Ideological Positioning in Presidential Inaugural Addresses: A Comparative Critical Discourse Analysis of President Agyekum Kufour and President John Evans Ata Mills

Abstract

Scholars have become interested in analysing the language used in the inaugural speeches of African presidents, likely because of the rise of multi-party democracy in a number of African countries. But there have not been many studies done on the ideological analysis of Presidential Inaugural Addresses (PIA), especially for African heads of state. Studies that have already been conducted did not focus on minor indications of ideological orientations and stances presented by these political figures in their political speeches. In this paper, we examined two Presidential Inaugural Addresses (PIAs) delivered by John Agyekum Kufuor and John Evans Atta Mills who were Presidents of the Republic of Ghana. The objective is to outline the covertly expressed ideological positions used in the selected PIAs and to ascertain possible areas of ideological divergence and convergence between the two opposing political leaders. We used a CDA approach to discourse analysis, which is predicated on Fairclough's assumption that discourse analysis aims to investigate the causal relationships between discursive practices and broader social and cultural structures, relations, and processes. More precisely, this study sought to uncover covert ideology that is 'hidden' inside the texts. The study discovered that Kufuor was more direct in his language, promoting his capitalist ideology, criticizing the previous administration, and also having the least self-criticism, whereas Mills was less direct, espoused an ideology of socialism, was less critical of others, and sounded more conciliatory.