/view/1518 |
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| Summary: | This study focuses on Meghan and Harry’s narratives in the CBS Primetime interview with Oprah
Winfrey where they highlighted the issues they faced before moving to America. During the
interview, the couple raised several bombshells ranging from the lack of freedom, to Archie’s royal
title and security, racism, and the lack of support and guidance from the Royal Family, which
negatively portrayed the Royal Family and British tabloids. Using van Dijk’s ideological square
model and its discursive strategies as a framework, this study examines how the Duke and Duchess
of Sussex linguistically construct the self-other representations that are evident in their interview
via critical discourse analysis and narrative inquiry approach. Findings show that the couple most
commonly employed discursive strategies such as victimisation, vagueness, disclaimers,
comparisons, evidentiality, hyperbole, history as a lesson, generalisation, pseudo-ignorance,
implications, distancing, openness, and polarisation of us versus them. In doing so, they
represented themselves as positive, while portraying the British tabloids and the Royal Family as
the negative-other. Consequently, the use of language in this interview narrative may legitimise
the Duke and Duchess of Sussex while suppress the Royal family and British tabloids. This paper
is timely as it is only through in-depth analysis of the linguistic features that we are able to unveil
ideological presupposition and biases underlying the interview. It also serves to educate the public
that there is always more than one side to a story. Therefore, we should avoid having any biases
or ideological presupposition towards anyone in any event before the truth is revealed from both
sides. |
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