Constructing Female Sovereignty

The Tilbury Speech of Queen Elizabeth I provides a useful case for examining how language constructs political power and negotiates gendered identities in public discourse. Rather than treating the speech primarily as a historical or rhetorical artifact, this study examines the linguistic strategies through which Elizabeth discursively presents herself as a legitimate and authoritative ruler within prevailing gender ideologies. Drawing on Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), the study examines lexical selection, transitivity patterns, modality, personal pronouns, evaluative language, and metaphor to determine how authority, solidarity, and legitimacy are linguistically realized. The analysis shows how Elizabeth uses language consistently to reconcile the seemingly contradictory qualities of femininity and political leadership, creating an image that is at once humble, authoritative, and assertive. There is a special focus on the interplay of interpersonal and experiential meanings, which serve to locate the speaker, orient the audience, and validate political action in discourse. The results indicate that the speech is a good illustration of how language can be used to redefine social identities through discursive processes, transforming the perception of gender from a constraint into a discursive resource for leadership. This study on CDA and SFL adds to the research on political discourse, language and gender, and identity construction, showing how linguistic resources are mobilized to create authority, negotiate ideology, and create collective alignment in a single persuasive text.