Transitivity in Political Discourse: The 2009 State of the Nation Address in Ghana

ABSTRACT 

The study examined how language has been used by President John Evans Attah Mills to present the message in his first State-of-the-Nation address. The main focus of the study was the analysis of transitivity in the address and the functions it plays in political discourse. Halliday‘s Systemic Functional Grammar was applied as a theoretical framework and the qualitative research design was used for the content analysis of the text. The study applied the interpretative content analysis to investigate the communicative functions of the linguistic choices made in the address. The study used 536 clauses in the State-of-the-Nation address for analysis. The study discovered that material processes dominate the speech with a total occurrence of 59.14% whereas the existential process types are used minimally in the speech with an insignificant total occurrence of 0.93%. The dominant use of material processes implies that Mills and his government are the main actors working on a number of concrete projects in an attempt to create a sense of continuity in development and policy direction in a challenging administration he has inherited. The minimal use of the existential processes also implies that though there have been some attempts to solve Ghana‘s socio-economic challenges, some problems still persist in the country. The 2009 SONA recorded no behavioural process type because the study did not analyse the paralinguistic elements of the text. The study concludes that the 2009 SONA uses more primary process types than the secondary process types. The study affirms  Halliday‘s (1985b, p.101) assertion that ―Transitivity  specifies the different types of processes that are recognized in the language,  and  the  structures  by  which  they  are  expressed.‖ The study recommends that since teachers use language as a medium of instruction in the classroom, it would be useful that they undergo series of seminars and workshops to brainstorm the need to make Systemic Functional Grammar an integral part of the English curriculum.