THE MANIFESTATION OF IDEOLOGY IN LANGUAGE: A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS APPROACH TO OBAMA’S SPEECH

Abstract

This  research investigates the  articulation  of  ideology through transitivity patterns in Obama’s speech. It adopts the principles of systemic functional linguistics (SFL), especially transitivity system, as its

theoretical  and  methodological  underpinning.  The  objectives  of  this  research  are:  1)  to  identify  the processes  and  participants  of  Obama’s  speech,  2)  to  reveal  Obama’s  ideology  reflected  through  the transitivity patterns. In doing so, the linguistics or textual aspects of the speech, when it is analyzed within

its socio-political context, is crucial for revealing the ideology. Qualitative method was used as the main method to interpret the findings by taking into account the sociopolitical contexts of the findings. However,

numbers were also used to describe the occurrence of the transitivity patterns. The data of this research were in the form of clauses within the context of Obama’s speech. The source of the data was Obama’s speech taken  from    https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov.  The  findings  show  that  five  types  of  Halliday’s

transitivity processes are identified in the speech. They are Material (140), Relational (49), Mental (23), Verbal (8), and Existential (6). The domination of material process in  the  speech implies that  Obama

construed the world more in terms of physical actions. The transitivity patterns can reveal several points in relation to Obama’s ideology. First, material process is used to show what the terrorist has done to his people,

his response to terrorism, and the actions he has taken to destroy them. Second, mental process is also used in the speech to show Obama’s emotion, thought, and inclination. Last point, Relational process was used by Obama to create a sense of relativity and to make strong statements in relation to the topic of the speech.

Keywords:  systemic  functional  linguistics,  ideational  meaning,  transitivity  system,  ideology,  Obama’s

speech