(Luận văn thạc sĩ) linguistic features of donald trump’s tweets from the systemic functional grammar perspective

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY NGUYỄN XUÂN THI LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF DONALD TRUMP’S TWEETS h FROM THE SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR PERSPECTIVE MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH LINGUISTICS Binh Dinh, 2020 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY NGUYỄN XUÂN THI LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF DONALD TRUMP’S TWEETS FROM THE SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR PERSPECTIVE h FIELD: English Linguistics CODE: 8.22.02.01 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr NGUYỄN THỊ THU HIỀN BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN NGUYỄN XUÂN THI CÁC ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGÔN NGỮ CỦA DONALD TRUMP’S TWEETS THEO QUAN ĐIỂM NGỮ PHÁP CHỨC NĂNG h Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số: 8.22.02.01 Người hướng dẫn: PGS TS NGUYỄN THỊ THU HIỀN i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify that this thesis with the title “Linguistic features of Donald Trump‟s Tweets from the Systemic Functional Grammar Perspective” is entirely my own original work In addition, I emphasize that this thesis has not been submitted for any purposes in any materials Any works of other authors consulted in this thesis are listed in the reference Quy Nhon, 2020 NGUYỄN XUÂN THI h ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This master thesis would not have been accomplished in time without the huge assistance of all individuals around me First and foremost, I have to thank my research supervisor, Assor Prof Nguyen Thi Thu Hien, who has devoted her time and effort to guiding and giving invaluable counsel for me despite her huge workload Without her assistance and dedicated involvement in every step throughout the process, this thesis would have never been taken shape Secondly, My sincere thanks also go to all my friends for sharing helpful materials and experiences during my study They raised many precious points in our discussion and I hope that I have managed to address several of them here h Thirdly, I am deeply grateful to all lectures not only from Quy Nhon University but also from other universities for their whole-hearted contribution to sharpening my academic knowledge during the previous semester I would like to sincerely thank for the cooperation and support of the Department of Postgraduate Training and the Department of Foreign Languages of Quy Nhon University Last but not least, I would like to thank my family who always stands by me while my thesis was in process and has helped me overcome many unexpected difficulties during the course and the thesis Quy Nhon, 2020 iii ABSTRACT This thesis applied the Systematic Functional Grammar framework developed by Halliday to offer an overall analysis of the linguistic features of President Donald Trump‟s Tweets More specifically, the main purpose of this study is to investigate three metafunctions of the language to reveal the experiential, textual, and interpersonal features of Donald Trump's tweets President Donald Trump‟s Tweets which are from the reliable website: https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump are collected and analyzed The quantitative and qualitative method is employed in this thesis to investigate the frequency of the linguistic resources and to discuss three meanings expressed through their functional systems, namely Transitivity, Theme, Rheme, and Mood structure In detail, as for Interpersonal features, the declarative mood presenting dominant Mood and modal verbs as a type of h Modality are utilized at a higher rate than the others In terms of textual features, unmarked topical themes become the dominant theme type among the others Regarding experiential features, the tendency in the use of material process and the relational process is more favored than other processes by the presenter in Donal Trump's Tweets From these results, the thesis is expected to significantly contribute to addressing the gap in previous studies related to functional grammar and helpful material for people who are interested in writing, especially writing Tweets iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii ABSTRACT iii CONTENTS iv LIST OF TABLES vi LIST OF CHARTS vii LIST OF FIGURE vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aim and Objectives 1.2.1 Aim of the study 1.2.2 Objectives of the study h 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Significance of the study 1.5 Scope of the study 1.6 Organization of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Systemic functional grammar 2.1.1 The Experiential metafunction 2.1.2 The interpersonal metafunction 15 2.1.3 The Textual metafunction 18 2.2 The application of Systemic Functional Grammar in discourse analysis 21 2.3 Tweets as a genre 23 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 25 3.1 Research methods 25 v 3.2 Data collection 25 3.3 Data Analysis 25 3.4 Validity and Reliability 26 3.5 Research Procedures 26 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 28 4.1 Interpersonal features 28 4.1.1 Mood in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 28 4.1.2 Modality in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 33 4.2 Textual features 39 4.2.1 Topical Theme 40 4.2.2 Interpersonal Theme 44 4.2.3 Textual Theme 47 4.3 Experiential features 51 4.3.1 Material processes 52 h 4.3.2 Mental processes 54 4.3.3 Relational processes 55 4.3.4 Verbal processes 57 4.3.5 Behavioral processes 58 4.3.6 Existential processes 58 4.3.7 Circumstances 59 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 63 5.1 Introduction 63 5.2 Conclusions 63 5.3 Implications 64 5.4 Limitations 65 5.5 Suggestions for further research 65 REFERENCES 66 vi LIST OF TABLES Table Name of Tables page number Summary of Processes, their meanings and Participants 13 2.2 Types of circumstances 14 2.3 Primary speech role 15 2.4 Types of Modality 17 2.5 The degree of Modalization & Modulation 17 4.1 Mood types in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 28 4.2 Declarative structures in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 30 4.3 Types of modality in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 34 4.4 Probability Indicators in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 37 4.5 Obligation Indicators in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 37 4.6 Usuality indicators in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 38 4.7 Inclination indicators in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 39 4.8 Topical Theme in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 41 4.9 Unmarked and marked Topical Theme in Donald h 2.1 Trump‟s Tweets 42 vii LIST OF CHARTS Chart Name of Charts number 4.1 Distribution of Full and Elliptical declarative in Donald Trump‟s Tweets page 31 4.2 Probalitity value in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 35 4.3 Types of Theme in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 40 4.4 Distribution of Interpersonal elements in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 44 4.5 Textual Theme in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 47 4.6 Process types in Donald Trump‟s Tweets 51 4.7 Distribution of Circumstances in Donald Trump‟s h Tweets 59 LIST OF FIGURE Figure Name of Figure page Metafunctional Solidarity across Planes (Halliday and number 2.1 Martin, 1993, p.34)