An Analysis of Context of Culture and Context of Situation in Obama’s Speech Text

Abstract

Functional systemic linguistics studies the meaning of texts. In Understanding the meaning of the text, it needs the involvment of situation context and cultural context. The aim of this research is to analyze the speech text conveyed by Barack Obama in terms of situation context and cultural context. This research used descriptive qualitative approach as research design. Technique of data analysis uses the context of situation and cultural context analysis as formulated by Suzanne Eggins (2004) and Halliday and Hasan (1985). The result showed that situation context is determined in terms of field, tenor, and mode. The field of the text is about description of the problems faced by American State and how to solve those problems. The tenor of this text describes that relation between Barak Obama and the audience is not equal. The mode of the text shows that the text was conveyed orally and rewriten by the journalist in the form of written text. Then, the cutural context is determined in terms of the word choice in making the meaning of the text. in addition, cultural context is also detemined by the genre and the purpose of text. Thus, it is analitical text whose purpose is to give the new hope and the solution to crises happening in America.

Keywords

• context of culture
• context of situation
• speech text