EXPERIENTIAL MEANING OF BARACK OBAMAS COMMENCEMENT SPEECH a SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTIC

Process types of transitivity analysis in Barack Obama’s 2020 High School Commencement Speech 27 Table 7.. Participant functions of transitivity analysis in Barack Obama’s 2020 High Scho

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

FACULTY OF LINGUISTICS AND CULTURE OF

ENGLISH-SPEAKING COUNTRIES

GRADUATION PAPER

EXPERIENTIAL MEANING OF BARACK OBAMA'S COMMENCEMENT SPEECH:

A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS

Supervisor: Nguyễn Thị Minh Tâm, Ph.D Student: Đỗ Thị Vân Hà

HÀ NỘI - 2021

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHOA NGÔN NGỮ VÀ VĂN HÓA CÁC NƯỚC NÓI TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

PHÂN TÍCH NGHĨA TRẢI NGHIỆM TRONG DIỄN VĂN TỐT NGHIỆP CỦA BARACK OBAMA

THEO LÝ THUYẾT NGÔN NGỮ HỌC

CHỨC NĂNG HỆ THỐNG

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Nguyễn Thị Minh Tâm, Ph.D

HÀ NỘI - 2021

I hereby state that I, Đỗ Thị Vân Hà – class QH2017.F1.E1.SPCLC, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (English Language Teacher Education - Honors), accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan, or reproduction of the paper

Đỗ Thị Vân Hà

30/04/2021

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my sincerest thanks and gratitude towards all the personages who have helped me in this endeavor Without their active guidance, help, cooperation and encouragement, I could not have completed this thesis

I am profoundly grateful to my supervisor, Dr Nguyễn Thị Minh Tâm, who spent much of her valuable time supervising and guiding my study Her timely advice, meticulous scrutiny, and scientific approach have helped me, to a great extent, to accomplish this task

I would also like to thank my parents for giving me the greatest encouragement and my friends who provided stimulating discussions as well as happy distractions to rest

my mind outside of my research

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates the realization of experiential meaning in the 2020 commencement speech delivered on major television networks and online by Barack Obama The analytical framework of this study is based on the experiential meaning of

M A K Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics, consisting of transitivity model and experiential grammatical metaphors The results show that in Obama’s 2020 commencement address, relational processes were used the most frequently, followed by mental and material ones Likewise, Carrier and Attribute participants dominated the speech, and the speaker also preferred to utilize Senser and Actor Experiential grammatical metaphors that involve the grammatical class shift from verbal groups into nominal ones were the type that constituted the highest percentage of occurrence frequency These characteristics substantially contributed to the representation of the Class of 2020 – the target audience – as experiencers, challenge fighters, aspirers, and learners, the representation of Barack Obama – the speaker – as a companion of the graduates, and the representation of the US, the American, the Covid-19 pandemic and its impacts in the speech

Keywords: systemic functional linguistics, experiential meaning, transitivity,

experiential grammatical metaphor, commencement speech

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES v

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v

INTRODUCTION 1

1 Background and rationale of the study 1

2 Aim of the study 2

3 Statement of research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 3

5 Significance of the study 3

6 Methods of the study 3

7 Organization of the study 4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Systemic Functional Linguistics 5

1.2 Three metafunctions of language 6

1.3 Experiential meaning 6

1.3.1 Process 7

1.3.2 Participant 10

1.3.3 Circumstance 13

1.4 Grammatical metaphors 15

1.5 Experiential metaphor 16

1.6 Commencement address 18

1.7 Review of previous related studies 19

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 22

2.1 Research design 22

2.2 Data collection and description 22

2.3 Data analysis framework 22

2.4 Data analysis procedure 24

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 26

3.1 Baseline information 26

3.2 Findings 27

3.2.1 Transitivity analysis 27

3.2.2 Experiential grammatical metaphors 34

3.3 Discussion 37

3.3.1 Representation of the Class of 2020 – the target audience 39

3.3.2 Representation of Barack Obama – the speaker 42

3.3.3 Representation of the US, the American, the Covid-19 pandemic and its impacts – the circumstances 43

CONCLUSION 46

1 Summary and major findings 46

2 Implications 47

3 Limitations of the study 48

4 Suggestions for further studies 48

REFERENCES 49

APPENDICES 54

Appendix 1 54

Appendix 2 57

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1 The grammar of experience: types of process in English 7

Table 1 Process types, their meanings, and characteristic participants 10

Table 5 Combined model of experiential metaphor categorization 24 Table 6 Process types of transitivity analysis in Barack Obama’s 2020 High

School Commencement Speech

27

Table 7 Participant functions of transitivity analysis in Barack Obama’s

2020 High School Commencement Speech

28

Table 8 Circumstantial elements of transitivity analysis in Barack Obama’s

2020 High School Commencement Speech

32

Table 9 Experiential grammatical metaphors in Barack Obama’s 2020 High

School Commencement Speech

34

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

SFL Systemic Functional Linguistics

INTRODUCTION

1 Background and rationale of the study

Language is defined as the discrete combinatorial system humans use most for communication and it can be construed as structural systems governed by rules that combine discrete elements (e.g words) into larger constructions (e.g sentences and conversations) (Hazen, 2015) These rules are known as grammar (Trask, 1999) Laying the foundation for the formation and development of languages, grammar has always been one of the principal orientations for research in the field of linguistics as can be seen from several theories of grammar formulated over the years For example, the formal approach

to the study of language has led to Generative Grammar, a grammatical model laid out and promulgated by Chomsky in various publications (Chomsky, 1959, 1975, 1986, 1990) Exemplar theories of the functional approach include Functional Sentence Perspective (Firbas, 1992), Functional Grammar (Dik, 1989), and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) (Halliday, 1985)

The work of Halliday and his associates (1985) has rendered SFL increasingly acknowledged as a highly practical descriptive and interpretive framework for perceiving language as a strategic meaning-making resource in which grammar is described as systems instead of rules These grammatical systems have a role to play in the construal

of meanings of different kinds, as Halliday claims that language is metafunctionally organized (1985) He argues that all languages have three kinds of semantic components,

or more accurately, three metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal and textual

Among these semantic components, ideational metafunction focuses on construing human experiences of material and symbolic reality, which is known as

“experiential meaning”, and organizing those experiences into a logical whole defined as

“logical meaning” Experiential meaning is concerned with the content of a discourse: what kinds of activities are undertaken, how participants in these activities are described and classified, and in which circumstances they participate in the activities These elements correspond to the “transitivity system” with its three components: process, participants and circumstances (associated with the process) (Halliday, 1985) The analysis of this strand of meaning in texts can therefore reveal the social and semiotic contexts of language samples perceived from the speaker’s or writer’s viewpoint, a fundamental element to explore the purposes of communication Thus, the researcher has elected to investigate the realization and effectiveness of experiential meaning in this

thesis

In accordance with the aforementioned explanation, spoken language samples, specifically public speeches, often with clear and predetermined delivery purposes, implicate the speakers’ well-structured reflection of what they experience in the physical and mental world - in other words, their social and semiotic contexts Commencement addresses, speeches given at graduation ceremonies, usually delivered by distinguished speakers, serve to orient, inspire and encourage students who are going to be graduates Therefore, they tend to be analyzed as a message to the listeners rather than a representation of the speakers’ viewpoints of the circumstances of the speech (Malendra

& Cahyono, 2013) However, commencements addressing Class of 2020, who graduate

in the middle of the Covid-19 outbreak and its subsequent increased socio-economic instability, differ from their antecedents as they recount the social situations and express the speakers’ points of view on these circumstances in more detail Particularly, Barack Obama’s 2020 High School Commencement Speech does reveal part of his political and social perspectives on the current situations and how they orient his guiding message to the soon-to-be graduates Hence, it justifies the researcher’s choice of genres of language sample to investigate

2 Aim of the study

The research aims at exploring how experiential meaning and experiential metaphor is realized in Barack Obama’s Class of 2020 High School Commencement Speech Additionally, it investigates how much these two linguistic components contribute to the experiential success of the commencement address

3 Statement of research questions

To achieve the aforementioned research aim, the researcher formulates the following research questions:

How is experiential meaning expressed in Barack Obama’s Class of 2020 High School Commencement Speech?

This question incorporates three sub-questions below:

(1) How is experiential meaning realized through the transitivity system in Barack Obama’s Class of 2020 High School Commencement Speech?

(2) How is experiential meaning realized through experiential metaphors in Barack Obama’s Class of 2020 High School Commencement Speech?

(3) What are the possible effects that experiential meaning realization could have

on the message of the speech?

4 Scope of the study

In this research, the writer will focus on the two linguistic notions, namely transitivity and experiential GM, covered in experiential meaning of ideational metafunction, a semantic system as part of the SFL approach to language study Logical meaning is not examined considering the “fluid boundaries” of clause complexes in spoken language samples such as public speeches

The experiential meanings will be analyzed using the transitivity system to investigate the processes, participants, and circumstances involved Concerning the experiential GM, semantic elements and grammatical class shifts, will be the channel for interpretation

The text selected for the analysis of these linguistic aspects is Barack Obama’s Class of 2020 High School Commencement Speech delivered online on May 17th, 2020

5 Significance of the study

The results of this research are expected to be useful theoretically and practically

(1) Theoretically, this study may be able to add a new insight regarding the topic

of linguistic analysis from an SFL perspective in spoken language, particularly with the text type of public speech Furthermore, it will assist in demonstrating the importance of experiential meanings and experiential metaphors in imparting the speaker’s experience

of the world - in other words, the social and semiotic contexts, in a commencement address

(2) Practically, the findings of this research can provide the readers with a

portrayal of how to conduct an SFL analysis and suggest how they can incorporate their experiences of the surrounding and organize those ideas in an effective public speech

The study is conducted for the purpose of contributing to the pool of Systemic Functional Linguistics research in the genre of public speech, especially commencement addresses Its results are hoped to become references for further studies in the same field

6 Methods of the study

This study adopts a descriptive qualitative approach to research design with the assistance of quantitative tools Qualitative approach is utilized to describe, analyze and

interpret the collected data, specifically the realization of experiential meaning through transitivity system and experiential metaphor through semantic elements and grammatical class shifts in Obama’s Class of 2020 High School Commencement Speech Quantitative tool is adopted to measure the percentage of each element of experiential meaning realized in the address

7 Organization of the study

The study consists of three chapters, an Introduction, and a Conclusion The Introduction presents the background, rationale, scope, significance, and methods of the study as well as the research question Chapter 1 shows the theoretical background and related previous studies of this paper Chapter 2 explains the methodology of the study in terms of research design, data collection, description, and analysis framework and procedure Chapter 3 reports the findings after data analysis and in-depth discussion of those findings The Conclusion summarizes the findings, points out the implications and limitations of the study, and gives suggestions for further research

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Systemic Functional Linguistics

There are two main approaches to the study of language: formalism and functionalism (Darnell, 1999) Formal approaches, which reduce linguistic analysis to an issue of symbol manipulation thus focusing on compositional semantics, syntax and word classes (e.g noun, verb), became predominant in linguistics with the advent of Noam Chomsky’s Transformational-Generative Grammar (TGG) (1965) (Uson, 2012) In contrast, functional approaches, with Michael Halliday, Simon Dik, and Jan Firbas as their main proponents, were more concerned with the way people use language in context

to communicate (Halliday, 1978)

Among several functional linguistic approaches is Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), a theory of language and discourse proposed by Halliday in the mid-nineteenth century It was further developed by key figures in the field including Ruquiya

Hasan, James Martin, Christian Matthiessen, and David Butt (Patpong, 2009) Systemic

in SFL refers to a notion of language as a set of interrelated systems, or choices, for

conveying meanings, while Functional is concerned with what language does and how it

does it, as opposed to more structural approaches

Halliday started to develop his theory in the 1960s He was influenced by John Firth, an English linguist, who introduced the conceptions of language as a network of systems and the importance of context in the expression of meaning The American linguist, Benjamin Whorf also had a profound influence on Halliday, with his insistence

on the impact of environment on language (i.e one needs to be in a specific context to understand the meaning of an utterance), and his idea of situational multiplicities of languages Halliday also inherited from the functional approach of the Prague linguistic circle, especially with regard to textual metafunction (Flowerdew, 2013)

SFL places emphasis on the idea that language is shaped by one’s experience of communication in sociocultural contexts Therefore, SFL associates the conception of external explanation with social factors, that is, it conceives language as part of a social system of meaning or “social semiotics” (Halliday, 1978) In this model of language, the basis for language use is to make choices from the intricate network of systems that give structure to language and map such choices simultaneously onto linguistic expressions in

a meaningful way Not only is language in use shaped by choice, it is under the influence

of social contexts namely context of situation and context of culture The former relates

to the broad socio-cultural environment, including ideology, social conventions and institutions; the latter refers to the specific situations within the environment (Droga & Humphrey, 2002)

1.2 Three metafunctions of language

As a macro-level theory of language, SFL also provides a detailed account of functional grammar which underscores the notion that one’s selection of words and clause structures is affected by the roles that language plays in his interactions This can be clarified by viewing grammar from the perspective of three discrete yet concurrent linguistic macro-functions, which Halliday named ‘metafunctions’, the most general categories of meaning potential that are common to all uses of language: textual, interpersonal, and ideational

(i) The textual metafunction is concerned with the construction of text, and how

it is held together to keep information flowing from one clause to another This refers to

‘clause as a message’

(ii) The interpersonal metafunction sees ‘clause as an exchange’ of information

to enact social relationships since interactions are intrinsic to every use of language

(iii) The ideational metafunction relates to the way in which language acts as a

reflection of reality, of the physical and social world in which we live and of the world of our consciousness It is generally classified into two components embodying different modes of conveying experience: the experiential meaning and the logical meaning The former is to do with ‘clause as the representation’ of one’s experiences and the latter refers

to the dependency and interdependency relationships among clauses

1.3 Experiential meaning

As is mentioned, in SFL the ideational metafunction refers to the representation

of human experiences both as the external world as well as the internal consciousness of individuals, which is defined as experiential meaning

According to Halliday (1994), experiential meaning is construed in grammar

through the system of transitivity, incorporating processes (actions, events and states),

participants (in the processes), and circumstances (in which the processes occur)

1.3.1 Process

Figure 1

The grammar of experience: types of process in English

Note Reprinted from Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar (4th ed., p.216),

by M A K Halliday and M I M Matthiessen, 2014 London: Edward Arnold Copyright

2014 by M.A.K Halliday and M.I.M Matthiessen

In English, clauses can be categorized into six types of process including: material process, mental process, relational process, behavioral process, verbal process, and existential process (Halliday, 1985; Halliday, 1994; Halliday, 2014):

(1) Material process is the process of doing and happening, and construing actions,

activities, and events in the physical world The doer is known as the Actor, an obligatory participant of this process This participant brings about the unfolding of the process through time, leading to an outcome that is different from the initial phase of the unfolding This outcome may be confined to the Actor itself, in which case there is only one participant in the process Such a ‘material’ clause represents a ‘happening’ and can be called ‘intransitive’ Beside representing the action as involving only the Actor, some material processes also affect or are ‘being done to’ another participant called the Goal,

in a ‘transitive’ material clause In addition to the two inherent participant roles, there is

an extra component called Circumstance, which provides supplementary information on the “when, where, how, and why” of the process Additionally, the nature of the outcome affecting the Actor of an ‘intransitive’ clause and the Goal of a ‘transitive’ one is the criterion to recognize more delicate subcategories of material clauses

(i) Creative clause: the outcome is the coming into existence of the Actor

(intransitive) or the Goal (transitive)

Accidents like this

She

happen

all the time

Actor Process: material, creative Goal Circumstance

(ii) Transformative clause: the outcome is the change of some aspect of an already

existing Actor (intransitive) or Goal (transitive)

Actor Process: material, transformative Goal Circumstance

It is possible that the Actor may not appear explicitly in the clause, for example

in a passive form In this case, the participant affected by the process is still coded as Goal, since its semantic relationship to the process has not changed

Goal Process: material, transformative Circumstance

In addition to the Actor and the Goal, material processes may have other extra participants namely Scope (that which remains unaffected by the action), Recipient (the receiver of goods/ services), Client (for whom/which the action occurs), and Attribute (a

quality ascribed to an entity) (see 1.3.2)

(2) Mental process is the process of sensing, perception, cognition, intention, and

emotion Grammatically, all mental processes involve two participants: Senser (the conscious being who is involved in a mental process by feeling, thinking, wanting, or perceiving) and Phenomenon (that which is felt, thought, wanted, or perceived by the Senser) (Eggins, 1994; Halliday, 1994) Mental process verbs can be divided accordingly

into four subtypes: Emotive (e.g liking, loving, fearing, etc.), Cognitive (e.g dreaming, knowing, understanding, etc.), Desiderative (e.g wanting, desiring, agreeing, etc.), and

Perceptive (e.g seeing, hearing, etc.) (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014)

Phenomenon Process: mental, emotive Senser

Sensor Process: mental, cognitive Phenomenon

Sensor Process: mental, desiderative Phenomenon

Sensor Process: mental, perceptive Phenomenon

(3) Relational process is the process of being, which serves to characterize and to

identify abstract relations Unlike the case of material processes, a participant does not affect the other participant in a physical sense in a relational process Examples are “I am hungry,” and “I am a student” This kind of process can be analyzed according to two modes (i.e attributive and identifying) as followed:

(i) Attributive relational process: the two participants are the Carrier (the entity

that ‘carries’ the attribute) and the Attribute

The room

She

The drink

seemed had must have cost

cold

terrible things to say

a bomb

Carrier Process: relational, attributive Attribute

(ii) Identifying relational process: the two participants are the Value (general

category) and the Token (specific embodiment)

Value Process: relational, identifying Token

(4) Behavioral process is the process of behaving, concerned with physiological

and psychological behaviors Behavioral processes “represent outer manifestations of inner workings, the acting out of processes of consciousness and physiological states” (Halliday, 1994) It lies over the boundary between mental and material processes, thus usually expressing conscious physical acts involved in perception (e.g ‘see’ - mental) vs

‘watch’ - behavioral), and acts reflecting mental states (e.g ‘frown’, ‘laugh’, etc.) Normally, there is only one participant, the Behaver, who is a conscious being Specifications to the process can sometimes be added with another participant, the Behavior

We all

She

laughed

(5) Verbal process is the process of saying and it is intermediate between

relational and mental processes One obligatory participant of this process is the Sayer and often the Receiver, the entity addressed by the saying, is also present In some cases, the verbal processes may be directed at another participant, known as the Target The content of the utterance is called the Verbiage

He

I

The report

repeated explained criticizes

to her

his policy

the warning what it meant

Sayer Process: verbal Receiver Target Verbiage

(6) Existential process is the process of existing It is characterized by the subject

‘there’ and incorporates only one participant called the Existent An Existent can be any sort of phenomenon, whether concrete or abstract

Process: existential Existent Circumstance

1.3.2 Participant

According to Halliday (1978), participant is “the person, creature, object, institution or abstraction that is involved in a process” In experiential meaning, participants are incorporated in the six processes There are a number of specific ways in which participants can participate in processes; they can act out the process, they can sense through it, they can be affected by it, etc The number and type of participants involved are determined by what kind the process belongs to Table 1 below summarizes the common participants according to six process types

Table 1

Process types, their meanings, and characteristic participants

Process type Meaning Participants,

directly involved

Participants, obliquely involved

Senser, Phenomenon Inducer

Attributor; Beneficiary Assigner

Note Reprinted from Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar (4th ed., p.311),

by M A K Halliday and M I M Matthiessen, 2014 London: Edward Arnold Copyright

2014 by M.A.K Halliday and M.I.M Matthiessen

With regards to material processes, there are two directly involved participants, namely Actor and Goal While the former is an inherent participant in both intransitive and transitive material clauses, the latter is inherent only in transitive clauses In addition

to these two roles, there are a number of other participant roles that may be involved in the process of a ‘material’ clause; these are: Recipient, Client, Scope, Initiator, and (more marginally) Attribute Both Recipient and Client construe a ‘benefactive’ role, representing a participant that is benefiting from the performance of the process, in terms

of either goods or services Specifically, the Recipient is one that goods are given to, and the Client is one that services are done for Meanwhile, the Scope of a ‘material’ clause

is not in any way affected by the performance of the process Instead, it construes either

the domain over which the process takes place (as with the street in She crossed the street)

or the process itself (as with a game of tennis in They played a game of tennis) As for

Attribute, although it inherently belongs to the realm of relational clauses, it does enter into material clauses in a restricted way It may be used to construe the resultant qualitative state of the Actor or Goal after the process has been completed or specify the state which the Actor or Goal is in when it takes part in the process The Attribute, in other words, is an optional added specification of material clauses

They gave him a house

Actor Process: material, transformative Recipient Goal

Actor Process: material, transformative Client Goal

Actor Process: material, transformative Scope

Actor Process: material, transformative Goal Attribute

In mental clauses, Senser and Phenomenon are participants directly involved in the process while Inducer may get obliquely involved The role of Senser construes a participant as animate, being one that ‘senses’, and Phenomenon is the other element in a mental clause and is the thing, act, or fact that is ‘sensed’ Inducer, meanwhile, gives rise

to the process of ‘sensing’

Your advertisements should remind people of your great location

Inducer Process: mental, cognitive Senser Phenomenon

In respect of relational clauses, Carrier and Attribute or Token and Value are the

two inherent participants (see 1.3.1) In attributive clauses, the Carrier is or has the

Attribute and in identifying clauses the Token is the Value Both identifying and attributive relational processes have the option of ‘assignment’: they may be configured with a third participant representing the entity assigning the relationship of identity of attribution In the case of identifying clauses, this is the Assigner; in the case of attributing clauses, this is the Attributor

Attributor Process: relational, attributive Carrier Attribute

Assigner Process: relational, identifying Token Value

Meanings and characteristics of other participants of behavioral, verbal, and

existential processes can be found in section 1.3.1

1.3.3 Circumstance

The summary of different types of circumstantial elements in experiential meaning is shown in the following table

Table 2

Types of circumstantial element

enhancing 1 Extent distance how far? for; throughout

‘measured’ nominal group duration how long? for; throughout

‘measured’ nominal group frequency how many

times?

‘measured’ nominal group

[there,

here]

at, on, near; to, into,

(away) from, off; behind,

above, alongside

adverb of place: abroad,

home, upstairs, outside; down, behind; left, right, straight ; there, here

adverb of time: today,

yesterday; now, then

[thus]

by, through, with, by means

of, out of [+ material], from

adverbs in -ly, -wise; fast,

well; together, separately, respectively

comparison how? what

degree much, greatly [often

collocationally linked to

lexical verb, e.g love +

deeply]

due to, for, through

purpose why? what

5 Contingency condition why? in case of, in the event of

without

concession despite, in spite of

extending 6 Accompaniment comitative who/what

product what into? into

viewpoint to, in the view/opinion of,

from the standpoint of

Note Reprinted from Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar (4th ed.,

p.313-314), by M A K Halliday and M I M Matthiessen, 2014 London: Edward Arnold Copyright 2014 by M.A.K Halliday and M.I.M Matthiessen

Typically, circumstantial elements occur freely in all types of process, and with essentially the same significance wherever they occur (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) They belong to four general categories, serving four main purposes: enhancing, extending, elaborating, and projection

Enhancing circumstances augment the configuration of process + participants

through the specification of (1) extent or (2) location in time or space of the unfolding of the process, and/or the (3) manner, (4) cause, or (5) contingency of the unfolding of the

process

Extending circumstances augment the configuration of process + participants through the specification of an element that stands in an extending relation to one of the

participants in relation to its participation in the process Specifically, (6) accompaniment

is a form of joint participation in the process and represents the meanings ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘not’

as circumstantials

Elaborating circumstances augment the configuration of process + participants through the specification of the role in which one of the participants participates in the process: this participant is elaborated circumstantially There is only one type of

elaborating circumstance: (7) role, which construes the meanings ‘be’ and ‘become’

circumstantially

Projection circumstances augment the configuration of process + participants

through the specification of (8) matter, the circumstantial equivalent of the Verbiage (‘that which is described, referred to, narrated, etc.’), and (9) angle, the circumstantial

equivalent of the Sayer of a verbal process or the Senser of a mental clause

1.4 Grammatical metaphors

Grammatical metaphor (GM), initially suggested in the work of Halliday (1985) and Ravelli (1985), is a key concept and a remarkable progress in SFL as it enriches the theoretical framework of language description and contributes to the contextual understanding of language (Kilpert, 2003; Ravelli, 2003)

According to Halliday and Matthiessen (1999), the appearance of GM is inherent

in the natural development of the plane of content in a language The content system of language evolves by extending the congruent pattern between semantic and lexico-grammatical strata This separation of the congruent pattern between two levels of content plane opens up the possibility of metaphorical expressions Yang (2013) also sees GM as

a phenomenon automatically arising from the realization of meanings through wordings

in a language (Yang, 2013) He explains that in the development of human languages, this relationship evolves first as the patterns in which a semantic meaning is congruently mapped onto a grammatical expression For example, congruently, the semantic unit of command is realized by imperative clauses The congruent pattern is not the only form of realization because a language has the inherent power of realigning the mapping between

semantic meanings and grammatical realizations For instance, the meaning of command can be realized by an interrogative clause or even a declarative clause In other words, there is the possibility of metaphorical realization of a particular meaning in a language

Therefore, Halliday and Matthiessen defined GM as “the phenomenon whereby a set of agnate forms is present in the language having different mappings between the semantic and the grammatical categories” (1999) In other words, GM introduces a stratal tension between lexico-grammar (wording) and discourse semantic (meaning) so the language has to be read on at least two levels (i.e metaphorically), with one level directly reflecting the grammar, and beyond that another symbolically related level of semantics

1.5 Experiential metaphor

According to Halliday (1985), GM can be categorized into interpersonal and ideational GMs Two types of interpersonal GM are metaphors of mood and metaphors

of modality Ideational GM consists of experiential and logical GM (Martin, 1992)

Experiential GM is a powerful resource in the grammar of a language, by which the expression of experiential meanings such as processes, qualities and entities is extended in important ways beyond their default encodings Specifically, it is the metaphorical construal of meaning where process is realized by a noun or a nominal group, and quality is realized by an adjective or an adjectival group in lexico-grammar In other words, different grammatical forms can be borrowed to express different meanings depending on the contexts (Yang, 2012) By doing so, speakers and writers can reorganize their spoken and written language into concise, coherent expressions (Christie, 2012; Christie & Derewianka, 2008; Eggins, 2004; Gebhard, Chen & Britton, 2014) These characteristics align closely with the functions of experiential meaning, which justifies the analysis of experiential GM realization in this study

Normally, the congruent relationship between semantics and lexico-grammar is

as follows (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004):

- Nouns construe participants (things);

- Verbs construe processes (events);

- Adjectives construe attributes (properties/ epithets);

etc

However, in the experientially metaphorical mode of realization, referred to as

“the marked clause structure”, the following re-mappings may be evident:

- A process realized by a verb may be coded as a participant – a noun/ nominal

group;

- An attribute realized by an adjective may be coded as a participant;

- An element realized by a group/ phrase may be coded as a Thing in the nominal group;

etc

For example, in the table below, the process “broke”, manifested as a verb in the first sentence, becomes a nominal group in the second This means the experiential meaning is packed into that nominal group, “my BROKEN LEG”

1 Because I broke my leg, I could not take part in the race

Clause 1 Clause 2

2 Due to my BROKEN LEG, I could not take part in the race

Nominal group Main clause

Ravelli (1985) and Halliday (1998) proposed that experiential GM be categorized

on the basis of the metaphoric shifts from one semantic element to another Ravelli (1985) classifies experiential GM into six types by “identifying the participants, processes and circumstances of each clause, and determining if the meaning behind the clause is realized congruently or not” These types of GM are summarized in the table below

Table 3

Experiential GM recognized by Ravelli (1985)

No Semantic choice Metaphorical realization class Congruent realization class

1a Material process Thing/nominal group Verbal group

1b Mental process Thing/nominal group Verbal group

1c Relational process Thing/nominal group Verbal group

1d Behavioral process Thing/nominal group Verbal group

1e Verbal process Thing/nominal group Verbal group

2 Process Epithet, Classifier/adjective Verbal group

3a Quality of a Thing Thing/nominal group Adjective

3b Quality of a process Epithet, Classifier/adjective Adverb

3c Quality of a process Thing/nominal group Adverb

4a Participant Classifier/adjective Nominal group

5a Circumstance Process/verbal group Prepositional phrase

5b Circumstance Epithet, Classifier/adjective Prepositional phrase

Halliday (1998) proposes that experiential GM should be classified according to the metaphoric moves which actually occur between semantic elements Specifically, Halliday (1999) recognizes 13 major GM categories which correspond with 11 possible shifts between five semantic elements and two minor GM categories which have no corresponding congruent forms The GM categories recognized by Halliday (1999) are listed as followed

Table 4

Experiential GM recognized by Halliday (1999)

Type Semantic element Grammatical class shift

Congruent => Metaphorical Congruent => Metaphorical

3 Circumstance Thing Prepositional phrase Noun

6 Circumstance Quality Prepositional phrase Adjective

8 Circumstance Process Prepositional phrase Verb

Jaffe (2014) lists four general purposes of public speaking: to inform, to persuade,

to entertain and to commemorate Speeches used to commemorate are often given at special occasions to “highlight and reinforce cultural ideals” This type of public speech

can take the form of eulogies at funerals, toasts at wedding receptions, or nominations at awards

One prime example is the commencement address which is delivered to mark the event of a graduation ceremony when diplomas are conferred on graduating students This speech is keynote in nature as it celebrates a fundamental turning point in the students’ lives while serving as a call to action to its audience It is frequently delivered by renowned individuals in the community or by those whose contributions to society are recognized nationally or internationally Speakers can be alumni from the institution, politicians, or other leading figures

First of all, a commencement address can draw attention to certain current affairs, such as economic crisis, or social instability In the case of Obama’s 2020 High School Commencement Speech, it sporadically refers to Covid-19, a global pandemic that has revealed and led to several socio-economic issues In addition, such addresses typically lay out paths the students can pursue beyond their educational years besides recommending certain tools for change they need to create an impact (e.g., media literacy, exploitation of social media, acquisition and dissemination of information) Finally, commencement addresses often discuss aspects contributing to a happy future life, e.g passion, compassion for communities, and diversity appreciation On the whole, commencement speeches place emphasis upon celebration and a vision for the future They serve “to commemorate”, among the four general purposes of public speaking according to Jafffe (2014)

1.7 Review of previous related studies

Analysis of experiential meaning, specifically transitivity analysis, has been widely applied to investigate the language used in different discourses The use of transitivity system has been favored in analyzing both literary texts such as short stories, novels, poems, and songs, and non-literary texts such as debate, speech, news, students’ works, or students’ textbook (Akmalia, 2020)

One of the relevant studies on the realization of experiential meaning in public speeches is “The analysis of experiential function in public speeches of Bill and Melinda Gates” by Ikbal (2016) This research aimed to examine the dominant elements of the transitivity system used in Bill and Melinda Gates’ speech (including commencement address), their realization and the reasons why such elements are employed there The result of this research shows that in their commencement speech, material process was

preferred by both of the speakers, but there were different choices in mental process In Bill’s speech, he used more cognitive mental processes while emotive mental ones were the dominant process types in Melinda’s speech Likewise, Senser was the most favored participant in Bill’s address while for Melinda, it was Phenomenon The dominant circumstantial element in both of the speakers’ speech was found to be Location, which was employed approximately 15% more by Bill than by Melinda

Yujie and Fengjie (2018) studied the system of transitivity in Donald Trump’s Inaugural Address in 2017 and found that among six processes, material ones were the most common Relational processes ranked the second and they were followed by existential and behavioral ones Mental and verbal processes scarcely appeared in the speech Besides showcasing the realization of the processes used, the research also highlighted their different functions For instance, the dominance of material process revealed Donald Trump’s intention of painting a bleak picture of America to later introduce the new actions his government would take The use of relational processes was

to outline a new outlook for the American

Fengjie, in the same year, also collaborated with Yuqiong on the research

“Transitivity Analysis of David Cameron’s Speech in Retaining Scotland” They attempted to investigate the distributions and functions of the transitivity processes and the main participants in the speech Their findings conformed with Yujie and Fengjie’s

as relational and material processes also dominated David Cameron’s speech However, while the transitivity analysis of Donald Trump’s Inaugural Address (Yujie & Fengjie, 2018) principally focused on processes, Fengjie and Yuqiong's study also lent insights into the functions of participants The dominant participants in David Cameron’s speech are realized through pronouns of the first plural forms “we, us and our” It can be inferred from this that the speaker wanted to shorten the distance with his audiences

The research “CDA and SFL Approaches to the Analysis of Obama’s Speech on the Killing of Osama Bin Laden” by Mirallas and Rius (2012) is also worth referencing The objective of this research is to examine the argumentative purpose behind the speaker’s lexico-grammatical choices and their ideological significance in the speech Therefore, several context-related concepts from SFL were employed to analyze the social power and public discourse in the data The findings revealed that the persuasive nature of the political speech can be partially achieved through the realization of experiential meanings in the frequent use of material processes, particularly when these processes are logically organized in a chronological narrative

Whereas transitivity analysis has laid the groundwork for several studies of

spoken discourse, including speeches, there has been limited research on experiential

metaphor in general Among the few studies on this concept is “Ideational grammatical

metaphor in Steve Jobs’ 2005 Commencement Address at Stanford University” by

Malendra and Cahyono (2013) The dominant ideational metaphor was found to be the

one in which things were construed expansively and their modifiers were also construed

metaphorically accordingly This helped the speaker avoid ambiguity in the

commencement address by simplifying the words used Since employing grammatical

metaphors reduced the implementation of daily-use dynamic structures, it also made the

speech sound more formal

Numerous researchers have used SFL, particularly transitivity framework, as a

tool for the analysis of different types of language samples (Qasim, Sibtain, & Talaat,

2018) Among them, Burton and her studies (1982, 1996) on how using different

processes can help writers gain a specific effect and how they produce interaction between

the unfolding processes and language use to achieve the desired meanings received were

of referential significance She proposed a model of transitivity analysis utilized in several

studies later (Adjei, Ewusi-Mensah, & Okoh, 2015; Anafo & Ngula, 2020; Khan &

Rahman, 2014; Swift, 2016) (see 2.3)

As aforementioned, the number of studies which examine the realization of

experiential meanings in public speeches through transitivity is plentiful in general, but

insufficient in the case of commencement addresses Research incorporating experiential

GM to analyze public speeches is even rarer There has been no research on both

transitivity and experiential GM to realize experiential meanings in commencement

addresses Therefore, this study is expected to fill that gap and, to a certain extent, will

contribute to the clarification of the ways experiential meaning is realized in a

commencement speech and the effects it may have on the message

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

2.1 Research design

This study adopts a descriptive qualitative approach to research design with the assistance of quantitative tools Qualitative approach is utilized to describe, analyze and interpret the collected data, specifically the realization of experiential meaning through transitivity system and experiential metaphor through semantic elements and grammatical class shifts in Obama’s Class of 2020 High School Commencement Speech Quantitative tool is adopted to measure the percentage of each element of ideational metafunction realized in the address

2.2 Data collection and description

As this research is one of textual analysis; hence, its data were all the clauses and clause complexes found in Obama’s 2020 Commencement Address

The address was a part of “Graduate Together: America Honors the High School Class of 2020”, an American television special that was broadcast on major television networks and online on May 16, 2020 This special aimed at high school students whose graduation ceremonies and proms were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, due to

it causing the closure of most schools worldwide Obama’s virtual commencement address was later uploaded with subtitles onto Youtube to reach wider audiences The

number of views of the video posted on NBC News channel at the time the researcher recorded was nearly 1.5 million and that of the speech on Obama Foundation channel

was over eight hundred thousand However, when all the multiple linear, cable, and social media platforms airing the commencement ceremony were taken in account, approximately 60 million views were recorded (Nunan, 2020)

2.3 Data analysis framework

The framework this study uses to analyze the content of the text is the experiential meaning of Halliday’s SFL approach, specifically consisting of:

(1) Transitivity system with six types of process, and several participants and

circumstances typical of each process (see 2.3.1) showing experiential meaning expressed

at clause level

The network of transitivity system with its processes and potential participants is

summarized in the diagram in Figure 2 below

transitive Actor + Process + Goal

Behavioral Behaver + Process (+

Behavior)

Mental TYPE OF SENSING Senser + Process + Phenomenon

cognitive desiderative perceptive emotive

Verbal

ORDER OF SAYING

activity Sayer + Process (+ Target)

semiosis Sayer + Process (+ Verbiage)

RECEPTION

reception Sayer + Process + Receiver

Relational

TYPE OF RELATION

intensive possessive circumstantial MODE OF RELATION

atrributive Attribute (+ Attributor) Carrier + Process + identifying Token + Process + Value (+ Assigner)

Existential Existent + Process

In addition to the above network of processes and participants in transitivity, the researcher also employs the categorical framework of circumstantial elements provided

in Table 2

(2) Experiential GM expressed in grammatical class shifts As aforementioned,

the two models of experiential metaphor proposed by Ravelli (1985) and Halliday (1998)

(see 2.5) enjoy the same perspective of classification This study employs a combined

version of those two, as summarized in the table below

Table 5

Combined model of experiential metaphor categorization

Type Semantic element Grammatical class shift

Congruent => Metaphorical Congruent => Metaphorical

3 Circumstance Thing Prepositional phrase Nominal group

5 Circumstance Quality Prepositional phrase Adjective

6 Circumstance Process Prepositional phrase Verbal group

Prepositional phrase

2.4 Data analysis procedure

The data in this research is analyzed following these stages:

(1) Identify all the clauses and clause complexes in the speech

(2) Select clauses for transitivity analysis

(i) Remove minor clauses

(ii) Separate independent clauses from paratactic clause complexes

(iii) Separate independent clauses and subordinate ones from hypotactic

clause complexes

(3) Assign codes to selected clauses

(4) Conduct transitivity analysis following the three-step procedure proposed by

Burton (1982):

(i) Separate the processes, and determine which participant(s) (who or

what) is/ are doing each process

(ii) Determine what sorts of processes they are, and which participant(s)

is/ are engaged in which type of process

(iii) Verify who or what is affected or seems to be affected by each of these

processes

(5) Conduct experiential GM analysis

CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

3.1 Baseline information

The data analyzed in this research were the commencement address given by Barack Obama for the Class of 2020 The time of the speech was during Covid-19 pandemic, which caused the closure of most schools in the US and later cancelled several graduation ceremonies Therefore, the commencement address had to be delivered on television networks and online instead of on a high school’s stage as is the custom The target audience, as a result, was not the graduating class of a single high school but that

of the whole country

The purposes of Obama’s 2020 commencement address were slightly different from those of others It first aimed at congratulating the Class of 2020, along with their teachers, instructors, and families, for graduating, which is the typical purpose of this type

of speech (Ikbal, 2016) However, it also intentionally revealed the challenges these students would face graduating during a global pandemic (i.e lack of university/ work prospects, economic, social, and political instability, burden of responsibility) Its last and principal purpose was to encourage and guide them to overcome such hardship, in other words, to inspire them towards their future

Obama’s 2020 commencement address mentioned a number of subjects The dominant one was the high school graduates They were sporadically paired with teachers, coaches, parents, and families when the speaker congratulated them and showed empathy towards their disappointment at “missing a live graduation” In the speech, Obama also addressed the people of America, both the old generation and the new one (i.e the students) when he referred back to the past events and stroke a contrast between the two generations to highlight the challenges and duties the young would take The COVID-19 pandemic and the subjects of its devastating effects were also mentioned periodically during the delivery

The speech lasted for nearly 15 minutes It consisted of 133 clauses in total, among which 130 were major clauses and 3 were minor ones Transitivity analysis of these major clauses reported 130 processes, 267 participants, and 45 circumstantial elements accordingly After subsequent analysis, 85 experiential metaphors were also found in Obama’s commencement address The categorization, characteristics and functions of these components of experiential meanings are to be discussed in greater details in each

of the following sections