World of Media (Dec 2022)
What does Systemic Functional Linguistics say about speech? A discourse-semantic analysis
Abstract
This comparative study uses Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) theory as analytical framework. The aim is to analyze the types of grammatical, lexical items, and language resources used regarding the experiential, interpersonal, and textual functions that are all respectively realized by the register category of field, tenor, mode along with the schematic structure, and the unity of the speech texts. After being converted into clauses, the speech texts were analyzed. Although the doer is slightly different, the result of analysis revealed that the field, as the realization of the experiential function of the texts, is similar. As such, the realization of experiencing action taken by the speaker and audience for the advancement of America is a feature shared by the transitivity patterns focusing on material process, reference, and lexical string analysis. In the meantime, the interpersonal function which is realized by the tenor, differs slightly in that Joe Biden and Barack Obama developed a close distance with the audience, whereas in Donald Trump’s text, there is no sense of intimacy and a great deal of separation from the audience. Then, all texts belong to the spoken mode resulting from simple nominal group constructions. Pushing further, the texts were written in a similar manner in terms of their schematic organization, which included an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. The study also discovered that the texts are classified as being highly cohesive by the anaphoric references that were frequently employed, a strong pattern of conjunction linkages, and lexical relations between lexical items appearing across sentences.
