A Discourse Study of the Speech “It Can Be Otherwise” by Harvard Professor and President Drew Faust

Abstract

This paper is a qualitative discourse study of the speech “It Can Be Otherwise” by Harvard Professor and President Drew Faust. The speech was delivered on May 30, 2014 at Cambridge, Massachusetts. The language and content of the speech are analyzed as a genre including macro and micro level units such as moves, communicative functions and notions. The linguistic lexical and syntactic realizations are also considered. The findings revealed that a number of features characterized this speech. These include the use of narrative style under the effect of the specialty of the author, i.e. history. The themes of women’s empowerment, injustice, and education are well served in the speech revealing the philosophical stance of the speaker.