In-Group and Out-Group Pronouns in Jacinda Ardern's Christchurch Memorial Speech

This paper studies the strategic use of in-group and out-group pronouns in the speech of former Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern following the 2019 Christchurch Mosque attacks. Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach to Critical Discourse Analysis particularly the Ideological Square was employed to examine how pronouns contribute to the representation of social groups in the speech. The analysis focuses on the first-person plural pronouns which are we, our, and us as the in-group markers and the third-person pronoun they is considered as context-dependent because it represents both in-group and out-group referents. Antconc was utilized as a corpus-assisted tool to identify relevant pronoun occurrences and concordance lines. The data were analysed qualitatively to determine how the pronouns represent in-group and out-group identities. The findings show that in-group pronouns are used to shape a collective national identity which represents unity, solidarity and collective responsibility. In contrast, the out-group use of they positions the extremist ideology outside the collective national identity. The findings highlight that pronouns are used beyond their grammatical reference and hold a significant role in the construction of social identities and ideological representation. The study demonstrates how pronoun use shapes the positive representations of in-group and negative representations of the out-group following a traumatic national event.

Pronoun, Ideological Square, Speech

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