THE CRITICAL SPEECHES OF PANDIT JAWAHARLAL NEHRU : A DISCOURSE -- ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the discourse of Jawaharlal Nehru's speeches. As linguistic forms and linguistic processes carry specific meanings, a coherent discourse must reveal interactions which carry meaning over and above isolated items and processes. Language structure and language use cannot be disassociated. They are a manifestation of roles, status and position in a class system. So total language ability is a product of social structure (Fowler and Kress, 1979). Linguistic form can be a realization of social meaning but much of the social meaning is implicit. It is not explicitly expressed in statements. Control can be achieved not by regulating specific actions, but by enforcing a set of attitudes. The attitudes that Nehru wanted to enforce formed his ideology, which he imposed through a subtle control of linguistic forms. To command loyalty and obedience and motivate a willingness to conform to his prescribed methods of behaviour, Nehru sought to claim common ground with his audience. Establishing solidarity with his audience was not too easy a task. The speaker came from a vastly different background. In order to lead the people and bring the country into the modern era, he had to identify with the people and allow them to be identified with him. Towards this end, Nehru uses first person plural pronominals and second person pronominals. The use of we, us and our embraces the hearers and breaks down all barriers. The first person singular pronominal, rather than distancing the audience, claims common ground with them through the use of negatives. The proximity of the negatives to this pronominal ensures that no misunderstanding can take place. Power is exercised through the use of modal auxiliaries. The frequency of the modal auxiliaries shall/should and will/would indicating intention, obligation, logical necessity and prediction reveal a subtle form of control. These together with the modal auxiliary must, which creates an obligation or a logical necessity weigh heavily against the modal can which signifies ability and theoretical possibility. Power is being exercised here. This is reinforced by the modal auxiliary may, signalling permission and factual possibility. Only a person with power can give permission and be confident enough to allow for eventual possibilities. Nehru's ideology can be extracted by analyzing repeated items. These items are then combined in lexical sets and used synonymously to impart the system of beliefs. The approach used in the analysis of the corpus takes the discourse-as-process view. This allows social meaning to be fixed onto linguistic expressions and forms. Kress and Hodge (1979), Jacobs (1986), Hodge and Kress (1988), Fairclough (1989) and Wodak (1989) provide the context for the investigation of the texts using elements from Halliday and Hasan (1976), Halliday (1985) and Martin ( 1992).