Linguistic features of donald trump’s tweets from the systemic functional grammar perspective

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY NGUYỄN XUÂN THI LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF DONALD TRUMP’S TWEETS FROM THE SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR PERSPECTIVE MASTER THESIS IN E

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

NGUYỄN XUÂN THI

LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF DONALD TRUMP’S TWEETS FROM THE SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR PERSPECTIVE

MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

Binh Dinh, 2020

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

NGUYỄN XUÂN THI

LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF DONALD TRUMP’S TWEETS FROM THE SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR PERSPECTIVE

FIELD: English Linguistics CODE: 8.22.02.01

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr NGUYỄN THỊ THU HIỀN

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

NGUYỄN XUÂN THI

CÁC ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGÔN NGỮ CỦA DONALD TRUMP’S TWEETS

THEO QUAN ĐIỂM NGỮ PHÁP CHỨC NĂNG

Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh

Mã số: 8.22.02.01

Người hướng dẫn: PGS TS NGUYỄN THỊ THU HIỀN

Quy Nhon, 2020

Secondly, My sincere thanks also go to all my friends for sharing helpful materials and experiences during my study They raised many precious points in our discussion and I hope that I have managed to address several of them here

Thirdly, I am deeply grateful to all lectures not only from Quy Nhon University but also from other universities for their whole-hearted contribution to sharpening my academic knowledge during the previous semester I would like to sincerely thank for the cooperation and support of the Department of Postgraduate Training and the Department of Foreign Languages of Quy Nhon University

Last but not least, I would like to thank my family who always stands

by me while my thesis was in process and has helped me overcome many unexpected difficulties during the course and the thesis

Quy Nhon, 2020

ABSTRACT

This thesis applied the Systematic Functional Grammar framework developed by Halliday to offer an overall analysis of the linguistic features of President Donald Trump‟s Tweets More specifically, the main purpose of this study is to investigate three metafunctions of the language to reveal the experiential, textual, and interpersonal features of Donald Trump's tweets President Donald Trump‟s Tweets which are from the reliable website: https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump are collected and analyzed The quantitative and qualitative method is employed in this thesis to investigate the frequency of the linguistic resources and to discuss three meanings expressed through their functional systems, namely Transitivity, Theme, Rheme, and Mood structure In detail, as for Interpersonal features, the declarative mood presenting dominant Mood and modal verbs as a type of Modality are utilized at a higher rate than the others In terms of textual features, unmarked topical themes become the dominant theme type among the others Regarding experiential features, the tendency in the use of material process and the relational process is more favored than other processes by the presenter in Donal Trump's Tweets From these results, the thesis is expected

to significantly contribute to addressing the gap in previous studies related to functional grammar and helpful material for people who are interested in writing, especially writing Tweets

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP 0

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES vi

LIST OF CHARTS vii

LIST OF FIGURE vi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aim and Objectives 2

1.2.1 Aim of the study 2

1.2.2 Objectives of the study 2

1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Significance of the study 3

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Organization of the study 3

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Systemic functional grammar 5

2.1.1 The Experiential metafunction 6

2.1.2 The interpersonal metafunction 15

2.1.3 The Textual metafunction 18

2.2 The application of Systemic Functional Grammar in discourse

analysis 21

2.3 Tweets as a genre 23

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 25

3.1 Research methods 25

3.2 Data collection 25

3.3 Data Analysis 25

3.4 Validity and Reliability 26

3.5 Research Procedures 26

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 28

4.1 Interpersonal features 28

4.1.1 Mood in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 28

4.1.2 Modality in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 33

4.2 Textual features 39

4.2.1 Topical Theme 40

4.2.2 Interpersonal Theme 44

4.2.3 Textual Theme 47

4.3 Experiential features 51

4.3.1 Material processes 52

4.3.2 Mental processes 54

4.3.3 Relational processes 55

4.3.4 Verbal processes 57

4.3.5 Behavioral processes 58

4.3.6 Existential processes 58

4.3.7 Circumstances 59

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 63

5.1 Introduction 63

5.2 Conclusions 63

5.3 Implications 64

5.4 Limitations 65

5.5 Suggestions for further research 65

REFERENCES 66

LIST OF TABLES Table

number

2.1 Summary of Processes, their meanings and Participants 13

2.5 The degree of Modalization & Modulation 17

4.2 Declarative structures in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 30 4.3 Types of modality in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 34 4.4 Probability Indicators in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 37 4.5 Obligation Indicators in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 37 4.6 Usuality indicators in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 38 4.7 Inclination indicators in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 39

4.9 Unmarked and marked Topical Theme in Donald

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart

4.1 Distribution of Full and Elliptical declarative in Donald

4.2 Probalitity value in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 35 4.3 Types of Theme in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 40 4.4 Distribution of Interpersonal elements in Donald

4.7 Distribution of Circumstances in Donald Trump‟s

LIST OF FIGURE Figure

2.1 Metafunctional Solidarity across Planes (Halliday and

Martin, 1993, p.34)

6

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

The past few decades have witnessed an emergence of discourse analysis as the main topic in a large number of worldwide scholars‟ researches because of their language in use which is in an organized and well-established structure

Discourse analysis has been taken up in a variety of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences by various researchers such as Encarnacion (2011) to redefine what Critical Discourse Analysis is; Robin (2011) using conversation analysis as an impressive and valuable approach to studying discourse; Scherbak (2018) pinpointing the essential methodology required for analyzing media discourse; Maria (2010) analyzing written academic discourse by combining two approaches: corpus linguistics and discourse analysis; Elena (2010) using Discourse Analysis to understand the genre of Newspaper Article; and Basil (1987) investigating Narrative discourse

As for the genre of politician speeches, various studies using different approaches or theoretical frameworks have investigated different features of this genre For example, Wang (2010) uses Critical Discourse Analysis to identify features of Obama's speeches, Jetal (2019) compares Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump's language use by applying the Critical Discourse Analysis framework, or Beeman (2018) applies Discourse Analysis to identify three characteristics of Trump's speeches

Among the approaches to discourse analysis, Functional grammar is recently considered the useful one to help researchers understand the linguistic features of the language in use in different genres such as academic,

Hidalgo Tenorio (2011) news, Joye (2010) and even political speeches, Bayram (2010) As a result, Functional grammar has proved itself as a very effective grammatical approach to understand the different features of discourse

From what has been mentioned in the literature, it is clear that although politician's discourses of different genres have been deeply and widely investigated, Tweets seem to be the linguistically untouched field Despite their prevalence in the integrated world as a tool for politicians to express their viewpoints as well as their policies For the above reason, I have decided

to write the topic “Linguistic features of Donald Trump’s Tweets from the Systemic Functional Grammar Perspective” for my thesis

1.2 Aim and Objectives

1.2.1 Aim of the study

The aim of the study is to investigate the linguistic features of Donald Trump‟s Tweets following Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) developed

by Halliday (1994) More specifically, these linguistic features would be

identified via the analysis of experiential, interpersonal, and textual features

1.2.2 Objectives of the study

To achieve the aim above, the study is to focus on the following objectives:

- To investigate the Experiental features of Donald Trump‟s Tweets via Transitivity system

- To identify the Interpersonal features of Donald Trump‟s Tweets via Mood and Modality

- To analyze the Textual features of Donald Trump‟s Tweets via Theme and Rheme structure

1.3 Research questions

To obtain the aim and objectives of the study, the following research

questions have been raised:

1 How are Experiential features realized in Donald Trump‟s Tweets?

2 How are Interpersonal features realized in Donald Trump‟s Tweets?

3 How are Textual features realized in Donald Trump‟s Tweets?

1.4 Significance of the study

Identifying and analyzing three features in Donald Trump's Tweets offers many contributions in theory and practice Theoretically, while a considerable number of studies related to one of three metafunctions have been carried out, there has not been a thorough research done on this type of genre in terms of the combination of three metafunctions Therefore, the findings of this research are expected to make a significant contribution to the theory of Systemic Functional Grammar perfectly Practically, the research hopefully becomes the basis for further research on political leaders‟

messages on Twitter as a social network

1.5 Scope of the study

Although there are many ways to identify the linguistic features of a discourse, the study focuses on analyzing three metafunctions of SFG In this study, 212 Donald Trump‟s Tweets from October to November in 2019 are collected for the investigation There have been many functional approaches, but the research is strictly carried out based on Halliday‟s framework

1.6 Organization of the study

Chapter 1, Introduction, includes the rationale, the aim and objectives,

research questions, the significance of the study, scope of the study, and organization of the study

Chapter 2, Literature Review, reviews Functional Grammar Theory by

Halliday (1994) Some previous studies from the perspective of those theories and Tweets are also introduced

Chapter 3, Methodology, consists of research method, research

procedures, and the procedure of data collection and data analysis for the study

Chapter 4, Findings and discussions, presents the results of the data

analysis related to the linguistic characteristics of three metafunctions used in Donald Trump‟s Tweets

Chapter 5, Conclusion and implications, summarizes the major

findings, draws conclusions and pedagogical implications, limitations and puts forward suggestions for further studies

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Systemic functional grammar

Michael Halliday as the father of Functional Grammar really helps the study of language in a practical way In fact, this theory is a tool to consider and analyze the language in use Halliday (1985) indicates “Systemic linguistics is a theory of meaning as a choice, by which a language, or any other semiotic system, is interpreted as networks of interlocking options” Halliday (1994) also emphasizes that SFG is to give priority to paradigmatic relations and interprets language not as a set of structures, a network of systems, but as interrelated sets of options for making meaning

Metafunction is known as the generalized functional principle of linguistic organization In SFG, functions are performed through language, which explains why speakers say something and say it in the way they do Speakers are encouraged to have to make relevant choices among three kinds

of features including the Experiential features, the Interpersonal features, and Textual features The experiential function of a language is to talk about our experience of the world, including the world in our minds, to describe events and states, and the entities involved in them The interpersonal function is to enable us to participate in communicative acts with other people to establish and maintain relations with them, to express our own viewpoint on things, to elicit and exchange theirs, or/and to influence their behavior The textual function mentions the use of language to organize our experiential, logical, and interpersonal features into a coherent whole It can be seen that although these three metafunctions are in cooperation to produce meaning, each of them is about a different aspect of the world, and it is concerned with a different mode of the meaning of clauses Therefore, we cannot deny their

equal importance since they all semantically relevant And here is the figure about the three metafunctions

Figure 2.1 Metafunctional Solidarity across Planes (Halliday and Martin, 1993, p.34)

2.1.1 The Experiential metafunction

The Experiential metafunction refers to the use of language to construe and organize one‟s experience of the world It is further divided into the experiential and the logical subfunction The former describes clauses as representation and focuses on content and ideas, and how people actively construe and make sense of reality, classifying the objects and events within their awareness (Halliday, 1994) On the other hand, the logical subfunction focuses on the relationship between ideas, or in Halliday‟s words, systems

“which set up logical–semantic relationships between one clausal unit and another” (Halliday, 1994), and the emphasis is put on the symbolic representation of reality and experience through language

The Experiential metafunction deals with how reality is represented in language and asks questions such as “who, (does) what, whom, how, why, where, and when” Halliday (1994) has suggested that this metafunction is

realized in the transitivity system, which includes processes, participants, and circumstances

In the transitivity system, there are six different types of processes in English The three major ones are material, mental, and relational, each with a small set of subtypes Besides, there are three further types, behavioural, verbal, and existential A process consists of three components: (i) the Process itself; (ii) Participants in the Process; (iii) Circumstances associated with the process The nature of the process determines how many and what kind of participants are involved

2.1.1.1 Material Processes

Material clauses construe doings and happenings Prototypically, these

concrete changes in the material world that can be perceived

Chia bought some curry yesterday

Actor Process: material Goal circumstance

(Bloor & Bloor, 2004, p.109)

In the above example, “bought” represents the material process, while

“Chia” and “some curry” are the two participants Being the performer of the action, the first is labeled Actor, which is quite self-explanatory, whereas

“some curry” is the Goal in this clause “Yesterday” is not a participant, but a Circumstance While elsewhere a significant change marks the choice between active and passive voice, where the subject in the passive form corresponds to the Complement in the active, participants retain the same functions of Actor and Goal regardless of voice

Material process clauses can also contain two other participants: Beneficiary and Range The Beneficiary is a participant in a material process clause with a benefactive role, corresponding to the item that answers to the question, “to whom?” It usually involves verbs such as

„give’, „send’, „offer’, etc

Material process with Beneficiary

Chia bought Paul some curry yesterday

Actor Pr.material Beneficiary Goal circumstance

(Bloor & Bloor, 2004, p.109)

Material process with Beneficiary shifted to the end

Chia bought some curry for Paul yesterday

Actor Pr material Goal Beneficiary circumstance

(Bloor & Bloor, 2004, p.109)

Agentless passive structure with Beneficiary as Subject

Paul was bought some curry

Beneficiary Pr material Goal

(Bloor & Bloor, 2004, p.110) Agentless passive structure with Goal as Subject

Some curry was bought for Paul

(Bloor & Bloor, 2004, p.110)

In the material process clause in the example above, „Paul’ is the

Beneficiary

The Range is very similar to the Goal The main difference between the two participants is that Range remains basically unaffected by the action, while the action is usually directed to the participant labeled as Goal Furthermore, Range is usually „restricted to intransitive clauses‟ One participant in the following example is Range:

Armen and his friends play ping-pong every weekend

(Halliday, 2003, p.192) 2.1.1.2 Mental processes

Mental clauses entail the description of states of mind and cognitive

and psychological events Verbs such as think, feel, hate, like, know, fear, want, see, hear, enjoy, etc., realise these processes The sentences below are

examples of such clauses

Mental process of emotion with nominal group as Phenomenon

She believed his exercises

Senser Pr.Mental: Emotion Phenomenon

(Eggins, 2004, p.227)

Mental process of perception with embedded clause as Phenomenon

I saw the operation taking place

Senser Pr Mental: Perception Phenomenon

“experiencer” of the Phenomenon

2.1.1.3 Behavioural processes

Behavioural processes have two participants, namely Behaver and Behaviour which is similar to Range in material processes Behaver is the animate participant which is obligatory and Behaviour is not a real participant but merely adds specification to the process, which sometimes appears

The boy laughed an embarrassed laugh in amazement

Behaver Process: Behavioural Behaviour (Range) Circumstance

(Thompson, 2004, p.110)

2.1.1.4 Verbal processes

A verbal process typically contains three participants: Sayer, Receiver, and Verbiage The Sayer, the participant responsible for the verbal process, does not have to be a conscious participant (although it typically is), but anything capable of putting out a signal The Receiver is the one to whom the verbal process is directed The Verbiage is a nominalized statement of the verbal process: a noun expressing some kind of verbal behaviour (e.g statement, question, report, answer, story )

The Arab boyfriend told her a lot of rubbish

(Eggins, 2004, p.235) Although many verbal processes occur with a nominal element, a Verbiage, it is a distinctive feature of verbal processes that they project A relationship of interdependency between the two clauses gives quoting or quoted, whereas a relationship of dependency between projected and projecting clause gives indirect or reported speech

(Halliday, 2014, p.304)

John said he was hungry

(Halliday, 2014, p.304) Target is another participant in this process

(Halliday, 1994, p.103)

2.1.1.5 Relational processes

Verbs, such as be, become, seem, appear, and verbs of possession

realize Relational processes Such processes are further divided into two classifications: Attributive and Identifying processes The first kind of process assigns an attribute to an item, which can be categorized as intensive, possessive, and circumstantial

sub-Relational Process of intensive attribution

Diana is a talkative dinner guest

Carrier Pr Relational: intensive Attribute

(Eggins, 2004, p.240)

In the example above, “a talkative dinner guest” is the attribute and

“Diana” is the Carrier of the attribution The process is realized by “is”, the present tense of the most typical copular verb “be”

Some possessive structures can be labelled as attributive relational process, as exemplified below:

Relational Process of possessive attribution

Carrier Pr Relational: possessive Attribute

(Bloor & Bloor, 2004, p.121)

Relational Process of Circumstantial attribution

Attributive Relation clause may contain circumstance as a participant This special type can be seen in the following example

The best place to give blood is in Geneva

circumstantial

Circumstantial attribution (Eggins, 2004, p.239)

Identifying Relational Process

Identifying process contains two participants: Identifier and Identified

of Token-Value The purpose of this type of relational process is to use a participant to identify another participant as shown below

May be there „s some other darker pattern

Process: existential Existent

Maybe some other darker pattern exists

Process: existential Existent

(Thompson, 2004, p.111) The following table summarizes types of processes:

Table 2.1 Summary of Processes, their meanings and Participants

Actor Goal Beneficiary Range Mental

perception

affection

cognition

feeling sensing emotive thinking

Senser Phenomenon

Relational

Attributive

Identifying

being attributing identifying

Carrier/Attribute Identified (Token)/ Identifier (Value)

Verbal saying Sayer, Receiver, Verbiage,Target Existential existing Existent

Behavioural behaving Behaver, Behaviour

2.1.1.7 Circumstances

The last type of participant we need to look at for the process clause is that of Circumstances, which are realized by adverbial groups or prepositional phrases There are nine types of circumstances listed in the following table

Table 2.2 Types of circumstances (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004, p.291)

circumstance

Typical preposition

Transitive function Questions for

identifying the circumstance

across, etc

Duration(temporal), distance (spatial)

How long? How far? How often?

2 Location At, in, on,

from, etc

Time(temporal), place (spatial)

When? Where?

like, etc

Means, quality, comparison, degree

with? In what way? Like what?

To what extent?

for, because, etc

Reason, purpose, behalf

Why? What for? Who for?

5 Contingency In case of,

etc

Condition, concession, default

Under what conditions?

6 Accompaniment With,

besides, etc

Comitation, addition

Who/what with? Who/ what else?

to, to, etc

Source, viewpoint Who says? Who

thinks?

2.1.2 The interpersonal metafunction

The interpersonal metafunction is concerned with language as a form of interaction between people; therefore, it involves the relationship between speaker and hearer and it is concerned with clauses of exchange When a piece of new information appears, there are two cases that can happen The first case happens when the speakers give something or some information to the hearers and they receive something or some information from the hearers And the second case occurs when the speakers demand something or some information from the hearers and they receive those from the hearers

Table 2.3 Primary speech role ( Halliday, 1994, p.69) (ii)Commodity

Would you like this teapot?

STATEMENT He‟s giving her the teapot

Give me that teapot

QUESTION What is he giving her?

As can be seen from table 2.3, statements and questions involve

exchanges of information and are called Propositions while offers and commands are exchanges of goods and services, called Proposals The choice

of the speech role will affect the role of the speakers and the hearers in communication Different speech roles will produce different types of

statements, including a question, an offer, a command, or a statement

2.1.2.1 Mood

An analysis of the interpersonal metafunction focuses on the two main

elements of the clause, namely Mood and Residue Mood consists of the Subject, i.e a nominal group, and the Finite, i.e the first element of the verbal group The Residue is made up of the Predicator, i.e the rest of the verbal group, Complements, and Adjuncts Thus, a clause consists of Mood + Residue The Mood element can be identified in Mood tags In different types

of speech roles, the position of mood and residue can be changed

(Eggins, 2004, p.303)

(Eggins, 2004, p.304)

the needle in?

(Eggins, 2004, p.304)

No/Yes

Adjunct: Polarity MOOD (Eggins, 2004, p.305)

(Eggins, 2004, p.305)

2.1.2.2 Modality

Modality is an important system that is used to express interpersonal meaning Most writers use this system to convey their idea, belief, or uncertainty Halliday (1994) states that modality is" the speaker's judge of the probabilities or obligations involved in what he is saying" There are two types of modality: modalization which is about probability or frequency of propositions and modulation which refers to the obligation of inclination

Table 2.4 Types of Modality (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p 128)

Table 2.5 The degree of Modalization & Modulation (Halliday, 1985, p 357)

Modalization

Probability should,

possible, certainly

probably may, maybe

Obligation Must, have to,

ought to, need

Should, will, shall, would

May, might, can, could

2.1.3 The Textual metafunction

Halliday (1994, p.36) states that textual meaning is defined as an act of

" creating relevance to context" As a message structure, a clause consists of a Theme accompanied by a Rheme The Theme is “the point of departure of the message” carried by one clause (Bloor& Bloor 1995, p.71) and the Rheme is

"the remainder of the message" in which the Theme is developed

The Theme can be divided into three subtypes: Topical, Interpersonal, and Textual Theme

2.1.3.1 Topical Theme

Topical Theme is realized by the first group of a clause that has the experiential function, including three experiential elements like participants, process, and circumstantial factors

It can play a role as a participant

(Halliday, 2014, p.90)

As a circumstance gives information about time, place, manner, cause, etc

on the ground or in the air small creatures live and breathe

(Halliday, 2014, p.92) And a process in the example

Says Mr Smith: “ It‟s too early to draw any conclusions

yet.”

Theme (process) Rheme

(Martin, Matthiessen, and Painter, 1997, p.24) Topical Theme can be divided into two subtypes: marked and

unmarked Theme If the theme of a clause conflates the subject, it is called unmarked Theme

No one seemed to notice the writing on the

wall

(Halliday, 2014, p.96) And if the theme of a clause is not the subject but an adjunct, or a complement, it is called marked Theme

In Switzerland they give you a cognat

(Eggins, 2004, p.318)

In this clause, "In Switzerland" is a marked Theme because it does not conflate the subject Some elements that can be marked Theme if place at the beginning of a clause is adjuncts and complement

2.1.3.2 Interpersonal Theme

Interpersonal Theme is an element coming before Rheme indicating the relation between participants in the text, or the position or viewpoint which is taken in the clause This theme includes finite, a vocative, and a modal adjunct

Interpersonal Topical

(Eggins, 2004, p.303)

maybe Stephen could help

Interpersonal Interpersonal Topical

chosen this framework to identify all the linguistic features of Tweets as a genre of communication

2.2 The application of Systemic Functional Grammar in discourse analysis

Functional Grammar has been applied in discourse analysis and proved

to be the most influential tool to understand genres

At the level of the thesis, To (2015) employs SFG as the main theory and methodological framework to study the linguistic complexity in English textbooks utilized in teaching English as a foreign language with special reference to the Vietnamese context Findings of the study reveal that the language of textbook texts mostly get more complicated at high levels and the divergence between descriptive statistic of linguistic features used in the science-related texts and those in the non-science ones were not considered in the same book In the same way, Lê Thị Bích Thủy (2015) compared Thematic features of English news reports and editorials Her study not only focused on three kinds of Theme (Topical, Textual and Interpersonal Themes) and Thematic progression but also try to identify the similarities and differences between English news reports and editorials Ton (2005) studies the three meanings including experiential, interpersonal, and textual meaning

in the travel advertisements written in English and in Vietnamese One of her noticeable study results indicates that giving information about tourist activities, events, and descriptions is the main purpose of travel advertisements Nguyễn Thị Hạnh (2012) investigated the structure of Theme and Rheme in English and Vietnamese political speeches and their semantic, pragmatic aspects Choosing in the light of Functional Grammar, this thesis brought out the identification and classification of their thematic patterns, figure out their distribution rates and the correlation among those thematic

patterns and pick out their similarities as well as differences in semantic, pragmatic level

At the level of articles, Feng (2013) indicates some issues including the nature of functional grammar, some important concepts of functional grammar, the divergence between traditional grammar and functional grammar Additionally, the author also gives some implications for English teaching and learning to assist teachers to understand the theory of functional grammar and its positive role in school contexts Another study to be mentioned here is the one conducted by Ye (2010) to analyze the Interpersonal metafunction of Barack Obama‟s Victory speech His findings show that positive declarative dominate Barack Obama‟s Victory speech; ranking the second are imperative clauses; modal verbal operators used

frequently are “will”, “can” and “must”; the first personal pronoun is mostly

employed in Obama‟s Victory speech while the second personal pronoun

“you” comes after Xu and Zhang (2015) write an article about the crucial role

of functional grammar and illustrate its application to the teaching of reading

To contribute to enhancing reading skills, they give some effective techniques for the reading of English learners in the beginning and advanced proficiency levels Also based on Halliday‟s SFG, Chen (2018) analyzed the inaugural speech of Donald Trump mainly from the perspectives of transitivity, modality, personal pronoun, and coherence in order to reveal the speaker‟s political intention and help readers understand the meaning of discourse, cultivate their critical consciousness and analytical ability This study concluded that Trump used different language forms to transmit, change, and maintain audiences‟ ideology subtly At the same time, it had a positive effect

on the development of critical discourse analysis

Regarding books level, Yang (2017) studied on the Interpersonal

metafunction of Barack Obama‟s Inaugural Address following the perspective

of SFG In the process of detailed analysis, Yang discussed the Interpersonal roles, Mood, and Modality system at the level of Interpersonal function The findings were that the plural forms of the first person are mostly used, declarative clauses have an absolute advantage, and the medium and low modal auxiliaries appear most frequently in Obama‟s address, which aimed to help readers understand and evaluate the speech regarding its suitability, thus

to provide some guidance for readers to make better speeches

2.3 Tweets as a genre

According to Wikipedia, Twitter is a free online social networking service that allows users to read, message, and update tweets called tweets, a form of microblogging Tweets that are limited to a maximum of 280 characters spread quickly within the messages group of friends or can be displayed to the public Founded in 2006, Twitter has become a global phenomenon The tweets can be just a personal stream of news to timely local updates faster and more than mainstream media

Regarding studies relating to Tweets, which are described with a spoken genre to help the readers understand fast what things the utterance wants to express Michele (2011) presents Systemic Functional Linguistic about a linguistic perspective on Twitter The result of the analysis examines the evaluative language used to the affiliate in tweets This both renders the language searchable and is used to upscale the call to affiliate with values expressed in the tweet By using genre analysis and Halliday's framework, Ussama; Soon Ae; Vijayalakshmi; Jaideep (2017) investigate about the analysis of political discourse on twitter in the context of the 2016 US presidential elections The study results reveal that these short texts evaluate how accurately Twitter represented the public opinion and real-world events

of significance related to the elections Meanwhile, Naci; Nilay; Ismet; Özlem Özdeşim (2015) use critical discourse analysis to investigate the recurring speech patterns in the tweets of top-level politicians during the Gezi Park protests that started in Istanbul Turkey in June 2013 and spread the country rapidly Their findings indicate that the tweets to draw conclusions on whether the politicians' statements represent marginalization and polarization efforts during the Gezi Park protests, and the politicians' tweets are mainly characterized by a discourse that guides the public into some conscious direction that may reproduce marginalization and polarization among the public at large Marcel; Todd (2013) present the use of Systemic Functional Linguistics to compares four Dutch and four British national tabloids and broadsheets, asking if tabloid journalists are relying more on this second-hand coverage than their colleagues from quality papers Findings reveal that in which sections of the paper tweets are included and what kinds of sources are quoted, and individual tweets or interaction between various agents on Twitter even triggers news coverage

In short, there have been, up to now, a few types of research that are taken into one of three metafunctions such as interpersonal, experiential, or textual However, there have not been any researches that discuss all metafunctions, especially in Tweets Therefore, we expect to see a general picture of three metafunctions in this study

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 Research methods

In order to conduct the thesis, many different methods were used to analyze the linguistic features of Tweets from the perspective of functional grammar

Firstly, the descriptive method was manipulated to describe grammar elements expressing three metafunctions and their subtypes in Tweets

Secondly, the quantitative method and qualitative method were also harmoniously combined The former was used to investigate the frequency of categories of metafunctions in the data while the latter was applied to discuss

the characteristics of all three linguistic features of Tweets

3.2 Data collection

To carry out the research, 212 tweets from October to November in

2019 were collected from Donald Trump‟s Twitter The topics covered all aspects such as education, health, and security The data were collected from the official webpage: https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump The Tweets were encoded as T1, T2, T3, ., Tn Because the unit of analysis was clauses, clauses were also encoded as C1, ., Cn As a result, C1T1 could be

understood as clause 1 of Tweet 1

C1T1.Thank you to Lt Bob Kroll of the great Minneapolis Police

Department for your kind words on @foxandfriends // C2T1 The

Police are fighting the Radical Left Mayor, and his ridiculous Uniform

Ban.// C3T1 Actually, I LOVE the Cops for Trump shirts.// C4T1 Want

to bring some home.// C5T1 I am with you 100%!!!!

3.3 Data Analysis

After the data were encoded, the samples were taken into consideration

to identify three linguistic features via three grammar tools: Transitivity, Mood, and Theme structure

Regarding Experiential features, the writer identified six types of processes The frequency of each type was counted and then illustrated by charts to emerge the way Donald Trump chose to express his experience

In terms of the Interpersonal features, the writer focused on the Mood and types of Modality The occurrence of each item was demonstrated by charts and tables Then typical examples were analyzed to reveal the way Donald Trump contacted with the readers

For the Textual features, three typical kinds of themes namely Topical Theme, Interpersonal Theme, and Textual Theme were analyzed and synthesized After that, the quantitative method was used to calculate the distribution of these subtypes Then, the distribution of these themes was presented with examples and charts

3.4 Validity and Reliability

Reliability and validity were the two most important criteria to guarantee the quality of the data collection procedures

The theoretical frameworks from well-known linguists were selected The study was built and analyzed according to the theoretical background of the famous researcher's reliable publication

Besides, the data were collected from a reliable website The conclusion of the study was drawn from the findings with samples and statistics

Therefore, it could be said that the thesis was valid and reliable

3.5 Research Procedures

Firstly, the writer collected Donald Trump‟s Tweets on the official website: https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump

Secondly, clauses were identified and coded; Then the components of

the Experiential features, Interpersonal features, and Textual features were

realized in each clause

Next, all clauses were qualitatively studied to reveal the experiential,

interpersonal, and textual features

Then, these features were statistically processed to help reveal the

frequency of each element in the data

Finally, the results were exemplified by detailed examples

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

The consequences of the research manifested in this chapter comprise

three parts: Interpersonal features, Textual features, and Experiential features

4.1.1 Mood in Donald Trump’s Tweets

Two major parts in constructing mood system are Subject and Finite, which are identified as integral elements to realize interpersonal features of the text As mentioned above, three typical types of Mood are Declarative, Interrogative, and Imperative This table below will express how Mood types are distributed in Donald Trump's Tweets

Table 4.1 Mood types in Donald Trump’s Tweets

MOOD TYPE Number of mood choice Pecentage

The above results reveal that Declarative mood is the major Mood type that the speaker utilizes in his speeches with the aim to provide valuable information for readers And we can also easily realize the structure of this Declarative mood occurring up to 852 times and beomes the most popular type of Mood in Donald Trump's Tweets Some examples extracted from Donald Trump's Tweets

[T13,C2] The Whistleblower has ties to one of my democrat opponents The Whistleblower has ties to one of my democrat

The United States has spent eight trillion dollars

fighting and policing in the Middle East

By using Declarative, the speakers in these above examples can successfully give useful and updated information to readers about ties or the relationship of Whistleblower and one of the democrat opponents, about the country‟s expenditure of eight trillion dollars fighting and policing in the Middle East

The majority declarative of mood shows that the feature of the messages is giving the information which the readers need Donald Trump's message is often a text where he informs the events which happened on that