A STUDY OF THE IDEATIONAL FUNCTION IN SYSTEMATIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR: TRANSITIVITY ANALYSIS OF NELSON MANDELA’S SPEECHES

Abstract

This study analyzes the discourse of Nelson Mandela’s political speeches in the light of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar. It also focuses to prove the hypothesis that the effectiveness of Mandela’s political discourse is based on Systemic Functional Grammar particularly the idealization meta-functions. It uses the mixed method; both qualitative and quantitative. The sample of this study is consisted of randomly selected four speeches delivered by Nelson Mandela at different occasions. Later, transitivity analysis has been carried out to find the results. These speeches have been analyzed through transitivity system. The findings of the study indicate that Nelson Mandela uses the elements of the idealization meta-functions enormously in his speeches. It proves that he has considerably practiced the elements of systemic functional grammar in his speeches and indeed that was the lurking secret of his thrilling words being much more effective and revolutionary. Moreover, the findings show that the ratio of using the idealization meta-functional elements varies from speech to speech and even situation to situation. Therefore, this study posits that the transitivity analysis in Systemic Functional Grammar can be used successfully to uncover the relationship between meanings and wordings in the political discourse.