Luận văn verbal process and its realization in the u s president barrack obama's victory speeches

What I would like to do is to limit myself to a sub-area of functional grammar, the transitivity system, of which the study focuses on one of the in ths lransilivity system of English ve

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

POST — GRADUATE DEPARTMENT

—-—- + OF

NGUYEN NGOC QUYEN

VERBAL PROCESS AND ITS REALIZATION IN THE U.S PRESIDENT BARRACK OBAMA’S

VICTORY SPEECHES

(QUÁ TRÌNH PHÁT NGÔN VẢ SỰ THẺ HIỆN CUA NO TRONG CÁC BAI DIEN VAN CUA TONG THONG M¥ BARRACK OBAMA)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

Hanoi, July, 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

POST GRADUATE DEPARTMENT

(QUÁ TRÌNH PHÁT NGÔN VA SU THE TIEN CUA NGO

TRONG CAC BAI DIEN VAN CUA TONG THONG M¥ BARRACK OBAMA)

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

Supervisor : Dr 1a Cam Tam

Hanoi, July, 2010

Aims of the study

Scopes of the study Method of study Data collection

41 Structure of a Verbal process

42 Componems of the Verbal process

421 The Process

422 The Sayer

423 The Receiver

424, The Verbiage CHAPTER UL THE STUDY

41 The verb “Say”

42 The verb “Tell”

43 The verb “Ask”

44 The verb “Promise”

45, The verb “Speak”

46 ‘The verb “Call”

47 The verb “Respond”

48 The verb “Question”

49 The verb “Wonder”

410 The verb “Agree, Disagree"

411 The verb “Offer”

412 The verb “Answer”

413 The verb “Declare”

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CIIAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ale of the study

Human’s language has developed through thousands of years, From the very first

1 Ratii

time, although in very difficult living conditions, man tried to “invent” his own language to communicats, lo tive and survive Besides, mm has whvays wanted to understand more about the nature of language

In their book, ‘Thomas Bloor and Meriel Bloor (1995) once mentioned that linguists and gramumarians “have struggiod to understind more aboul how human language is structured and how communication takes place” Grammar, among other branches of linguistics, therefore, can be seen.as the most beautiful tool to satisfy this desire

With the oller Hước giammmalieal = paradigm such 4s traditional grammar, structural grammar, and transformational gencrative grammer, functional grammar has had a significant impact on language teaching over the years, Systemic functional grammar (SFG) or systemic functional linguistics (SFIL) is a modal of grammar that was developed by Michael Halliday in the 1960s, It is part of'a broad social semiotic approach to language called systemic linguistics, ‘I'he term "systemic" refers to the view of language as "a network of systams, or interrelated sels of options for making

meaning”; The texm “fwictional” indicates that the approach is concerned with meaning, as opposed to formal grammar, which focuses on word classes such as nouns and verbs, typically without reference beyond the individual clause

Syslomic finctional grammar is concemed primarily with the choices that the grammar makes available to speakers and wniters These choices relate speakers’ and writers' intentions to the concrete forms of a language Traditionally the "choices" are viewed in terms of cither the content or the structure of the language uscd In SFG, language is analyzed in three different ways, or strata: phonology, lexico grammar and sermmlics, SFC presenls a view of language in terms of holh structure (grammar) and words (lexis), The faim “lexico grammar" describes this combined approach

‘Trying to incorporate meaning, fimction, context and grammatical categories, functional grammar has provided the learners of language with an analytic tool of looking

at the whole texl and Ihe grammatical features which are chayaetoristios of that kind of text Functional grammar has been studied by many fictional grammatians like Halliday

1

(1985, 1994), Bloor (1994), Eggins (1994), Thompson (1996), Morley (1985), ete In

das Cao XuOn

However, because of the lirnifation of time and resourecs, T aru nat able Lo cover all aspects of fimctional grammar What I would like to do is to limit myself to a sub-area of functional grammar, the transitivity system, of which the study focuses on one of the

in ths lransilivity system of English verbat process My thosis would like to

pro

touch upon how verbal process operates and the its applications in spoken text speeches and how it helps speakers persuade the listeners ‘The study will use Llalliday’s fimetional grammar as the theoretical framework

2, Aims of the Study

Within the framework of an M.A thesis, the study is aimed at:

© examining some of the most important issues related to verbal process

* analyzing the use of verbal process in some victory speeches of the U.S President

offering some suggestions for leaning and teaching

3 ‘Scopes of the Study

As slated in 2., the stndy docs nol cover all aspects of fanctional grammar but limits itself to a sub-area of fictional grammar, Ín particular, the study focuses on examinang verbal process in two victory speeches delivered by U.S President Barrack Obama

To narrow the topic down to these two focuses, it is firstly essential to identity the linguistic space in which verbal process in located, In this belief, the study examines in depth the fictional systernic theory and the primary concepts of systemic theory, such as

context, metafunctions, the grammar of experience and its representations in the

transitivity system ‘The transitivity system consists of six processes, one of which is, according to fimetional linguists, verbal process This is tha frst focus of the study,

12

‘The second focus of the study is to take a desp look on verbal process in English and explore ils nsage and officisuey in persuading listeners

4 Method of the Study

This study is primarily concerned with analyzing verbal processes in a particular text Tn order to falfifl this aimu, it uses two main methods: @) the qualitative, which is concemed with the description of verbal process in English, and (ii) the qualitative, which

is eoncemed with the realization of the process in victory speeches Special attention will also be paid to those which arc not only formally but also sommanticalty similar Through the analysis, the writer hopes to find anything, different in the way the U.S President made speeches and how he could win the election to became the very first colored man to hold the power

seem not to be necessary

6 Design of the Study

This study is organived aromul four chaplers

The first chapter The Introduction presents the rationale of the study, the aims

of the study, scopes of the study, methods of the study, data collection and the research design

Chapter (wo — Theoreti

I Buckground- is concerned with the thoorctical orientations of the study, systemic-flinctional theory, the notions of language and context, the metafimetions of the language, the grammar of experience: wansitivity, and the different process types in the transitivity system

Chapter three — The Study — focuses on the application of this process in a real life

text

Chapter four — The Conclusion — provides the major findings of the thesis and offers some implications of the study and some suggestions for further study

14

CIIAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDS This chapter will provide theorctical oricntations for the study It attempts to explore the notions of the language and context, the functions of language, the different types of the process, and the different types of carcumstances available in a language which are

Talliday devstoped a theory of the fimdarnental functions of language, m which he analyzed lexicogrammar into three broad metafunctions; ideational, interpersonal and textual Each of the three metafumetions is about a different aspect of the world, and is concerned with a different mode of meaning af clausos The ideational motafunction is about the natural world in the broadest sense, including our own consciousness, and is concemed with clauses a3 represeniations ‘The interpersonal metafunction is about the social world, especially the relationship between speaker and hearer, and is concerned with clauses as exchanges The lextual inctafunction is aboul the verbal world, especially the Hlow of information ina text, and is concerned with clauses as messages

In each metafimction an analysis of a clause gives a different kind of structure composed fiom a different set of clements In the idcational imetaflunction, a clause is analyzed into Process, Participants and Circumstances, with different participant types for different process lypes (as int Case Grammar), In the interpersonal metafunction, a clause is analyzed into Mead and Residue, with the mood clement fiuther analyzed into Subject and Finite, In the textual metafonction, a clause is analyzed into Theme and Rheme

Systemic functional linguistics is ons of several fimetional theories in the current

los Which conecives of texl as social interaction IL is thus suiled not

only for increasing the interpreter’s understanding of the language of texts to be

Tn addition to context of culture (the goweral context that gives moming to culturally recognized activities), a taxt is produced in the specific context of situation (the instantial situation) Choices made on the level of genre are realized by the configurations

of context-of-situation variables in systemic theory, thase variables arc used to talk about the aspects of the immediate context that are embedded in a text These variables, ot aspects of the context of sitnation embedded in a text, are referred to in systemic functional linguistics as the register plane According to Talliday (1978), a register is a fimctional varicty of language It is characterized by thrcc functional variables ficld, tenor, and mode, each of which can be specialized as follows:

| Field of discourse: what is going on in the context, or the kind of aclivily (as recognived

by the culture) in which language is playing in some puts, Eggins (1994: 52) defines field

of disconuse as “what the language is being used to talk about” This variable includes not only the specific topic of discourse, bul also the degree al technicality or speciality em the one hand and everyday quality on the other

+ Tenor of discourse: negotiation of social relationships among participants in social action, or who is taking part in the exchange, and the interacting roles of those involved in the exclange of which the text is part

+ Mode of discourse: the role played by language in realizing social action, including the channel (written spoken, writtsn to be read aloud, etc.) and the deprss to which language constructs what is going on in the context or merely accompanies it

In systemic fimction linguistics, these three variables are deemed to be the only aspects of the context of situation of a Lext that are linguislically relevant This clear Thai they are relevant to the cultural context and therefore to the question of ganro, insofar as a genre might be describe in part as the limits a culture places on the field, enor and mode of

a text that is used to accomplish a particular social goal Systemic theory predicts that these

According to [alliday, the three metafunctions are ideational, sometimes, treated

as separale experiential and logical components, interpersonal, and textual These

metafunctions illustrate the polysystemic nature of language; each metafunction can be

described independently of the others asa system of choices that relate to certain aspect of

conlexl and are realized by corlain strupinras, Halliday (1994) scis the following

correspondences as the working hypothesis: field-ideational; tenor-interpersonal; and mode-textual ‘The structural (grammatical) realizations of the multiple system are

slafimetions must be Tealivod

simullane 18; 1¢., indopzndont choi s Made in cach of the

in overlapping grammatical structures, In other words, a single clause can be analyzed in terms of différent structures which reflect the realizations of the various kinds of meaning simultaneously in that clause

Newcomers to functional grammar are sometimes confused by motaftanctions because they expect them to operate independently and discretely ‘This is a mistaken expectation As Bloor staled in his book (1995: 9) thal in almost any instance of language use, all three metafunctions operate simultancously in the expression of meaning, This is because cartain aspects of the grammar realize the ideational function, the other aspects realive the interpersonal function, and yel ollers realize the textual function,

2.1 Ideational Metafunction

The ideational component on the semantic plane consists of experiential meanings and logical meanings Experiential meanings at the grammatical rank of the chuuss are thosc functions that reflect or represen processes, participants, and

analysis of English (Halliday, 1994: 106-161), experiential meanings are accounted for in clauses by the transitivity system The transitivity system

in terms of process, participants and circumstances produces constituency structures

whereas logical meanings are

2.2 Interpersonal Metafunction

‘The second metafunction, the interpersonal component of the semantic level, has to

jaicd with interdependency structures

do with the exchange that takes place between speaker and listener or wriler and reader

‘The functions within this component include giving or demanding information, expressing intention, assessing degree of probability, expressing attitude, and so on ‘These Ñmetlons

cond person form of identifiealion to the use of distinctions bety 1 imperative and

indicative moods and the use of inodals and negatives

Since interpersonal meanings have to do with interaction or exchange between people, they are most conspicuous in conversation or dialogue and least conspicuous in

formal written for a gencral audicnec Nevertheless, language is a social behavior, and by

its very nature text is exchanged Language can be used to exchange information or

“goods-and-services” Information is generally exchanged verbally, whereas goods-and-

services can conclude material objects or actions that are given or demanded in the

exohange in addition to verbal responses, and thus a positive response in goods-and- services exchange may be non-verbal

The grammar of interpersonal meanings puts the focus on the clause as a unit of exchange struchued as Subject, Predicator, Complement and Adjuncts When these element are used in the exchange of goods and services, the resulfing structure is a proposal

2.3 Textual Mctafunction

The textual component consists of the enabling or text-forming functions These

inchide some aspects of the echcsion, information and theme, all of which give texture te a

text Since they are enabling functions, textual meanings are not independent of ideational

and interpersonal meanings (as well as interpersonal and lextual ones) will be

sped by textual mmoanings, including information structure and theme The system of thome is realized through a structure in which the clause fills into just two main constituents;

‘Theme and a Rheme Theme is basically what comes first in the clause and it is what is

the discowsse-semantic stratum is called ‘metafunction resonance’ by Halliday (1994) (for

more detail, see Hasan, 1993; Hojing V'n V@n, 2002)

is of the Lextual perspective The relationship of these three fimetions, which ave in

Tn his book (1994:34), Halliday summarizes what we have dis the three different ways of looking at the clause as follows

+ The Actor functions in the structure of the clause as a representation A clause has

Trang as a ropresontation, a construal of some process in ongoing humnar

|The Theme fimetions in the structure of the clause as a message A clause has meaning

as a message, a quantum of information; the Theme is the point of departure for the message It is the element the speaker selects for ‘grounding’ what he is going om to say

3 The Grammar of Experiential Meaning: Transitivity

In the previous sections, the thee ways in which human beings use language have been carefiilly touched upon, Since the study focuses on the clause as representation, in this section, I shall be more concerned with the clause in its experiential fiction, its guise

as a way of ropresenling palterns of experiences The clause, here again, plays a eculral rele, because it embodies a general principal for modeling experience

3.1 Process, Participant and Circumstance

Language is used to talk about the world, cither the extemal world, things, events, qualities, etc, or our internal world, thoughts, beliefs, feelings, etc, Our language builds up pictures of reality, consisting of goings-on (verbs), involving things (nous), which may

have allsibutss (adjectives) and which go on agninst lnckground dotaits of place, time, manner, ete.(adverbials), These categories form the landscape of our human experience and occur together in clauses with the essential element of the clause being the expression

19

of event, or process According to Ilalliday (1994), a process consists of three

of groups and phrases classes

TYPICAL FUNCTIONS OF GROUPS AND PHRASE CLASSES

The circumstances Abverbial group or prsposilional phrase

The following example provides the analysis of'a process ina clause

bush

Participant process parlicipant circumstance eireurnstaneo

Nominal group | verbal group — | nominal group | adverbial group preposilional

= What aro you lnoking for?

- My mother is taking care of my boy while I am away from home

- Leannot give up smoking

‘The clause concludes at least one Participant, which is normally realized by nominal group although sometimes the participant is not explicitly mentioned in the clause but understood as part of the experiential meaning ‘he most popular examples are in the imperative clanses as follows:

- Goaway!

- Runt Circumstances are typical realized by adverbial groups or preposition phrase For example:

- Yesterday, Joe went to the cinema

- They hurriedly rushed out of the house

Different fiom the Process and the Participant, whose presence in the clause is obligatory, the Circumstances are offen optional in the clause However, in some cases it may be morc or less obligatory to include a circumslanec in the clause:

- The second great discovery took place at about the same time

- She put the lamp down on the floor

Although the concepts of process, participant, and cirenmstance are scmantic

categories which explain in the most general way how phenomena of the real world are, they are not used to mterpret the grammar of the clause because they are too general to explain very nmch The Process’ Participant’ Circumstance model is only a start We shall need to recognize functions which arc more specific than these and which may differ according to the type of process being presented In the following section, the different iypes of process that are built inlo the granmmar of English, and the particular kinds of participant role that are systemically associated with each are explored

3.2 Process Types

According lo Halliday (1994), the transitivity systems of Tinglish, six processes Lypes are recognized as material, mental, verbal, behavioural, relational, and exustential The table below illustrates this relation clearly:

System of Transitivity (process type)

= Doing

a Material (encode experience in the real, material world)

b Behavioral (encode physiological or psychological behavior)

* Projecting

a, Mental (encode experiences in the inner world of consciousness)

b Verbal (encode experiences of bringing the inner world outside by speaking)

= Being

a Existential (set up the existence of'a sole participant)

b Relational (encodes relations of being and having between two participants)

In the subsections that follow, five are presented As verbal process is the main focus of the thesis, it will be treated in a separate chapter

According to Thomas Bloor and Meriel Bloor (Zhe Functional Analysis of

English): Material process are the process of doing and happening and about action The basic meaning of material process is that some entity does something or undertakes some

actions A clause which reflects a material process can be read as the answer to a question,

‘what did x do? where ‘do’ is a (usually) concrete, tangible action Material processes

have an obligatory participant, the Actor, which is the doer of the action A second

participant, the goal of the action, is the participant in some material processes to which the doing is done Traditionally, the term transitive is used for verbs which required a goal

(whether it is made explicit in the clause or not), and intransitive is used for verbs which do

Actor Process: material Goal Circumstance

‘Actor Process: material Range/ Range

Two other takated parlicipants arc Range and Beneficiary Range oficn looks like a Goal, but differs in that it restatas or extends the process itself, Range is often a cognate accusative, Beneficiary is semantically what is traditionally called indirect object Let us look at the following examples:

+ Matcrial processes with Beneficiary:

TnSwiterland [They | gave acognae | to you

‘Actor |Prmaimal Goal Recipient

3.2.2 Mental Processes

While ‘material’ clauses are concomed with our experience of the material world,

‘mental’ clauses are concemed with our experience of the world of our own consciousness

It may be constructed either as flowing from a person's consciousness ar as impinging on

it, bul not, as a maicial aol, Or in other words, etal proce

e.g What did you do to the injections? I hated it,

Or whut don't T de to her behavior? T don't understand it With these clauses, it makes mote sense to ask: “What do you think / feel / know about x?”

e.g.: What do you think about injections? I hate them

Or What do you think about her feller? T don’t understand it Mental processes can be divided into 3 classes

- Cognition: verbs of thinking, knowing, understanding

og: T don't know her natne

- Affection: verbs of liking, fearing, atc

e.g I hate injections

= Pereuption: verbs of socing, hearing

Atnong six processes Lypes, hhavioral processes are (he least distinel because they

have no clearly defined characteristics of their own

+ Behavioural processes with a conscious

The volcano | Behaver with personification slept

to have Lwo inherent participants

e.g Every fourth Aftican is a Nigerian,

‘The second participant may be a “non-specific” (“indefinite”) nominal group or it may be a prepositianal phrase

“Relational” clauses have a distinct grammar of their own, They model this experience as “being” rather than as “doing” ot “sensing”

3.1.5, Existential Process

Existenlial processes, in conlrast to relational processes, have only one participant (not counting circumstantial elements), namely the Existent, ot that participant which is said to exist, Existential process clauses can be fiequently be translated by English existential process dummy subject ‘there*

4.2.6 The Circumstance

In addition to the participants, all the processes in the transitivity system may also

be accompanied by circumstantial elements, typically realized by adverbial groups prepositional plrascs and even by nominal groups Figure 2.3 represents the range of choices available to the speaker or writer once the choices has been made to include @ circumstantial slernsnl

The

roumsiances are identified by cousidoring what the quostions are uscd to explicit them, Following arz the questions that are helpful in identifying circumstances

together with an example of each of the nine terms of the system: Extent [OW LONG? (duration), HOW FAR? (spatial distin

To sum up, this chapter has mentioned some fundamental and theoretical coneepts relevant to the purposes of the study In the chapter, the relationship between

grammar and context based on Talliday’s model has been represented Language can be functionally described in terms of three metafunetions: () the ideational with which language is used to represent our experience of the world, (i) the interpersonal expressing

s used lo create and maintain different kinds of roles and

the meaning in which language is

relationships, and (iii) the textual with which language is explored to create coherent and cohesive texts, both spoken and written,

The chapter has also concentrated on giving an overview af the granunar of experience; the transitivity Every clause can be seen in the experiential function to be made up of combinations of Participant(s) and Circumstance(s) revolving around the obligatory process The types of the processes in the transitivity system are also discussed

in the following chapter

Summary of process types

Process type Category meaning Participants Participants

abliquely involved

perception

cognition

desideration

emotion

relational “boing” Carrier, ALiribue — Atiribulor,

attribution ‘attributing? Identified, Identifier, Beneficiary

identification ‘identifying’ Token, Value Assigmer

4 Verbal process in English

In this part, based on Halliday’s systemic tiunctional grammar (Halliday, 1994), an attempt is made to look at verbal processes in English It focuses on examining (i) the alrupluro of the process and (i) the differen! cormponenis of the process

41 Structure of a Verbal Process

As mentioned in the preceding chapter, besides the three major processes which are labeled as material, mental, and relational, there are three other types which can be distinguished on the basis of the usual combination of semantic and grammatical criteria, The most important of them is the verbal process which is located on the boundary of mental and relational process Let ns consider the following examples:

- They said that you were a fool,

- She asked, “Where are you going?”

- Isabella tald the secrel ta her best fiend

= Marcus Antonius praised Julius Cassar

It is obviously seen ftom the above examples, although speaking is certainly a kind of action, the verbs say, ask, tell, praise do not construe the material process, they do nol describe the world of psychological and behavior On the other hand, they have some features of mental process, especially if we assume that verbalization of thoughts is a kind

of inner speech ‘these verbs can be cases made for postulating a process named verbal process As a resulls, a verbal process can be defined as a process of saying The Lypical participants in the process are the Sayer, the Receiver, the Target, and the Verbiage

A typical verbal process can be structured as follows:

Sayer + Process: verbal + (-) Target + (-} Receiver + (-) Verbiage

It must be noticed that unlike the mental process, the verbal processes do not require conscious participants, ‘The Sayer can be anything which puts out the signal, like the natice

or my watch in the following exarnples:

~My watch says it’s half past ten,

4.2, Components of the Verbal Process

As mentioned in the above section, a verbal process clause can have maximally four potential participants: the Sayer, the Receiver, the Target, avi the Verbiage Before discussing the details of each participant, it would be helpful to look at the process first

4.2.1 The Process

Again, the verbal process can be defined as the pra

of saving The typical verb used to encode the process is say, but there are many others, probably the most important of which are ask and tell:

= ‘Hold ona moment”, said

- J asked her if she had heard him

she

- Ile told me to go ta bad early

In fact, there are a large mumber of verbs that can be exploited to realize the process, cach carrying some cxtra clement of meaning, Sometimes this meaning can relate

to the speech act realized: just as we can ask to indicate a question or tell to indicate a conmund, so we cant use such verbs as urge, explain, remind, challenge, beg promise congratulate, grumble, agree, repor! to convey other subtleties of what speech act theorists call iffocutionary force

- She begged him not lo drive so fas!

- It promised to come to class Another kind of meaning that can be conveyed by the choice of lexical verb is a meaning connected with the nature of the actual delivery of speech: such things as tone, quatity of voiee, and volmne of voice, The verbs uscd to encade this meaning ars sneer, austter, lisp, growl, snarl, bark, bawi, babble on, and gasp Fot example:

- Fifty of.us to stand off that crummy force!” she sneered

- muttering nervously; ‘Hurry up, boys ”

‘Another way of adding such extra information is by an Adjunct, as in the example muitering nervously, where the wriler conveys wore than a plain use of saying could achieve nol only by choosing a norencutral, muttering, bul also by adding a Circumstantial Adjunct nervously

4.2.2 The Sayer

‘The Sayer is the one who does the verbalization Unlike the Senser in the

- The notice forbids the children to use the lift alone

The Sayer needs not to be oxplicilly mentioned in the cause, sspecially in the

passive voice:

The abscnee of the Saysr car alse be found im the quoted verbal clause of

imperative mood:

- Ile said, “Talk to me, please!”

Tlowever, we can always in principle ask for the identification of the Sayer

(‘whe reproached you?’), indicating that role is inherently present in the meaning

4.2.3 The Receiver

- Auother participant (hal involves in the verbal and is also typical human is the Receiver

This is the participant to whom the saying is addressed With some verbs, the Receiver is

nearly always mentioned as in the following examples:

The Arab boyfriend told her alot of rubbish

- As with alt process types, Ciroumstantials can occur in verbal processes ‘Ihe commonest

type is manner Circurnstantials

Circ: manner Sayer | Pr: verbal | Cine: manner

Although many verbal processes occur with a nominal element, a Verbiage, it is a

distinctive foalee of verbal processes thal they project That is, like mental processes,

verbals form a clause complex, projecting a second clause by either quoting ot reporting,

Lut whereas mental processes report or quote ideas, verbal processes quote or report

speech (or “Weutions”) A relationship of interdependence betwoon the lwo clauses gives

quoting or direct speech, whereas a relationship of dependency between projected and

projecting clause gives indirect or reported speech The projecting clause can occur as

first or second in the sequence

Direct / quoted speech

i asked thems to avoid the scar tissue

In the first sentence, the verb “said” is used to narrate to the listeners what the

Sayer directly mention, however in the sceond sentence, the verb “asked” describes in

detail the intention of the Sayer

30

CHAPTER III: THE STUDY

1 Research questtons:

In this chapter, verbal process is explored in details in two victory speeches in order

to answer to the following question

Tow is verbal process used in Ohama’s victory speeches?

on the readers as well as the listeners because of the use of word, phrase, etc, ‘Lhe victory speeches describes in brief how America tamed from a small country ta a giant one, and highly appreciates the ancestor, both politicians and normal people because of their devotion, Some hall marks of the history is also repeated, Hrom these speeches, Obama has shown his wide knowledge and the abilily Io persuade others snccessfitly

Over fitty victory speeches have been made on the way Barrack Obama “fought” against John McCain to be President, Each speech was delivered in a different state, to

different listeners [fowever, the listeners, ta some extent, are the same hecause they are

American whe arc looking for a now Took for the U.S, who are tired because of wars, who are looking forward for a new U.S, without crisis, terrorism,

Barrack Obama is so good at making speeches, [lis victory speeches are not merely for clcction purposes, they arc really the pictures of a complste America They talk about the history of the U.S., its excellent people, its citizen who are working hard to struggle with fe, There are many simpte things of everyday life included in the speech Ilardly any president candidates mention those simple things in their gpocchos, cxcopt for Oar,

Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President

of the United States, He is the first Affican American to hold the office Obama previously

tion to the prosideney in Novernber 2008

A native of Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Cohunbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review lle was a community orgarixer in Chicago before saming his law degree He worked as a civil rights attomey in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School

from 1992 to 2004

Obama served three forms in the Illinois Scnate from 1997 to 2004 Folkowing an unsuccesstul bid for a seat in the U.S House of Representatives in 2000, he xan for United

States Senate in 2004 Several events bronght him to national attention during the

campaign, including his viclory in he March 2004 Democratic primary and his keynate address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004, He won election to the U.S Senate in November 2004 [lis presidential campaign began in 'ebruary 2007, and affer a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination In the 2008 general election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009

As prasidenl, Obama signed economic stimulus legistalion im the form of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009 On Octobar 8, 2009, Obama

was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate In March 2010, he signed the Patient

Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, a piece of major comprehensive health care reform legislation, In foreign policy, Obama began a gradual withdrawal of troops fiom Iraq, increased troop levels in Afehanistan, and signed an arms contol treaty with Russia,

2.2 Declarative clauses in the data

According to Halliday (1994:69), in any communicative language , there are four basic speech roles: giving information, demanding information, giving goods and services and demanding goods and services, The usual labels for these functions arz StatcmentL, Questions, Offer and Command Most of these labels in this speech are expressed by verbal process Besides, the subject in any sentence is usually followed by a finite verb This signal shows that most of the clauses in the specch arc declarative clauses By

statistics, of 108 major clauses in the data, all together 101 clauses are declarative ones,

taking up 93.5% of the speech, 5 other clauses are imperative ones and only lwo are

cessful in (hat they are fimctioned as statements lo give as much as

inspiring the audience to go through the difficulties wilh the whole nation

Halliday once mentioned in his book that language exists and must be studied in context Particular aspects of given context define the meanings likely to be expressed and the language likely 1o be usod to express (hose mcanings Thus, to anive at a valid and accurate enterpretation of the given text, first we should understand certain aspects of its context such as the topic, language users, the medium of communication, ie register

Eggins (1994: 26) defined rogister as “ the inmediate situational context in which tho text was produced”, It is seen as a linguistic consequence of the interaction of aspects of context which ars called by ilalliday “field, tenor and mode” ‘These three items determine the experiential meaning, interpersonal meaning and textual meaning, respectively,

Ficld of discourse refers to what is happening, to the nature of social action that is taking place In terms of field, the text here is combine of two victory speeches written to inform people, persuads listeners and express the wriler’s attitude to the development of a country in the new age, The writer is a politician has enough knowledge, effort and smariness to persnade listeners to approve him on the way to be the most powerfill person

of the mation In the texl, we can find different process lypes mostly material and verbal ones, As this is a type of'spoken text, their roles are to refer events the writer recounts A significant number of relational processes express the character or assign the attribute

function for entities in the text

Eggins, in his book (1994: 63) defined (cnor as “the social role relationship played

by interactants” In functional grammar, tenor is expressed in terms of interpersonal meaning, ot the Mood system As for the speech function in the text, we can see the two role relationships, onc between the speaker and the listencr, and the other between the politician, the — going — to — be — president of the U.S and his cifizens, ‘The Mood in the text mostly dectarative, [his is obvious as these speeches belongs to marralive styles Most

of the clauses in the text contain subject and finile verbs, in which tbe finite glemenls are combined with the present simple and past simple and there are very fw modal elements

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Mode, according to liggins, is “the role language is playing in a interaction” The Mode of a text is concerned with the channel in which communication takes place and the medium of communication, In its organic form, this is a written text as it is not a face to

— face communication The channel in this text mostly belongs to visual ons There is a high lexical density with a farge number of content words Besides, the mode is also concems with the Thematic structure of the text

It should be noted here that although the speeches might be explored more comprchunsively from many perspectives such as Trmsilivity, Mood and Theme and cohesion, in this paper we just concentrate on the important role of verbal process in implicating and expressing the ideas and opinions of the speaker For this reason, the above analysis only contains scntencss or phrases in which verbal provoss is uscd Ths two speeches ars long enough to read bat short enough to hear Obviously, the six processes are also found in the text, however verbal process is the most important one

Barrack Obama has a lot of advantages which every president candidate desires to own, If we take a decp look on these two victory speeches, we can have a fisst impression that it may be a kind of a story, not a speech at all Here, Obama plays the role of a story teller Lo introduce different stages of development of the United Slates, not the role of 3 candidate to ask for people’s support He seems to get closer to the listenars, to his future citizens In these prepared remarks provided by his campaign, President-Elect Barack Obama calls himself the unlikelies! presidenlial candidate le thanks many members oC his campaign, along with his enormous anny of volunteers, and he warns supporters about what he calls the enormity of the tasks at hand that now thee the U.S

It is undeniable that Obama’s political orientation, relative youth, charisma, and ostensible affability explain his appeal lo those in Ihe so-valled “mainstream” media, but his race was the decisive feature that made them wax orgasmic That Obama is black changed the © dynamics of the seHon comtest đramaHically The sccond victory succch inoludss §2 sontcnecs, among them, I3 sentonoes has the appearance of verbal process, ‘This is such a long speech, as a complete story of the U.S., about ils hislory and famous people Most of the verbs here are “say” and “elf” Tn this second paragraph, Obarm appoared as a real marralor, who would like to rocall a hall mark

of the U.S and call pzople to stand together and make the country stronger and richer In

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his victory speeches, we can see no trace of “discrimination” It is a matter of fact, because

he himself is a black onc

It is quite easy to understand the frequent use of these verbs in Obama’s speeches Firstly, it is not the first speech that he made Ie has to deliver a number of speeches in zach stale lying on his way, and each contains a different, meaning and purpose This is the

‘very first color person who wants to become the President of the United States He must have had enough conditions such as money, knowledge, support ,and above all, his ability

to porsnads ths others to vots for him, How ean a black person persuade the whals country where once race discrimination happened? It is such a hard task, However, let’s take a look

ơn what Obama has done The way he talks to people is so sweet, so close, and natural it seers lo us that he is nol making a sp:

ch in front, of a crowd, he is talking or telling a story for everyone to hear, to relax It is not the voice of a politician, it is the voice of a friend, a father ot a colleague Listeners do not have the strange of distance here ‘They seem to listen to a reporter, a friend in their homes about the history of the U.S, about the struggle to become onc of the most powerful country in the world within more than 300

‘years Hardly anyone can do the same as Obama, that’s why he won the election successfully Media is tris toal to deliver his speeches

So far, the use of verbal process in total of over 30 sentences taken from the given victory speeches has been investigated thoroughly It can be said that the aim of the

analysis has been achieved: some of the falures of the verlal process and the intention of the writer the speaker has been discovered through the study of verbal process in a randomly chosen text The frequent use of verbal process indicates that the speeches are organized in a spoken style to persuade, to announce and to give far more information

Undoubtedly, these findings help to confim the importance ef the study of fuctional grammar and of its application in text analysis, as so to discover the semantic and stylistics features of different texts H can be said without exaggeration that “nystemic linguistics provides a very useful theoretical and analytical framework for exploring and explaining how texts mean” (Eggins, 1994: 37)

3 Analytical framework:

In this part, all the items of verbal process are discussed again in brief in order to have a better analysis in the two victory speeches

31 Process:

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‘The very first and fore most item in the verbal process is Process It is often

realived and defined as pra

by the choice of lexical verb, connected with the nature of actual delivery of speech

There are a mumber of verbs used in verbal process such as - say, ask, tell, urge,

explain, remind challenge, beg promise, congratulate, grumble, agree, report, sneer,

anuitter, lips, growl, sal, bark, bawl, babble on, gasp, ete

- Example: / will ask you to join in the work of remarking this nation the only way it's been done in America for 221 years

(My data) 3.2 Sayer:

The sceond ilem is called Sayer which dogs the verbalizalion Saycr can bo burma

ornon human and usually be nouns or noun phrases

Sayer can be realized as our report, the notice, John, That beautifid girl, etc

- Example: The noticed said that you couldn't sit here

(Bloor, Thomas and Mericl (1995), p 42)

3.3 Receiever:

The third ifern is named as Receiver, which is the participant to whom the saying is

addressed In traditional grammar, it can be refered to the indirect object Besides, sirnilar

to the Sayer, the Receiver can usually be nouns or noun phrases

The Receiver can be realived as me, him, her, them, it as in the following examples:

- Example: + She asked me where J was going

| J congratulated her

(My data)

3.4 Verbiage:

The fourth item in verbal process is listed as the Verbiage which is a nominalized

statement The Verbiage is usually statement, question, answer or story In traditional

grammar, it is compared with the direct object

The Verbiage can be realized as in the following examples

- Example: + She asked me a question

+He told her a lot of rubbish

(Bloor, ‘'homas and Merial (1995), p 43)

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3.5 Target:

The last item which should be mentioned is the Target which is defined as the message itself mentioned in the sentence The Target only appears in projecting clauses and it can be nouns or noun phrases

- Example: | The seport sharply criticizes Lily's quality — control procedures

(Bloor, Thomas and Merial (1995), p 43

4 Data analysis The first sp

elected to the post of President of the USA, Wednesday 5th November, 2008 The second

ch which Barack Obama rade was in Chicago on the day of his boing

speech which 1 chose was made in Minnesota two months before Among 100 sentences of

which

the two vielory speechss, there are shoul 30 sentences consist verbal pro

accounts for 30%, As this is a declarative text, the rele of verbal process becomes more and more important as it partly illustrate a portrait of the new president Once he looks like

a normal person of the U.S who appears to be friendly to his citizen through simple questions, asking for information about their lives, thoughts and hopes Besides, he plays the role as a story teller who draws the U.S as a whole by his stories

The verbal process is realized through a mumber of verbs as stated i the above fiame work, such as: question, tell, say, ask, congratdate, wonder, agree, disagree, speak, respond, answer, offer, promise, declare, call Of the thirteen verbs, * say” and “tell” are the most common verb used with 5 times, “congratulate” is repsaled 3 Limes: ““ask, speak, respond, promise, call” are used 2 times and the rest is repeated once

42 The verb “Say”:

Let’s take a deep look on each verb and the way they are used in each sentence — cach situation in the vielory speech As mentioned above, “say” is the Lype of verb which is used the most commonly According to Oxtord Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, the verb

“say” has about six senses It is used to give particular information or instruction, make thoughts, fecling clear cnough by using words, looks or movements, Further more, “say” is used to suggest or give something as an example or a possibility In expressing an opinion

on something, people also prefer “say” ralher than other verbs

In his vielory specohes, Barrack Obarm also spenl a great tine using Ihe vorh

“say”, as mn the following sentences: