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Presidents and Ideologies: A Transitivity Analysis of Bingu wa Mutharika’s Inaugural Address

Received: 17 March 2014     Accepted: 24 April 2014     Published: 30 April 2014
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Abstract

The study is set to analyse how the third Malawian president Bingu wa Mutharika manipulated language in his second inaugural address to enhance his political ideologies by using Halliday’s transitivity system as a theoretical framework. Among the six processes outlined in the framework, the study discovers that material processes highly dominate the speech, distantly followed by relational, while verbal processes come third. Material clauses suggest that Bingu construes the world in terms of his past and future happenings by commemorating his first term achievements and setting his administrative and political principles of his next tenure. His choice of actors suggests that Bingu attributes the achievements to himself which is a characteristic of undemocratic leadership style. He also uses a majority of relational identifications to point out to himself and his administration as the main development players. Verbal processes have been used as markers of transition and topic shift; still, he refers to himself as the main sayer. The speech foregrounds Bingu as a leader with autocratic and dictatorship leadership ideologies. The study concludes that such leadership characteristics could be possible reasons that led to his political downfall as his record on good governance, human rights, and political tolerance significantly got worsened in his second term.

Published in International Journal of Language and Linguistics (Volume 2, Issue 3)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijll.20140203.16
Page(s) 174-180
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2014. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Bingu wa Mutharika, Malawi, Systemic Functional Grammar, Transitivity, Inaugural Address, Political Ideologies

References
[1] Cheng Yumin, (2007) An Analysis of Style Features of Inaugural Speeches given by American Presidents based on the Functional Theory of Halliday. MA Thesis. Tai Yuan Science University.
[2] Duran, J. M. (2008) The Analysis of Political Discourse Applied to Bush’s and Kerry’s Speeches. Systemic Functional Linguistics in Use. Odense working papers in Language and Communication. 29: 267-282.
[3] EISA (2009) The Malawi Presidential and Parliamentary Elections of 19 May 2009. Johannesburg: EISA 14 Park Rd. Richmond.
[4] Filho, P.H.L.P. (2004) Systemic Functional Grammar: A tool to Investigate the Lexicogrammatical Complexification of Advanced Portuguese-EFL Interlanguage. Retrieved from: https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/desterro/article/view/7405 on 25th June, 2012.
[5] Green, C. (2007) Discursive Strategies in Political Speech: The words of Dr. Bingu wa Mutharika. Journal of Political Discourse Analysis 2007 2 (1): 59-74.
[6] Halliday, M. A. K., and Matthiessen, C. (2004) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
[7] Halliday, M.A.K. (1994) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold.
[8] Hinckley, B. (1990) The Symbolic Presidency: How Presidents Portray Themselves. New York: Routledge.
[9] Horváth, J. (2009) Critical Discourse Analysis of Obama‘s Political Discourse. Language, Literature and Culture in a Changing Translatlantic World. International Conference Proceedings.
[10] Juma, C. (2011) The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovations in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[11] Korzi, M. (2004) The President and The Public: Inaugural Address in American History. Congress and the Presidency. 31(1): 21-52
[12] Mutharika, B. w. (2009, May) The Work of My Hands Speaks for me. Retrieved from: http://www.malawi.gov.mw/ on March, 22, 2012.
[13] Ntata, A. (2012) Trappings of Power: Political Leadership in Africa. UK: AuthorHouse.
[14] Opeibi,T. (2005) Political marketing or Political ‘macheting’? A study of negative campaigning in Nigerian political discourse. In TRANS. Internet-ZeitschriftfürKulturwissenschaften.
[15] Patpong, P. (2009) Thai Persuasive Discourse: A Systemic Functional Approach to an Analysis of Amulet Advertisements. Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses 22: 195-217.
[16] Rossiter, C. (1960) The American Presidency 2nd ed. New York: Harcourt Brace and World.
[17] Sigelman, L. (1996) Presidential Inaugurals: The Modernization of a Genre. Political Communication. 13: 81-92.
[18] Taiwo, R. (2007) Language, Ideology and Power Relations in Nigerian Newspaper Headlines. In Nebula. 4(1): 218-245
[19] Thompson, G. (2004) Introducing Functional Grammar. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
[20] Van Dikj, T. (2006) Politics, Ideology, and Discourse. Elsevier Ltd.
[21] Wardhaugh, R. (2006) An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Black-well.
[22] Wang, Y. (2008) A Functional Study of the Evaluated Enhanced Theme Construction in English. Prentice Hall: Pearson Education South Asia Pte Ltd.
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  • APA Style

    Wellman Kondowe. (2014). Presidents and Ideologies: A Transitivity Analysis of Bingu wa Mutharika’s Inaugural Address. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 2(3), 174-180. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20140203.16

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    ACS Style

    Wellman Kondowe. Presidents and Ideologies: A Transitivity Analysis of Bingu wa Mutharika’s Inaugural Address. Int. J. Lang. Linguist. 2014, 2(3), 174-180. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20140203.16

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    AMA Style

    Wellman Kondowe. Presidents and Ideologies: A Transitivity Analysis of Bingu wa Mutharika’s Inaugural Address. Int J Lang Linguist. 2014;2(3):174-180. doi: 10.11648/j.ijll.20140203.16

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijll.20140203.16,
      author = {Wellman Kondowe},
      title = {Presidents and Ideologies: A Transitivity Analysis of Bingu wa Mutharika’s Inaugural Address},
      journal = {International Journal of Language and Linguistics},
      volume = {2},
      number = {3},
      pages = {174-180},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijll.20140203.16},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijll.20140203.16},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijll.20140203.16},
      abstract = {The study is set to analyse how the third Malawian president Bingu wa Mutharika manipulated language in his second inaugural address to enhance his political ideologies by using Halliday’s transitivity system as a theoretical framework. Among the six processes outlined in the framework, the study discovers that material processes highly dominate the speech, distantly followed by relational, while verbal processes come third. Material clauses suggest that Bingu construes the world in terms of his past and future happenings by commemorating his first term achievements and setting his administrative and political principles of his next tenure. His choice of actors suggests that Bingu attributes the achievements to himself which is a characteristic of undemocratic leadership style. He also uses a majority of relational identifications to point out to himself and his administration as the main development players. Verbal processes have been used as markers of transition and topic shift; still, he refers to himself as the main sayer. The speech foregrounds Bingu as a leader with autocratic and dictatorship leadership ideologies. The study concludes that such leadership characteristics could be possible reasons that led to his political downfall as his record on good governance, human rights, and political tolerance significantly got worsened in his second term.},
     year = {2014}
    }
    

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Author Information
  • Department of Languages and Literature, Mzuzu University, Malawi, C. Africa

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