A critical discourse analysis of president trump speeches in the united nation general assembly

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TRAN NGOC ANH TRAM

A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF PRESIDENT TRUMP’S SPEECHES

IN THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8.22.02.01

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TRAN NGOC ANH TRAM

PHAN TICH DIEN NGON PHE PHAN

TRONG CAC BAI PHAT BIEU CUA TONG THONG TRUMP

TAI DAI HOI DONG LIEN HIEP QUOC

Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh

Ma sé: 8.22.02.01

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Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma

No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgements in the thesis

This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution

Binh Dinh, 2020

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ABSTRACT

This study applied a Critical Discourse Analysis perspective to investigate three political speeches of President Trump’s in the United Nations Assembly General The data for analysis in this thesis was taken from the official website in the US, so the quality of the data is entirely reliable and available The study was based on the theory of Critical Discourse Analysis of Norman Fairclough with three parts: Description, Interpretation, and Explanation It focused on the textual description The research employed qualitative and quantitative approaches The results show that strategies of grammatical structure use to reflect the surrounding world like transitivity

with two main processes material and relational; passive/ active structures,

positive/ negative sentences, and nominalization was used in political speeches The findings show that politicians employ linguistic features and persuasive strategies to represent their power and ideology Besides, this

thesis can be used as a reference for teachers, learners, or those who are

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TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP 0 ccccccccccccccccccccccececeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees 1 x20 il TABLE OF CONTENTS 10 iil LIST OF TABLES 2000.00 vi LIST OF FIGURES 1.0 Vil CHAPTER 1.INTRODUCTION 22 iiäá.a Ị LL Rationale ¬ | I2 0ï 2600) v 5 an 3 In: = dỔỒÝẢẢ 3 I2 900v 3 1.3 Research (QuestIOnS . - cccc S212 111v vn cv 4 I N00 sa 4

1.5 Significance of the Study 5 1.6 Organization Of the Study .ccccccccccceeseseeeeeceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesaaneeeeeeeeeaaees 5

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL

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CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODS .cccccccccccccccccccccceceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees 21 3.1 Research methOdÌs - - - << - - 1111101111101 11 1199 1 111 11k 21 3.2 (i00 00(09-0)0)/ìvcẢẢẢ 21 3.3 Data COlÏ€C(IOTI G G G G1 HT re 22 S0, gi hố na 23 SN 2i: 0i (0/703 a0 ea 23 SG an 24

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 3 1 President Trump’s speeches in the United Nation General

ˆ C09110 - Ăễằễ 23

Table 4 1 Material process in three President Trump’s political speeches 26

Table 4 2 Mental process in three President Trump’s political speeches 32

Table 4 5 Verbal process in three President Trump’s political speeches 44

Table 4 6 Transitivity in three President Trump’s political speeches 49 Table 4 7 Distribution of Active/Passive sentences in three President

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Discourse as text, interaction and context (Fairclough, 1989) 11

Figure 2.2 Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework for the analysis of 6) 109)0181EVHH 12 Figure 2.3 Explanation (Fatrclough, Language and Power) 15 Figure 4.1 Transitivity in English political speeches - - - 50 Figure 4.2 Distribution of Active/Passive sentences in three President

I q00 05816 9)0i (2 :10)6- x0 1 ‹‹a 54

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1.1 Rationale

Nowadays, the world is changing rapidly day by day with the development and enhancement of everything Therefore, the interest in the language field has been more and more increase, mastering a language helps people approach with a lots of world news such as politics, society, business, etc The explosion of the mass media, information technology has created conditions and opportunities for people to communicate, link and share Language plays an important role in all aspects of our lives It can be used to verbal or non-verbal communication such as gestures, body language and tone of voice effectively Moreover, language is also said to be a means to convey inner thoughts and emotions and influence other's minds through ideology and power embedded in language use We can discover the relationship between them when linguists investigate in the immense field of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

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important and popular targets of CDA It describes the dialectical relationship between the use of language and the power to emphasize the theoretical value and practical value Theoretically, it provides a new approach to political analysis to the text The analysis of grammar and vocabulary in the examples of the political speeches demonstrates a part of the analysis from the CDA perspective Moreover, the lexical analysis in a sentence can be carried out in many aspects, such as relational value, expressive value of metaphors Using the values of vocabulary aims to enhance the interaction between writers and

readers Meanwhile, the values of grammar (the experiential, relational, and

expressive value of grammar), as well as textual structure, were analyzed in the same way

CDA has been used to study many different aspects of linguistics by a number of researchers and scholars studying For example, Hanh (2016) did a research “A critical discourse analysis of online game advertisements in English” Nhu (2016) studied the thesis about CDA abstract of education journal articles in English and Vietnamese In 2018, Duong researched about CDA of the speeches of Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May In fact, many researchers have focused on certain linguistic features of the politicians’ speeches; however, it is interesting to explore the language the current president of the United States Donald Trump

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will provide some useful knowledge of CDA in politics field for language learners Moreover, I strongly hope to help language teachers and learners find it is useful for them to understand and apply CDA in their teaching and learning English

1.2 Aims & Objectives

4.2.2 Aims

This research aims to discover the textual description in terms of grammar analysis within the framework of CDA in the speeches of President Donald Trump It also aims at clarifying his speeches in the grammar analysis of the language of CDA It provides learners of English with practical information and to raise their awareness of critical discourse analysis in political speeches in English Moreover, this thesis is to investigate the significant contribution of the experiential values of grammatical features have in Trump’ speeches It also identified the nominalization, active/ passive sentences, and positive/ negative sentences were used in the speeches of President Donald Trump’s in United Nations General Assembly

4.2.3 Objectives

To achieve the aims of the study, the following objectives are intended

to:

- Investigate the textual description in terms of grammar analysis in political speeches by America’s 45th President in United Nations General Assembly

- Highlight the significant contribution of the experiential values employed in Trump’s speeches

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The following questions are posed, based on the aims and objectives mentioned above, to guide the research process:

1 What are the discourse features of President Trump’s speeches in United Nations General Assembly in terms of grammar analysis in CDA?

2 What are the nominalizations, active/ passive sentences, and

positive/ negative sentences that were used in President Trump’s speeches in United Nations General Assembly?

1.4 Scope of the Study

In this thesis, the scope of study is limited to the CDA in three President Trump’s speeches in United Nations General Assembly and their respective functions It focuses on the textual description in terms of grammar analysis of political speeches basing on CDA

This study followed the description stage according to Fairclough‘s framework It investigates the process of the experiential values of grammatical features have in Trump’ speeches This study also identifies the nominalization, active/ passive sentences, and positive/ negative sentences were used in the speeches of President Donald Trump in United Nations General Assembly The interpretation and explanation stages will not be included because the substance of “analysis” changes from stage to stage In the description, analysis is generally seen as a matter of identifying and ‘labelling’ formal features of a text in terms of the categories of a descriptive framework In the interpretation, it is the cognitive process of participants, and in the explanation, it is relationships in transitory social events

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field of CDA’s research This study will be useful and meaningful to the discourse analysis study Besides, it can be a foundation for further studies on speech’s analysis in light of CDA

The findings of this study will firstly contribute to the benefit of English learners in the teaching and learning in general and in political speeches in particular This study also discovered how effective language is used to transfer ideas, affect people’s perception about things in education in particular and affect society in general Furthermore, it will not only help them get special styles but also provide them with some necessary strategies and techniques in using words in speeches

1.6 Organization of the study

The study was organized in five chapters as follow: Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter covers the rationale, aims, and objectives, research

questions, the significance of the study, the scope of the study and the organization of the study

Chapter 2: Literature Review and Theoretical Back ground

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description of samples, data analysis Chapter 4: Finding and Discussion

This chapter demonstrates the results of analyzing data to find out of critical element used in President Trump’s speeches in United Nations Assembly

Chapter 5: Conclusion and Implications

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BACKGROUND 2.1 Theoretical background

2.2.1 The concept of Discourse analysis

Discourse is the form of communication in both verbal and text which has an important role in providing a body of text for various types of analysis The discourse was being researched by many linguists, and, it is defined with many different definitions

According to Crystal (1992) that, discourse is a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a

coherent unit such as a sermon, argument, joke, or narrative."

Nuan (1993) said that, discourse can be defined as a stretch of language consisting of several sentences which are perceived as being related in some way

Besides, some linguists who emphasize the function of discourse view

discourse as language in use As Cook (1989) defined that, “language in use,

for communication is called discourse”

Salkie (1995) remarked that “discourse” is “a stretch of language that may be longer than a sentence”

In addition, others say that discourse is beyond language in use, discourse is more than language itself, reflecting non-linguistic phenomena Jaworski Adam and Nikolas Coupland (1999), maintains, discourse is language use relative to social, political, and cultural formations — it is language reflecting social order but also language shaping social order and shaping individuals

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Based on these definitions, the term discourse obviously can be understood in various ways depending on various aspects

Discourse analysis is a new area of language investigation It grows out of a variety of disciplines in the second half of this century, including linguistics, semiotics, psychology, anthropology and sociology

Brown & Yule (1983) remark that the term “discourse analysis” was used with a wide range of the meanings covering a wide range of activities at the intersection of disciplines from sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, philosophical linguistics and computational linguistic Brown and Yule also state that discourse analysis is the analysis of language in use

British discourse analysis was influenced by M.A.K Halliday’s framework that emphasizes the social functions of language and the thematic and informational structure of speech and writing

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discourse analysis as a study of how and for what purposes language is used in a certain context of a situation and the linguistic means to carry out these purposes

In this study, with the definitions mentioned above, the term of discourse is recognized as not only language in use for communication but also understood as language to be meaningful, unified and purposive It is an increasingly popular and important area of language study Furthermore, discourse analysis discusses not only about language itself but also how it relates with society, culture, and thought Discourse analysis is use to describe activities in several disciplines, as_ linguistics, sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics

2.2.2 Critical Discourse Analysis

Critical discourse analysis is a methodology that enables a vigorous assessment of what is meant when language is used to describe and explain There is a proliferation of terms within critical discourse analysis which is reflective of the various influences in the development of the methodology A

number of researchers and scholars have studied about CDA, so there are

many different definitions of CDA

In 1985, in his book “Handbook of Discourse Analysis”, Van Dijk

wrote:

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According to Van Dijk (1996), “CDA is obviously not a homogenous model, nor a school or a paradigm, but at most a shared perspective on doing linguistics, semiotic or discourse analysis”

Moreover, Fairclough (1995) in his definition perceives CDA as “discourse analysis which aims to systematically explore often opaque relationships of causality and determination between (a) discursive practice,

events and texts, and (b) wider social and cultural structures, relations and

processes; to investigate how such practices, events and texts arise out of and are ideologically shaped by relations of power and struggles over power; and to explore how the opacity of these relationships between discourse and society is itself a factor securing power and hegemony”

The following are several main points in CDA:

- Discourse is practice and social action (social life) Or in other words, CDA accepts language as a social phenomenon

- Discourse is as an expression of social life, knowledge, social practices

- Social conditions (context) have an important role for the formation and operation of discourse

- Individuals or organizations and social groups use language to express the value system or their sense The language itself does not have power, but those who use power, thus, language becomes power tool

- CDA not only reveals its value and meaning, but also analyzes and finds out if how language was used

2.2.3 Fairclough’s Analytical framework

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foundation for analysis Simultaneously, the linguistics theory mentioned which is the linguistic backbone of CDA Halliday (1994), is a theory of language that focuses on the function of language, explains language use in terms of the form and function of interactions SFG theorists hypothesize that every interaction can be understood at three levels: textually, interpersonally, and situated in a wider societal context (Rogers et al., 2005)

Fairclough showed a three - dimensional model for CDA consisting of three inter-related processes of analysis tied to three inter-related dimensions of discourse (Rogers et al., 2005) These three dimensions of discourses are text (description: formal prosperities of the text), discourse practice (interpretation: the relationship between text and interaction), and sociocultural practice (explanation: social determination of the processes of production and interpretation and their social effects)

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interaction with seeing the text as the product of a process of production, and as a resource in the process of interpretation

3 Explanation is concerned with the relationship between interaction and social context with the social determination of the processes of production and interpretation, and their social effects (Fairclough, 1989) a > Description Text analysi Text production and | (Text analysis) consumption ⁄ | Interpretation Text 7 | _ —— \ (Processing analysis) — ——” oS] Do EXP anation Expl Sociocultural practice (Social analysis) Figure 2.2 Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework for the analysis of discourse

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e Description

Description is the stage which is concerned with the formal properties of the text In detail, Fairclough (2001 )also poses ten questions and their sub- questions based on these formal properties of text through three values:

experiential, relational and expressive

Experiential value is connected with the worldview of the discourse producer Relational value is referred to social relationships which are created and sustained between the text producer and the participants Finally, expressive value is associated with the way the text producer evaluates what is being discussed The following is ten sub-questions,

1 What experiential values do words have?

- What classification schemes are drawn upon? - Are there words which are ideologically contested? - Is there rewording or over wording?

- What ideologically significant meaning relations (synonym, hyponym, antonym, ) are there between words?

2 What relational values do words have?

Are there euphemistic expressions?

Are there markedly formal or informal words? 3 What expressive values do words have?

4 What metaphors are used?

5 What experiential values do grammatical features have? - | What types of process and participant predominate? - Is agency unclear?

- Are processes what they seem?

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6 What relational values do grammatical features have?

What modes (declarative, grammatical question, imperative) are used? Are there important features of relational modality?

Are the pronouns we and you used? And if so, how? 7 What expressive values do grammatical features have? 8 How are sentences linked together?

What logical connectors are used?

- Are complex sentences characterized by coordination or subordination?

- What means are used for referring inside and outside? 9 What interactional conventions are used?

- Are there ways in which one participant controls? 10 What larger scale structures does the text have?

e Interpretation

Fairclough considered that interpretation is concerned with the relationship between text and interaction with seeing the text as the product of a process of production, and as a resource in the process of interpretation

Moreover, he also summarizes the interpretation stage in the form of three questions which can be answered in any particular discourse as follow:

1 Context: what interpretation(s) are participants giving to the situational and intertextual contexts?

2 Discourse type(s): what discourse type(s) are being drawn upon (hence what rules, systems or principles of phonology, grammar, sentence cohesion, vocabulary, semantics and pragmatics; and what schemata, frames and scripts)?

3 Difference and change: are answers to questions | and 2 different for

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interaction?

e Explanation

According to Fairclough, explanation is concerned with the relationship between interaction and social context with the social determination of the processes of production and interpretation, and their social effects The social effects and social determinants of discourse need to be investigated at three levels of social organization as the societal level, the institutional level, and

the situational level This is shown as follows: (~ » Societal Societal Institutional MR —— Discourse ——?MR Institutional Situational Situational Determinants Effects ` /

Figure 2.3 Explanation (Fairclough, Language and Power)

In the form of three questions like three questions in interpretation, Fairclough (2001) also summarizes what can be asked of a particular discourse under investigation:

1 Social determinants: What power relations at situational, institutional and societal levels help shape this discourse?

2 Ideologies: What elements of MR which are drawn upon have an ideological character?

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covert? Is the discourse normative with respect to MR or creative? Does it contribute to sustaining existing power relations, or transforming them?

In conclusion, According to Fairclough (1989), his analysis is on the basis of three elements including description, interpretation and explanation Besides, using the framework effectively aims to discover, investigate the relationship between language and language in use It also explores the relationship between text and social context

2.2.4 Systemic Functional Grammar’ role in CDA

According to Halliday, Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) is a

linguistic theory based on the central principle, in other words, in SFG,

language is a semiotic system and its users have unlimited choice in the creation of meanings In the idea of this approach, language is considered as a system of interrelated choices for expressing meaning, and language has evolved to ensure that function is performed

Halliday remarked that grammar is described as systems of choices, not rules This is based on the opinion that each grammatical structure involved in a choice which is one of the abilities that can be descriptive, so language is a meaning-making resource In addition, the meaning is considered "socially- based", and linguistics is the study of meaning in society

In Systemic Functional Grammar, the three categories are used as the basic for exploring how meanings are created and understood because they allow the matching of particular types of function/ meaning with particular types of working

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SFG is used as a tool to emphasize the syntactic structure of language and central function of language and also used to identify how language both acts on and is constrained by the social context

Besides, the CDA Foundation aims the description, interpretation and explanation of the relationship between the hard and the soft structure of language In addition, the correlation between context and language is based on the functional organization of both orders of meaning The main aim of CDA and SFG is to identifying how language acts upon social context and is constrained and influenced by this context

To conclude, SFG is really a useful tool to reveal this dialectical relationship between language and social context and very helpful in doing CDA

2.2 Previous studies

In the world, many researchers have focused on Critical Discourse Analysis in linguistics Many famous linguists such as Fairclough, Roger, and Gee have made great contributions in the study CDA in linguistics This form of linguistics also drew the attention of a number of researchers whose names are Kress & Hodge (1979), Rogers et al., (2005), Van Dijk (1985) and Fairclough (1989), etc At the time, their works served to explain and illustrate the main assumptions, principles and procedures of what has been known as CDA

In the late 1970s and the early 1980s, CDA was developed by Roger Fowler and Gunther Kress It is considered as an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse in the perspective that language is viewed as a form of social practice

Rogers et al., (2005) tried to explicitly comment on the intersections

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Discourse Analysis' and Fairclough (1989) in 'Language and power' to allow the theory and method of CDA to be reformulated and applied to important educational issues

The origin of CDA can be traced in critical theory of language which considers the use of “language as a form of social practice” (Fairclough, 1989)

Besides, there have also been several M.A theses regarding CDA In 2016, with the thesis “A critical discourse analysis on abstracts of Education Journal articles in English and Vietnamese”, Nhu (2016) applied the framework of CDA by Fairclough (2001) and the Systemic Functional Grammar by Halliday (1994) She showed how to use CDA to investigate the critical discourse features of abstracts in education journal articles in English and Vietnamese After analyzing, this thesis found out that English and Vietnamese education journal articles abstracts have some similarities in experiential, relational and textual values Besides, this thesis explored differences in using mode of use, prioritized topics, and lexical use strategies to realize the experiential

In the master thesis of Hanh (2016),“A critical discourse analysis of

online game advertisements in English”, she used both quantitative and qualitative method in analyzing her data This thesis has an overall view about

the linguistic features (lexical, grammatical features and textual structure), the

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found that the advertisers use linguistic features and convincing strategies to represent their power and ideology which influence and manipulate their customer’s perception and behavior

In addition, the study of critical discourse analysis (CDA) was also presented in the thesis of Duong (2018) with entitled “A critical discourse analysis of the speeches of Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May” The thesis is a critical discourse analysis of political speeches She employed both quantitative and qualitative approach in analyzing her data The thesis aims at exploring the relations among language, power and ideology manifested in two of these speeches

2.3 Political speech

The political speech focuses on its content and purposes, not the source of a message, the ways and means of expression of a political nature

Political speech can be defined as a public discussion that considers who

has authority to sanction, the allocation of public resources, who has the

authority to make a decision, as well as social meaning Political speech can also be used to comment on matters of public concern

Political speech is a very wide category and ubiquitous It can be a

discussion of countless issues like taxes, world events, immigration, healthcare, race, religion, abortion, and candidates for office, and is expressed

in a variety of media such as speeches, newspapers

Presidents, politics, protestors, talk show hosts, and editorial writers all

engage in a political speech to discuss and debate important issues It can be extremely powerful, eloquent, intellectual, and respectful as some famous works: Vietnam's Declaration of Independence of Ho Chi Minh, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and Shepard Fairey’s famous “Hope” poster of

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2.4 Summary

In this chapter, the literature review and the theoretical background of the research are presented It focused on discussing CDA, moreover, Fairclough‘s frameworks, the influences of systematic functional grammar to the CDA and the processes were also mentioned in this chapter Besides, I also have reviewed previous studies that related to CDA which has been studied by many researchers

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CHAPTER 3

RESEARCH METHODS

3.1 Research methods

This study was based on the Fairclough’s analytical framework which includes three steps of critical discourse analysis in term of three factors: description (text analysis), interpretation (processing analysis) and explanation (social analysis)

In this research, quantitative and qualitative methods were employed when analyzing the data Besides the two main methods, analytic, descriptive and synthetic methods were utilized

Firstly, the quantitative was used, descriptive and synthetic method to investigate the frequency of occurrence of elements in the theory of CDA and their distribution

Secondly, the qualitative and analytic method was used to explore linguistic information in political speeches

Lastly, this method is also used in interpretation and explanation to clarify the social effects of political speeches

3.2 Research procedures

The study was completed with the following procedures

Firstly, reading the theories which are related to this study to apprehend theoretical background as the basic well for the analysis the data Besides, reading and reaching the previous researcher and studies to know and show the studies that have been executed

Secondly, the speeches of Donald Trump in the United Nations General Assembly were collected

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linguistic features in term of process in experiential meaning through

grammar element in CDA and the nominalizations, active/ passive sentences,

and positive/ negative sentences that were used in President Trump's speeches in the United Nations General Assembly

Next, the findings in the political speeches of President Trump in the United Nations General Assembly were compared, contrasted, and discussed in this study

Lastly, some implications were suggested for understanding the political speeches of President Trump in the United Nations General Assembly

3.3 Data collection

To support the intention of this study, I used the data which were speeches of President Trump in the United Nation General Assembly

The data for analysis are three speeches of President Trump in the United Nations General Assembly are collected from the website ‘The White

House’ (https://www whitehouse gov)

The speeches chosen for the study had to be identified through some criteria as follows:

- The speeches are in the United Nations General Assembly of

President Trump

- The average length of each political speech of President Trump from nearly 3500 to over 4500 words

- The audience of the speech is international

From 2017 to 2019, President Trump had political speeches in three 72™,

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Table 3 1 President Trump’s speeches in the United Nation General Assembly Name of speech Period time | Total words Audience Remarks by President Trump to the 72! Session 9/2017 4574 International of the UNGA Remarks by President Trump to the 73 Session 9/2018 3615 International of the UNGA Remarks by President Trump to the 74" Session 9/2019 3834 International of the UNGA 3.4 Data analysis

The collected data were analyzed as follows:

This study conducted using qualitative, quantitative, and comparative methods Therefore, after being collected, the political speeches of President Trump were analyzed in terms of the grammar of CDA with the experiential value of grammar as well as the discourse analysis This research also pointed out the nominalizations, active/ passive sentences, and positive/ negative sentences that were used in President Trump's speeches in the United Nations General Assembly

Following this, frequencies and percentages of the analysis were

summarized in tables, discussed, and illustrated with examples that were used

in three President Trump’s speech in the United Nations General Assembly

3.5 Reliability and validity

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the validity and reliability of this research Therefore, it was believable that all data were reliable and available

Moreover, this research was carried out with the theoretical background from Fairclough's framework which based on the Systematic Functional Grammar Approach Many different methods were used to complete this research

To sum up, the study was done as carefully in order to maintain the reliability and validity of the study

3.6 Summary

From this chapter, the procedures and methods were presented with some summarizing remarks as below:

Firstly, many different methods were used in this study as descriptive, contrastive, quantitative, and qualitative methods

Secondly, this study was done with the theoretical background from Fairclough's framework which based on the Systematic Functional Grammar Approach

Thirdly, the data analysis would focus on analyzing in terms of the grammar of CDA with the experiential value of grammar as well as the discourse analysis

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CHAPTER 4

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 Experiential values of grammatical features

According to Fairclough (2001) “the experiential aspects of grammar have to do with the ways in which the grammatical forms of a language code happenings and the relationships in the worlds, the people or animals or things involved in those happenings or relationships and their spatial and

temporal circumstances, manner of occurrence, and so on”

The experiential values of grammar concern with the grammatical forms of the language and deals with the pieces that make up language, sentences and ideologies Therefore, in this part, I believe that an investigation of transitivity (process and participant), voice (active and passive), and nominalization should be carried out to clarify how these grammatical aspects maintain the experiential values

Transitivity generally refers to how meaning is represented in the clause It plays a role in showing how speakers encode in the language their mental picture of reality and how they account for their experience of the world around them Since transitivity is concerned with the transmission of ideas it is considered to fall within the realm of the ideational function of language Regarding transitivity, the main question should be considered is what types of processes and participants predominate because these grammatical features can be ideologically loaded I found 792 clauses (including embedded clauses) in the data collected and continued to carry out transitivity analysis

4.2 Transitivity

In English, there are 6 types of processes were distinguished, the three

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subtypes, in addition, there are three further types, behavioral, verbal, and existential

According to Halliday (1994), the use of process type is a tool to realize the experimental meaning The process is the representation of reality, and this process is used to make the speakers’ arguments become more reliable and persuasive

A process consists of three components: the Process itself, Participants in the Process, and Circumstances associated with the process Participants include people, things or ideas in the world, Process contain physical activities, mental and verbal activities or states of being and Conditions or Circumstances in which these activities are occurring The nature of the process determines how many and what kind of participants are involved

4.2.1 Material process

Material process is also known as process of doing or physical action This process is easily identified by pointing on the verb that expresses areal action It has two main participants: Actor and Goal that become the subject and the object, besides that, participants in material process also involves Beneficiary and Range

Up to 60.86% of the clauses with 482 occurrences collected are expressed with material process whose number is obviously much higher than the total number of the other types

Table 4 1 Material process in three President Trump’s political speeches Types of process Material Politic Occurrence 482 speeches | Percent (%) 60.86

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(4.1) (4.2) (4.3) (4.4) (4.5) (4.6) We live in a time of extraordinary opportunity Actor | Process material | Range

Authority and | seek to collapse the values, the authoritarian powers systems and alliances Actor Process material | Range

International traffic drugs, weapons, people3 criminal networks Actor Process material Range We meet great peril at a time of both of immense promise and Actor | Process material | Range Our success | depends on a coalition of strong and independent nations Actor Process material | Range

This week | gives our country | a special reason to take pride in that example

Actor Process material Beneficiary | Goal

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(4.7)

That forces us to confront a question

realism facing every leader and

nation in this room,

We would | give our lives to defend Actor Process material | Beneficiary | Goal (4.10)

We will | fight together, Actor Process material | Range

Some examples in the remarks by President Trump to the 73 Session of the United Nations General Assembly are below: (4.11)

I addressed the threats facing our world Actor | Process material Range

(4.12)

We have | engaged with North Korea to replace the specter of conflict with a bold and new push for peace

Actor Process material | Range

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(4.13) The Gulf | opened a new center to target terrorist countries financing Actor Process material | Range (4.14)

Iran’s military budget erew nearly 40 percent Actor Process material | Range

(4.15)

We also | took another significant step forward in the Middle East

Actor Process material | Range (4.16) The United States | will not | taken advantage of any be longer Actor Process material | Range (4.17)

The United | opened its economy — the largest, by far, States on Earth — with few conditions

Actor Process Range

material (4.18)

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(4.19)

We are | witnessing a human tragedy, Actor Process material Range (4.20) The that | burn in the heart of patriots passion Actor Process material | Range

The following are some examples in the remarks by President Trump to the 74" Session of the United Nations General Assembly: (4.21)

The future | belongs to sovereign and independent nations Actor Process material | Range

(4.24)

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(4.26)

We endeavor to stabilize our relationship Actor | Process material | Range

(4.27)

The material process is ideologically applied in the above examples to give factual evidence of politics in their country Also, political problems are identified in terms of influence and consequence through this process Therefore, the major use of the material process can be easily recognized as a useful tool to make politicians’ arguments more reliable and persuasive

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