Transitivity Analysis Of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats

Systemic Functional Grammar is a widely used theory in analyzing linguistic features of discourses. Based on the transitivity theory under systemic functional grammar, a transitivity analysis of Fireside Chats delivered by D. Roosevelt is carried out in the thesis. The study is conducted in terms of process type, participant and circumstantial element respectively.The following are the detailed analyzing procedures. Firstly, the linguistic features of each clause in the30selected speeches in Fireside Chats is annotated in terms of process type, participant and circumstantial element, and then SPSS is used to count the number of each process type, each main participant and each circumstantial element; secondly, a preliminary treatment of data is conducted, including putting the obtained data into SPSS, and making out the charts and figures presenting the frequency of each process type, each main participant and each main circumstantial element; lastly, a detailed analysis of the data is carried out. The function of each transitivity feature is analyzed so as to reveal the ideational meaning of the discourses. Moreover, other elements such as social environment, global trend, etc. are also taken into account. The study employs both quantitative method and qualitative method to make sure the results objective and convincing.The study has obtained three major findings:1) In Fireside Chats, material process, relational process and mental process are the most frequent three process types, followed by existential process, verbal process and behavioral process; the material processes used to describe the situation are good to show the severity of the crisis and the hardships that the nation faces. Meanwhile, in the description of the actions that the government would take, material processes give the listeners a sense of power, vigor and energy that will make the people confident in the government and their motherland. Relational processes can describe the features of the entities; therefore, it will easily show the crisis that the country met in details. As to mental processes, they are always used to describe the psychological events of the speakers. In Fireside Chats, through using mental processes, the president aims to convey his own attitudes towards political events, and then convince the people to accept his political ideas and follow up the government’s policies;2) the most frequent participants are we, our and us. That is because the president intends to shorten the distance between himself and the people; secondly, through the wide use of I,my and me, the president has built himself an image of being independent, determined and ambitious, which is an effective way to show his great leadership and gain people’s support for his policies;3) three circumstantial elements occur most frequently:location, manner and cause. Circumstantial elements help to make the text to be more dynamic, which usually not only causes great appreciation from the people to the president’s speaking styles but also to his political ideas.This thesis can serve as a good example to understand the language in political addresses and appreciate such kind of discourses in the future. Moreover, other political orators can surely benefit from it and the study gives some implications for English teaching.