Field, Tenor and Mode of the text

Chapter 3 EXPANSION RELATIONS BETWEEN CLAUSES IN CLAUSE COMPLEXES IN

3.3. Field, Tenor and Mode of the text

Field of discourse refers to what is going on and is reflected in the ideational meanings of the discourse. In terms of field, the chosen text is an inauguration speech of a newly elected American president written to address before his people. It must fulfill the traditionally and ritually required functions: to state facts of the domestic or worldwilde situations or problems objectively and the relevant policies forcefully, to conduct reasoning related to the relationship between traditional beliefs such as freedom, democracy, justice, equality, principles, union, happinesss and American dreams and citizens‟ participation, responsibilities, sacrifice and the needed reforms in economy or orther fields. Therefore, the field of the speech is large, such as American history, present crisis, global issues and so on.

In the text, six types of processes are found, but material process is used most with the percentage of 62%. Material process, as a process of doing, is very useful in demonstrating what the government has achieved, what they are doing and what they will do in different aspects of affairs. It can also arouse the American people‟s confidence towards the president and his government and to get their supports in policies in the following four years. Relational process rank the second and is appropriate to explain the complex relationship between some abstract items. As a result, the relational process accounts for a large proportion in the speech

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to elaborate the relationship between traditional ideals and beliefs. Mental process ranks the third. It helps to appeal to the audience‟s inner heart to connect the political beliefs, ambitions with their expectations in a clear and emphasized way. Verbal process accounts for 4% in the speech, followed by behavioral and existential one with a percentage of 2% each. The participants in the chosen text are varied, including actor, goal, carrier, attributive, identifier, identified, senser, phenomenon…

3.3.2. Tenor

Tenor refers to who is taking part in the social action and is expressed in terms of interpersonal functions. As for the speech in the text, we can see the role relationship between the speaker – the addresser and the audience - the listeners.

Most of the clauses in the speech are declarative clauses. By statistics, of 108 major clauses in the speech, all together 101 clauses are declarative ones, taking up 93.5% of the speech, 5 clauses are imperative and only two are interrogative clauses. The dominant appearances of 101 declarative clauses in the speech are successful in that they are functioned as statements to give as much as possible information to the audience, with which he succeeded in recalling his presidential election campaign, expressing his gratitude, making promises and inspiring the audience to go through the difficulties with the whole nation. Most of the clauses in the speech contain subject and finite verbs, in which the finite elements are most frequently combined with the simple tense, and then followed by the past tense and the simple future tense.

By statistics, 55 modal verbal operators are used in Barack Obama‟s inauguration speech, of which, the most frequently adopted ones are as the following: “will” turns up for 18 times,

“can” is adopted for 22 times and “must” turns up for 4 times. The high percentage of the use of modal verbs is appropriate to the speaking since the addresses are delivered in spoken form.

Personal pronouns have the interpersonal function in discourse. They establish a certain relationship between addresser and the audience in a speech. In Barack Obama‟s inauguration speech, the first personal pronoun is used most, taking up 75%, of which, the plural form “we”

and its anamorphous “us” and “our” occupy 56%, the first singular personal pronoun “I” takes up 19%. The frequent use of the first personal pronoun is to shorten the distance between the

speaker and the listeners. It may include the speaker and the listener into the same arena and make the listeners fell close to the speaker and his points.

3.3.3. Mode

Mode of discourse is the role that the text or language itself plays and is expressed in the textual function. The textual function refers to the fact that language has mechanisms to make any stretch of spoken or written discourse into a coherent and unified text and make a living passage different from a random list of sentences.

Obama‟s inaugural address is the first time for him to give a formal speech as a president and also an optimal time to show himself a qualified president. As a result, to fulfill the aims of convincing the American people and the whole world that he and his team are capable of leadership, with vigor and with vision, he must illustrate the planned policies, both domestic and foreign, in a formal, convincing and forceful way. The inauguration speech of Barack Obama is structured as follow:

 Salutation

 The expression of gratitude and honor

 A review of the American history and achievement in the past

 An analysis of the contemporary situation, at home and in the world

 A displaying and explanation of domestic policies and foreign policies of the new government

 Hopes for the beautiful and prosperous future of the country

 Resort to God for helping and blessing

With the above structure, the whole text of the inauguration speech is coherent, organized, accurate and logical. It helps to persuade the public to accept and support the president‟s policies.

Three metafunctions of the language