Prof. Dr. Hussein Hameed Ma’yuuf (Ph.D.)1 Ahmed Fleih Hassan2
English Department, College of Education for Human Sciences, Babylon University, Iraq.
Email: husm56@gmail.com
2 University of Babylon
HNSJ, 2022, 3(1); https://doi.org/10.53796/hnsj3128
Published at 01/01/2022 Accepted at 23/12/2021
Abstract
The current paper is to deal with the analysis of the main notions of transitivity and modality in trump’s speeches in a published interview in THE SUN British periodical in relation to the connotations of the increasing issues of racism against the migrating community .The analysis followed is to focuses on the categorization of types of processes used throughout his speech as well as analyzing the modality employed in the data by , following Halliday’s systematic functional grammar(2014) . Though trumps sentences are simple , but they could have two or three subordinates each. The data is to be classified into clauses, each clause is considered as containing a subject plus a predicate. It starts with the analysis of the speeches that carry the focus of the study , then listing some tables of these processes and also listing some tables of the modality used in the data.
Key Words: : process, modality, political figure, migrants.
People often choose the most suitable structures and lexemes while they are speaking. There is a lot of afford and precautions in choosing the meaningful patterns while speaking so as to obtain perfect responses. Political speakers and politicians tend to use a very skillful manipulation of the linguistic command as they use their linguistics repertoire to move the congregation in such as way or make the public to accept or adopt certain views or perspectives. The use of language can reflect benefit of encoding the legal path for the dictators. Language is considered as influential roles in conveying the message and justifying the end.
It is clear that the legitimate and official presidential discourse is considered to be rich domain of data for applied linguistics fields. Political figures use the language in a way that they attempt to convey certain highlighting words or issues for instigating the public to listen to them. The presidential and political speeches provide reflections for their ideas and notions. According the notion of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), people connect their vocabulary and grammar as they interact. The current study deals with the Lexico-grammar application in Trump’s speech.
SFL is a linguistic approach that is initiated and developed by Halliday during 1960s. Halliday (2004) points out that SFL deals with language as meanings rather than a mere combination of syntactic structures. He declares that language is interpreted in term of social context to accomplish certain objectives. According to these views, language is seen as a system of meaning potential. Meaning is often related to grammatical structures. This approach adopts the grammatical and meaningful description of language. According to this approach language is divided into three layers; semantic, phonology and lexico grammar. The meaning of language is represented in context, structure, system, stratification, and meta-functions.
According to this perspective, which is Halliday and Matthiessen (2014), language is deemed as a theory of human experience. Therefore, Transitivity is considered an essential tool for critical discourse analysis. This tool is based on the principles of SFL approach. Transitivity tool has six processes which are material, verbal, mental, relational, behavioral, and existential. The type of the verb can help acknowledge each process. The material verb reflects the material process which can have Actor, Goal, and Affected participants. Verbal verbs categorize the verbal process. This verbal process has Sayer, Receiver, and Verbiage participants. The mental process refers to the mental process which has Senser and Phenomenon participants. Relational processes are denoted in term of linking verbs which have Carrier-Attribute, Identifier Identified, and Possessor-Possessed participants. Finally, the behavioral processes are denoted by behavioral verbs which have Behaver participant. The empty subject ‘there’ and ‘it’ being followed by the copular structures are used to denote the existential process. The two systems which are chosen to realize are transitivity and modality. Transitivity is considered the means by which the experiential meaning of Donald Trump’s speech is revealed. On another hand, modality denotes the considerable connection of the tool with the aim of divulging the inner structure and the hidden speech of Trump and the audience.
According to Halliday & Mathiessen, (2014), Thompson (2004), and Fontaine (2013), there are three processes which are Material Mental and Verbal. These major clauses can have subtypes clauses which are Relational, Behavioral and Existential sub-processes. Each process can play very influential role in clause in relation to participants. Thus, the types of processes can be manifest in term of the participants who do specific function as follows;
2.1 Material Process and Participants
Materiel process refers to the process of rendering the experience of action and events within the clause. Material process often has actor’s participant (the doer) and goal participant. There are two categories of participant which are beneficiary and scope. The beneficiary is the participant who benefit from the process while the scope refers to the description of process domain. (Fontaine, 2013).
2.2 Mental Process and Participants
The mental process is described as being sense-build process. It is viewed internally, and there are two main participants with in this process which are Senser and Phenomenon. The Senser performs the function of sensing whereas Phenomenon is concerned with the thing being sensed. The last one demonstrates person, fact, thing or concrete. The mental processes are mainly four which are cognitive, perceptive, desiderative and emotive.(Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014)
The relational process manifest certain feature that can be related the process of the verb ‘ be’ , ‘ seem, , ‘ appear’ and other procession verbs such as ‘ have ‘ own’. There are mainly two categories of relational process which are carrier and identifying. The discrepancy here is based on the participants’’ role and function. Thus, the description of a case or a situation is assigned to the relational attributive, which can be made of two participants which are Carrier and Attribute. However, the second function of the relational process is the identifying and implying. In the sense, the process is sued to show something via something else. Thus, the element of token and values are used to help identify the other in the process. (Bloor & Bloor , 2014),
2.3 Verbal Process and Participants
The verbal process denotes the activity of saying in association with three participants. The first one is related to the Sayer who refers to the producer of what is said. The second participant is related to the Verbiage that demonstrates what is said. The Third participant is Target which identifies the entity that the utterance is attributed.
2.4 Behavioral Process and Participants
Human physiological and psychological behaviour are exposed via the behavioral processes. These behaviors include breathing, coughing, smiling and so on. The first participant is Behaviour that refers to the entity behaving. The second participant is called as the Behaviour Range.( Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014)
2.5 Existential Process and Participants
Existential process is a simple process concerning its form. As the names suggests, this process refers to the representation of the phenomenon of existence inside the clause. This process is found in the existence of the verb (be) and the subject ‘there’. The participant in this process is named existent that denotes the existent thing. (Fontaine, 2013).
Overview Process Type
| Process Category | Meaning types | Participants involved | Participant obliquely involved |
| Material | Doing , happening | Actor , goal | Recipient , client, imitator |
| Behavioural | Behaving | Behaver | Behaviour |
| Mental | Sensing | Senser , phenomena | __________ |
| Verbal | Saying | Sayer , target | Receiver , verbiage |
| Relational | ‘Identifying’ “attributing | ”attribute”
“Carrier” “Identifier” |
Attributor |
| Existential | Existing | Exit | ________ |
3.Modality System as a Framework of Interpersonal Meaning
Modality is considered as analytical tool in the use of the systemic Functional Grammar. This tool is proposed by Halliday. Modality can manifest the interpersonal meaning. Halliday and Matthiessen ( 2014) view that the interpersonal meta- function of language isn’t limited to the process of swapping utterances between the speaker and the listener , but it demonstrates the meaning throughout the speaker’s opinions and judgment that are expressed with the clause in relation to a certain discourse or topic.. Modality can be expressed by both modal verbs and adjuncts. There are generally two types of modality which are modalization and modulation.
3.1 Degrees of Modalization and Modulation
Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) declare that there are mainly three levels of modality selection. This can help identify the speaker’s doubt for both the proposition and the proposal. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014) stated out that there the expression of modal can include a miscellaneous function related to the Modality selection. They state that the modal expressions can represent both modalization and modulation. Modalization is expressed by modal verbs as well as adjunct of probability and usuality. However, Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) expound the nature of modulation in relation to the reflection modal verb exclusively. This can reflect the use of Modulation within the Mood part of the clause. According to Halliday and Matthiessen (2014), modality is defined in relation to the resource of the speaker to intrude with their discourse views, their typical assessment, and their judgments, regarding the right or wrong of the situation as well as other peoples stand in this concern.
Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) suggest three types degrees to modality that reflect the extent in which speaker is not completely sure when he makes a proposition or a proposal. These types of degrees for Modalization expressed by probability are
1- High degree: when a speaker uses modals as ( must , can’t or couldn’t) .
2- Median degree: when a speaker uses modals as ( will be , wont or should) .
3- Low degree: when a speaker uses modals as ( may be , may , or can) .
Degrees of Modality
| High | Medium | Low |
| Must , can couldn’t | Want , shall , will | May , can |
The concept of racism is not limited on beliefs or statements but it can extend to cover the possibility of forcing that belief as being the basis for rights denial or rejecting equality. Racism is clearly manifested in the power of relations of various types. It is clear that racism is not only a declaration of segregation or difference between groups, but it can also exposing the inequitable systems of socially identified power as well as the behavioral reflection such as rejection , avoidance , discrimination , exterminating acts and physical harms.
The increasing issue of racism and ethnicism can be considered one of the most serious problems in the society in the Western Europe especial against the immigrant from Mediterranean country and formerly colonized countries as those of African countries. Though there are various types of racism , the prejudice and discrimination of the White group against ‘guest workers’ or black immigrant can be a typical example of this issues. Turkish or North African, Asian and Caribbean countries communities are considered to undergo harmful racial activities. (Van Dijk, 1989).
There can be analysis of the specific types of discourse that can characterize the language use with typical grammatical structures that can help form such discourse. This means that there can be an explicit of languages use in different types of discourse or context that can help presuppose the potential variation of grammatical forms in miscellaneous contexts. (Van Dijk, 2013)
Furthermore, Van Dijk makes clear that the grammatical analysis of language use in different perspective and discourse. This can be expressed by sentence structures that help to manifest certain semantic roles of various participants in an event by word alignment, as well as the relational function or the object or the subject in addition to the use of the active or passive structure. (Van Dijk, 2013)
Van Dijk discussed the fact that the Western countries generally have a negative response toward these types of analysis and the interpretation is taken to be directing to the breaking of the control and attaching the fundamental values in the societies. Furthermore, these analyses are considered to violate the concept of the democratic government as well as being constraint for the principle of freedom. (Van Dijk, 2013)
The political speech can be clear as being a violent event as well as a rich material to collect because it can be the head line for many social communication platforms. The war condition and situation can be considered as rich areas for various political examples that can provide various topic and discourses. (Van Dijk, 2013)
Political speech is considered as a relatively independent on where it is produced by a political figure before an audience. The key function of the political discourse is to persuade rather than informing. The speakers (politician) can have a direct confrontation with the audience to deal with argumentative case in the public discussion. The main goal of the political speech is to win the persuasion of the audience and directing them to accept the speaker’s proposal.
Critical Linguistics proposes that the accept analysis of the linguistic tools refer to shared historical and social context which can makes the ideology of the discourse clear. In this sense, Critical approach of linguistics expounds the social and political operations.
In addition, the critical analysis of discourse can have additional analyzing tools from the critical analysis of rhetoric in order to arrange situation where discursive practices are invented or remade or being modified. (Mirjana, 2006)
Moreover, Patricia can go in line with Mirjana where she stated that the political discourse analysis is dubious and multi-faced in the nominal and the daring as well. The political critical discourse can either denote the analysis of the political discourse in text and talk within political context or can refer to the a political and critical approach discourse that is related with the comprehending the function and the aim of the political discourse with criticizing the role of the discourse in showing the power in the contemporary societies. (Patricia, 2012)
There is an inclination that the political figures have to follow or stick the written speech by those who write political speech so as to appear as truthful and well organized for the sake of grasping the audience’s attention. The successful political speaker has to be able to appeal to the needs, attitudes and emotion of the listeners. This means that the politicians have to be very carefully skillful in giving the political speech. This speech needs to gain the public emotion and agreement. (Charteris-Black, 2005)
However, Political discourse, as Gastil’s definition, is “when political actors, in and out of government, communicate about political matters for political purposes”. It is clear that the general idea of political discourse is that it refers to a discourse that is written by specialized personnel to be spoken out by political actors. These actors can vary as politicians, candidates, policy constructors. (Gastil, 1992)
Political discourse aims at deconstructing the implicit ideology that is hidden in the text. It is clear that the most interesting fact about the political discourse is that it can reveal the relationship between language and ideology especially in the present debate of the political discourse within in the critical discourse. Furthermore, the critical linguistics can help understand the relationship between the language and the ideological orientation with the discourse. The deals to the fact that critical discourse analysis (CDA) is considered as a tool to analyze, interpret and study political discourse in a critically organized programme to understand its impact on the society. (Fowler et al. , 1979),
The major goal of the Critical discourse analysis is to analyze different kinds of public speeches including political speech, written debate, official documents and advertising scripts. Furthermore, critical discourse analysis can help to investigate the connection or the relationship between languages, ideological inclination alongside power. In addition, it aims at exposing the manipulation of language to reflect dominance and control through text.
Tracing back the historical surveys of the migration can help make a better understanding of what is the real situation in world today. The current article deals with the critical language and cultural studies in relation to the development of the frame in order to deal with migration and racism in the public domain. Critical discourse analysis is one of the active involvements to discourse in the social filed which is considered one of the critical approaches. This study also aims at preparing the foundation for the denaturalizing process of language concerning migration as it appears public political speech. The focus is to deal mainly with the aspect of racial frameworks in the western countries as there is a large community of white people. This can makes the issues that are related to the public treatments of inequality and increasing of the racial situation in various fields.
It is clear that the process of migration is considered as one of the consistent part of human being. This history of this process shows the fact that it is a useful one. However, the present study sheds light on the developments of its formula as to deals with the racial implication and migration in the public room nowadays. The theoretical part includes the Critical Discourse Analysis which is taken to be one of the active foundations of the discourse analysis in the social treatments. It is evident that critical theory is generally concerned with the empirical methods that are derived from cultural spaces so as to focus on the power and ideology that help construct the nowadays discourse of serious issues such as racism and migration. In this sense, discourse can start form the definition of culture form anthropological perspective which can manifest the either the better or worse principle for life. According to Vlad (2018), community can be highly affected by exertion of power in various human language exchanges as being main concern of the critical framework to deal with the discourse in contemporary situation of the world.
Massive movements and migration of people have come to impact a large number of communities on the international level in Europe as well as different part of world. These movements are considered to influence the national and the global conditions. Politicians and theorist are meant to deal with the effects and bad consequences of the migration in various ways of inquiry. This inquire can further include the different branches of cultural approach that are connected to the contemporary structures of Critical Theory.
7.Model of Analysis
The researchers of this paper will applies Halliday’s theory of Systemic Functional Grammar approach (2014) as a model of analysis . precisely , the theory is to be considered in terms of its Transitivity processes and Modality . The analysis of the data is made by following a qualitative study.
The data incorporating in this study is reflected in the form or structures of clauses in comply with the racist declarations against the migrant in American community. The speech that is to shed light on is made up in the period in 2019 to deal with miscellaneous issues. The excerpt is adopted from various forms or text.
This part of the paper deals with the analyzing procedures of the main concepts of transitivity and modality in relation to the collected data. The data to be focused on is delivered by Trump, the ex-president of America .The analysis that is followed focuses on the various classifications of kinds or the processes that are used in the president speech in addition to the examining of the modality implementing in the data according to the notion found in Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar (2012).
In his interview with the Sun the British newspaper, the American president trump expresses his point of view concerning the big move of immigration to Europe and the attitude against that. He started his speech using his own known ideology that exaggerates issues connected to European countries and how they have to be on the top and never to be affected or on other communities from other countries rather than the European countries. He starts his speech warning the European countries from the immigration and describes it as a serious danger that can surely affect and destroy the culture of Britain focusing on the immigration of the Middle East and Africa to the European countries. He stresses the they have to stop it and to take an urgent action to stop it in order to maintain the whole European culture.in his interview, he direct a massage to the European leader in particular the prime minister of Britain Theresa that the immigration to Brittan country is destroying their country and can be a serious factor that make them lose their culture and leading Europe the worse.
Trump repeats his rejection to the admission for million immigrants and stresses upon taking a serious step against the immigrants considering them a serious danger that threats the European countries.
He uses certain ideology in exchanging tis attitude with Britain and the other European countries. He reflects in his speech the racism against the immigration from the Middle East and African regarding them as enemies that can surely destroy the Britain culture from all aspect of life whether socially and economically. He uses certain speeches that reflect how a bad attitude he take and asking the European leaders to take particularly through the use of the first person pronoun (I, we).he describes the acceptance or the admission to the immigrants to enter Britain is shame on
Table (1) Transitivity Analysis of (Material Process)
| Actor | Process | Goal | Recipient , attribute |
| It | Changed | The fabric | Europe |
| I | Think what has happened | Shame | Europe |
| Trump | Defended | Himself | allies |
| Every one | Thanked | Me | me |
In this process (material) Trump uses the material process in order to show the series of the actions that have been taken against of emigrant more towards Europe.
He uses such kind of process in order for showing his passive attitude against migrant to European countries. Trump keeps on stressing that the European countries are losing their culture because of receiving large number of immigrants. The president tries to have Germany, Britain, and Scotland to stop that movement of immigrants.
He uses the material process throughout using the verb such as (lose, think) beside to the use of the pronoun (I) to show his dominant role as well as his power.
Table (2) Transitivity analysis of (Mental process)
| Senser | Mental process | Phenomenon |
| I | Think allowing millions and millions of people to come | Europe is very very sad |
| I | Think what happened to Europe is | shame |
| You | Know | There is a blood all over the walls |
| I | Guess it uses to be | The ultimate |
Trump uses such kind of process through the use of verbs such as (think, guess) in order to be emotionally affective. He says that European countries as, members of his family and shows that in his speech by saying “I am a product of European countries’; in attempt to declare that the situation pains him personally as being son of Europe.
Table (3) The Transitivity Analysis of (Verbal process)
| Sayer | Process | Target , receiver | Verbiage |
| He | Claimed | ________ | The situation pains him personally as the son of the two European counties |
| Trump | Told | The Sun | I have great love for countries in Europe |
| I | ’ ll tell | You | We have had 40 year of presidents saying the same thing in a nicer way and that got nothing |
| I | Told | People | I will be unhappy if they did it u their commitment. |
Throughout this type of process, the speaker tries to show his fear from large number of migrants to Europe. The president conveys his message of being personally badly affected. He uses verbal process to transform his fear against migration by urging the European countries to get ride or at least to stop that movement. The use of the words such as saying ‘I’, using the pronoun “I” to show how important his role is in keeping the European countries through his defend. The verbal process is the domain one as the president tries to make himself connected with European as they have the same fear
Table (4) Transitivity analysis (behavioural process)
| Behaver | Behaviour |
| Trump | Dubbed “warzone” during speak in Mat to the Matirnal Rifle Association about spiraling change posed by knife crime. |
| The US | Pags 4.2 percent of a much larger GDP |
| Mr. Trump | Defended himself against allies |
| Fred president | Macron denied Nato allies |
The speaker (Trump) uses this process to refer to the importance of stopping migrant by showing that throughout the negative effects. He states that the US did much effort for the sakes of European language so; they must stop that more as support to the US attitude.
Table (5) Transitivity Analysis (Relational Process)
| Attribute | Identifying |
| What has happened to Europe | is a shame |
| Millions of millions of people to come to Europe | Is very ,very sad |
| They are taking the advantages of the United States | I am not going to let his happen |
The speaker tries to focus upon one important, general aspect that is against the large move of the migration. Trump tries to link ideas to form an intensive strategy for the European countries to agree with attitude intensifying other for the sake of the countries of the necessity of being against migration from around the world to the European countries.
Table (6) Transitivity Analysis (Existential Process)
| Existing | Existent |
| I am a product | Of the European union between the Scotland and Germany |
| I think what has happened to Europe | is a shame |
| I have a great love for | Countries in Europe |
| You go through certain areas | That didn’t east ten or 15 years ago |
In the Existential process, the speaker dominantly repeats words like that of ‘Europe’ by saying ‘European allies, European countries, European Union.
Trump keeps on using this repetition and emphasis so as to show that these countries are different and too easily to considered such as other counties in the world. In this process, the speaker highly indicates the case of racism.
Different levels of modality are used by the speaker in his speech . Every different use is to convey certain function and to reflect particular attitude of the speaker
Table (7) Examples of Modalization (Probability)
| Modality Clause | Indication |
| __ “I’ll tell you what”
“Nato estimated 15 numbers will meet the aim by 2020 based in current trends” __ he could pull the US out of the Nato ” |
Probability |
| -“THERESA Must listen to her generals” | Obligation |
|
Declination |
| “ I am not going to let to happen |
The application of the transitivity processes explained are socially meaningful and potential that is reflected in the speech of the president Trump , the former president of the United State. He reflects the material process by using forms such as ‘think, lose’ with the pronoun ‘I’ to reflect dominance. The meaning of mental process is reflected by the use of form such as ‘think, guess that can help to reflect emotional affection. The verbal processes potential of meaning is manifested in his speech to express his fear from a large wave of the immigrants to European countries. The Process is considered to be the dominant in his speeches. The president uses the behavioral process to show the negative effects of the migration. Throughout the use of forms, meaning is declared that shows there is racism against the migrations wave to the European countries throughout the speech . Meaning is changed according to degree of modality that reflects the consideration of exchanging the meaning within various forms. The meta function meaning of transitivity is convey by the use of four major processes which are the material, mental, verbal and behavioural.
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