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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 2.1 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 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 Tweets 59 LIST OF FIGURE Figure Name of Figure page Metafunctional Solidarity across Planes (Halliday and number 2.1 Martin, 1993, p.34) 55 Actually, I love the Cops for Trump shirts Senser Pr-mental phenomenon As can be seen from the examples of the mental process, the Senser in the data is the writer, the reader, and the people involved in his election like the Republicans, the Democrats, some of his opponents, Although the mental process appears with a small percentage (12.4%), it helps the writers to some extent sculpture his inner experience and convey it to the readers 4.3.3 Relational processes The Relational processes are processes of being, becoming, in which a participant is characterized, identified, or situated circumstantially Relational processes can be grouped into two types: Attributive and Identifying We will begin by classifying the basic structural differences between Attributive and Identifying for three sub-type: intensive, circumstantial, and possessive As seen from Chart 4.6 The Relational process accounts for 22.3%, almost twice as many as the mental process This proportion shows that characterizing the attribute of the entities or identifying them is also somewhat popular in Donald Trump's Tweets It is clear that the President uses this process to give a clearer explanation for his messages Here are some illustrations: The Intensive Attributive process [T37,C2] Turkey is a 37 member of NATO Turkey is a 37 member of NATO Carrier Pr-intensive Attribute Another subtype of the intensive process is intensive identification They are identifying clauses with Token + Value The Value is identified as the worst, the only, as in [T31,C5] and [T64,C1] 56 [T31,C5] They are the worst of the worst! They are the worst of the worst! Token Pr-intensive Value [T64,C1] I am the only person who can fight for the safety of our troops I am the only person who can fight for the safety of our troops Token Pr-intensive Value In some cases, the circumstantial relational process is also used in the transitivity selection The following examples display subtypes of the circumstantial relational process These subtypes can be time and place However, in this message, there is only place as in [T16,C3] [T16,C3] Our focus is on the big picture![T16] Our forcus is on the big picture! Carrier Pr-circumstantial Attribute Another subtype of the Relational process is possessive The words „have’, „have got’ are used most in this type Here are some examples: [T20,C1] They don‟t have a clue, They don‟t have a clue, … Carrier Pr-prossesion Attribute [T43,C1] We have one of three choices we have one of three choices: … Carrier Pr-prossesion Attribute 57 As a result, it can be clearly seen that almost all subtypes of relational processes are used by Donald Trump in his tweets, which makes his messages clearer for readers to understand 4.3.4 Verbal processes The verbal process presents the processes of saying with the central participant as SAYER There are various modes of saying such as saying, telling, stating, informing, asking, demanding, suggesting, and so on In Donald Trump‟s Tweets, Verbal processes account for just 4.1%, which means that this type is not a typical feature of the tweets Here are some examples: [T2,C1] Someone please tell the Radical Left Mayor of Minneapolis Someone please tell the Radical Left Mayor of Minneapolis Sayer Pr-verbal Receiver [T56,C4] Tomorrow they will ask softball questions to Sleepy Joe Biden‟s son, They will ask softball questions to Sleepy Joe Biden‟s son Sayer Pr-verbal Verbiage Receiver From [T2, C1] and [T56, C4], it can be said that all the participants in the Verbal process appear in the data, namely Sayer, receiver, Verbiage, except Target Donald Trump uses this process to report indirectly what the others related to the election problems say about the involved things The Verbiage can be at different positions of the cause (such as [T2, C1] and [T56, C4]), and it can be reported information in the form of that clause as in [T24, C1] [T24,C1] President Obama said that he did not have the right to sign 58 DACA President Obama said Sayer that he did not have the right to sign DACA Pr-verbal Verbiage 4.3.5 Behavioral processes Behavioral clauses construe human behaviors, including mental and verbal behaviors, as an active version of verbal and mental processes The Behavioral processes account only for 0.9%, which means that this is not the typical process of Donald Trump's Tweets Here are some examples: [T37,C6] I am watching closely I am watching closely Behaver Pr-behavioural Circumstantial 4.3.6 Existential processes In an existential clause, there is only one participant – the EXISTENT The Existent may relate to a countable entity, an uncountable entity, or an event The function of the existent clause is simple to introduce an Existent into the text, as a first in talking about it In Donald Trump‟s Tweets, Existential processes occur with low frequency – only 1.9% Existent is the only participant in this process and usually follows there is/ there are Existential clauses are identified not only with "there is/ there are" but also with "exist", "disappear" as in the following examples [T112,C3] There were dozens of people on this call There were dozens of people on this call Pr-existential Existent Circumstantial [T158] The story in the Amazon Washington Post, of course picked up by Fake News CNN, saying “President Trump asked for AG Barr to 59 host a news conference clearing him on Ukraine,” is totally untrue and just another FAKE NEWS story with anonymous sources that don‟t exist [T35] Where is Hunter Biden? He has disappeared while the Fake News protects his Crooked daddy! 4.3.7 Circumstances The last element making Experiential meaning is that of Circumstances, which are realized by adverbial groups or prepositional phrases There are a lot of types of Circumstantial elements: Time, Place, Manner, Accompaniment, Cause, Matter, and Role However, only six types of Circumstances (Time, Place, Manner, Cause, Accompaniment, and Role) appear in Donald Trump‟s Tweets The total number of Circumstances in the Tweets is 124 instances which consist of different types Chart 4.7 shows the distribution of circumstantial elements in Donald Trump‟s Tweets Accompanimen t Role 11.3% Time 32.3% 7.2% Cause 11.3% Manner 6.4% Place 31.5% Chart 4.7 Distribution of Circumstances in Donald Trump’s Tweets 60 As can be seen in chart 4.7, Circumstances of Time ranks first at 32,3%, followed by Place at 31,5% A tremendous number of instances use these two types of Circumstances because the writer wants to pay attention to the information about the time and place of his messages Within these Circumstances, the readers can know when, where, and how long the pieces of information happen Cause and Accompaniment are of the same proportion with 11,3% And accounting for a small proportion (7,2% and 6.4%) is Role and Manner, respectively The circumstance of Time is various in Donald Trump‟s Tweets For example: [T36] Turkey has been planning to attack the Kurds for a long time (extent time) They have been fighting forever We have no soldiers or Military anywhere near the attack area I am trying to end the ENDLESS WARS Talking to both sides Some want us to send tens of thousands of soldiers to [T41] Big day of negotiations with China They want to make a deal, but I? I meet with the Vice Premier tomorrow (time location) at The White House To describe the temporary characters, the writer uses the duration as in [T36] or a certain time as in [T41] The spatial expressions are also manifested in the following instances: [T44] Good things are happening at China Trade Talk Meeting (place location) Warmer feelings than in recent past, more like the Old Days I will be meeting with the Vice Premier today All would like to see something significant happen! [T51] Very smart not to be involved in the intense fighting along the Turkish Border, for a change Those that mistakenly got us into the 61 Middle East Wars (place extent) are still pushing to fight They have no idea what a bad decision they have made Why are they not asking for a Declaration of War? The circumstances of Cause and Accompaniment appear in Donald Trump‟s Tweets with the same percentage For quotation: [T6] In fact, the “Cops For Trump” T-shirt Web Site CRASHED because of incredible volume (cause),but is now back up and running Proceeds go to the Police Union Charities See you on Thursday night (time location) in Minneapolis (place location)! [T117] Great leaders would work with a President and Federal Government (accompaniment) that wants our wonerful City and State to flourish and thrive I Love 30 New York! Finally, the following are some occurrences to demonstrate Circumstances of Role as in [T68] and Manner in [T197] [T68] Susan Rice, who was a disaster to President Obama as National Security Advisor (role), is now telling us her opinion on what to in Syria Remember red line in the sand? That was Obama Millions killed! No thanks Susan, you were a disaster [T197] At my meeting with Jay Powell this morning, I protested fact that our Fed Rate is set too high relative to the interest rates of other competitor countries In fact, our rates should be lower than all others (manner) (we are the U.S.) Too strong a Dollar hurting manufacturers & growth! [T197] To sum up, the high rate of occurrence of the Material and Relational process shows that Donald Trump's Tweets in question focus on describing his experience about the outer world and his perception of the relationship between entities and their characteristics or their identification He also 62 sometimes expresses someone's or his affection by using Mental processes The other three processes, namely Behavioural, Verbal, and Existential, not seem to be the choice for Donald Trump to express his experience 63 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 5.1 Introduction This chapter is the final part which manifests the major conclusions based on the main findings of the research in terms of analyzing linguistic features of Donald Trump‟s Tweets in the enlightenment of Systematic Functional Grammar of the significant modern linguist Haliday (1994) Then it suggests some implications for researching this character of Tweet The implications are accompanied by the limitations of the study and some suggestions for further research 5.2 Conclusions Of the completion of the study from 925 clauses, the main findings of this study can be summarized as follows: In terms of Interpersonal features, from the analysis of Mood in chapter 4, it can be confirmed that the declarative mood is used dominantly to give information to the readers, followed by interrogative mood and then imperative mood type This indicates that providing the information is the aim of the writer Besides Mood, the Interpersonal feature is also expressed through Modality In Donald Trump's Tweets, two elements helping to identify Modality are modal adjuncts and finite They express the writer's attitudes, emotions, and viewpoints when he wants to write about an issue in each twitter As for types of modality value, Probability value indicators estimate for the highest proportion and Obligation is the lowest And the low value of modality is most frequently used with some standard modal verbs such as Can, Be able to, May which are intended to reduce the use of personal opinion in the messages and guarantee the objective meaning of the information 64 As for Textual features, it can be concluded that Donald Trump seems to focus more on things, people, or entities related to his election than on describing settings or circumstances of the event, which can be clearly seen in his choice of the subject rather than circumstances as Unmarked Topical Theme Moreover, Interpersonal Theme rarely appears in his tweets, which may mean that he does not want to establish a close relationship with the reader at the beginning of his message What's more, he makes his tweets very short messages coherent by using some simple connectors and continuatives at the Theme position Regarding Experiential features, Donald Trump's Tweets choose the high rate of Material process and Relational process to express his experience about the outer world and his perception of the relationship between entities and their characteristics or their identification He also uses the Mental process to show his inner experience to the readers And the last three processes, namely Behavioural, Verbal, and Existential, Donald Trump's Tweets seldom appear in messages, which may mean that he does not want to express his experience for Donald Trump's choice 5.3 Implications This is expected that the outcomes of the investigation will make a valuable contribution to English learning as well as to addressing this character of Tweet This thesis principally bases on Functional grammar which is not a new discipline of linguistics Numerous kinds of analyses investigate one of three metafunctions, but few studies are examining all three metafunctions The findings of this study are suitable for those who are interested in Systematic Functional Grammar Toward those who relish composing the messages on Twitter as a 65 social network, findings from this exposition are of significant influence in terms of using language to describe what happened in actual life 5.4 Limitations Due to the researcher‟s linguistic knowledge and the shortage of time, related materials as well as my limited capacity in doing research, the study certainly cannot avoid some shortcomings Firstly, the study just focused on analyzing the all linguistic features by discussing three metafunctions that are applied in Donald Trump‟s Tweets and it is the reason why the thesis has not given the demanded depth as it should Secondly, the investigation of linguistic features from the perspective of Functional Grammar is only narrowed in October and November in 2019 Consequently, the thesis of this kind can not be applied to other characters of messages such as comments of readers or comments of the writer Finally, my experience in doing scientific research is not enough, there remain unavoidable mistakes in the investigation However, it is hoped that this thesis is beneficial for those who are interested in this issue 5.5 Suggestions for further research Twitter is a very influential social network That is why it is a potential area of discourse analysis via other approaches such as pragmatics, critical discourse analysis, Appraisal 66 REFERENCES [1] BAYRAM, F (2010) IDEOLOGY AND POLITICAL DISCOURSE: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF ERDOGAN‟S POLITICAL SPEECH ARECLS [2] Butler, C S (2012) Syntactic functions in Functional Discourse Grammar and Role and Reference Grammar: An evaluative comparison Language Sciences [3] Chen W (2018) A Critical Discourse Analysis of Donald Trump‟s Inaugural Speech from the Perspective of Systemic Functional Grammar Theory and Practice in Language Studies [4] David, G ; Wyke, S ; Trena, P ; Jessica, L ; Darren, R (2015) Microanalysis Of Online Data: The methodological development of "digital CA" [5] Eggins, S (2004) An overview of systemic functional linguistics An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics [6] Feng, Z (2013) Functional Grammar and its Implications for English Teaching and Learning English Language Teaching, 6(10), 86-94 [7] Halliday, M A K (1994) Introduction to Functional Grammar London: Edward Arnold [8] Halliday M A K & C M I M Matthiesen (2004) An Introduction to Functional Grammar London: Arnold [9] Halliday, M A K (2013) Halliday‟s Introduction to Functional Grammar [10] Hengeveld, K (2006) The noun phrase in Functional Discourse Grammar Discourse 67 [11] Hidalgo Tenorio, E (2011) Critical discourse analysis, an overview NJES Nordic Journal of English Studies https://doi.org/10.35360/njes.247 [12] Joye, S (2010) News discourses on distant suffering: A critical discourse analysis of the 2003 sars outbreak Discourse and Society https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926510373988 [13] Kees, H ; Mackenzie, J (2008) Functional Discourse Grammar: A Typologically-Based Theory of Language Structure [14] Leedham, M (2010) Academic Writing: At the Interface of Corpus and Discourse System https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2010.06.008 [15] Lê Thị Bích Thủy (2015) A comparative study of Thematic features of English new reports and editorials M.A Thesis Quy Nhon University [16] Martin, J R (1992) English Text: System and Structure A Study of Concepts [17] Martin, J R (2016) Meaning matters: A short history of systemic functional linguistics Word [18] Martin, J R (2014) Evolving systemic functional linguistics: beyond the clause Functional Linguistics [19] Marcel, B ; Todd, G (2013) Twitter as a news source how dutch and british newspapers used tweets in their news coverage, 2007-2011 [20] Naci, K ; Nilay, Y ; Ismet, P ; Özlem, I (2015) Twitter use by politicians during social uprisings: An analysis of Gezi Park protests in Turkey [21] Nguyễn Thị Hạnh (2012) An Investigation into the Structure of Theme and Rheme in English and Vietnamese Political Speeches M.A Thesis Da Nang University 68 [22] Partington, A., & Marchi, A (2015) Using corpora in discourse analysis In The Cambridge Handbook of English Corpus Linguistics [23] Pérez-Llantada, C (2009) Textual, genre and social features of spoken grammar: A corpus-based approach Language Learning and Technology [24] Scherbak, N F (2018) Media discourse Voprosy Kognitivnoy Lingvistiki https://doi.org/10.20916/1812-3228-2018-1-12-16 [25] Scott Thornbury, D S (2006) Conversation: From Description to Pedagogy Cambridge Language Teaching Library [26] Stro, C Dc., & Halliday, M A K (1995) An Introduction to Functional Grammar Language [27] Teruya, K (2009) Grammar as a gateway into discourse: A systemic functional approach to Subject, Theme, and logic Linguistics and Education [28] Thompson, G (2013) Introducing Functional Grammar Introducing Functional Grammar [29] To, V T (2015) Linguistic Complexity in English Textbooks: A Functional Grammar Perspective University of Tasmania [30] Ton, N M N (2005) A discourse analysis of travel advertisement in English and Vietnamese (Unpublished Ph.D Thesis), Vietnam National University, Ha Noi [31] Ussama, Y ; Soon Ae, C ; Vijayalakshmi, A ; Jaideep, V (2017) Analysis of political discourse on twitter in the context of the 2016 US presidential elections [32] Wang, J (2010) A Critical Discourse Analysis of Barack Obama‟s Speeches Journal of Language https://doi.org/10.4304/jltr.1.3.254-261 Teaching and Research 69 [33] Wooffitt, R (2011) Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis https://doi.org/10.4135/9781849208765 [34] Xu, T., Zhang, B (2015) Functional Grammar and Teaching of Reading - A Pedagogy Based on Graded Teaching of College English in China English Language Teaching, 8(7), 200-205 [35] Yang, H (2017) The Interpersonal Metafunction Analysis of Barack Obama‟s Inaugural Address International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, 3(1), 27–31 [36] Ye, R (2010) The Interpersonal Metafunction Analysis of Barack Obama's Victory Speech Journal of English Language Teaching, 3(2), 146–151 [37] Zappavigna, M (2011) Ambient affiliation: A linguistic perspective on Twitter New Media https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444810385097 and Society ... express their viewpoints as well as their policies For the above reason, I have decided to write the topic ? ?Linguistic features of Donald Trump’s Tweets from the Systemic Functional Grammar Perspective? ??... Perspective? ?? for my thesis 1.2 Aim and Objectives 1.2.1 Aim of the study The aim of the study is to investigate the linguistic features of Donald Trump‟s Tweets following Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG)...MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY NGUYỄN XUÂN THI LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF DONALD TRUMP’S TWEETS FROM THE SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR PERSPECTIVE FIELD: English Linguistics