Transitivity Analysis Of 2015 State Of The Union Address By President Barack Obama

State of the Union(SOTU) Address is an annual address presented by presidents of United States. In order to help readers have a deep understanding and appreciation of presidents’ real intention, it is necessary to conduct a systemic analysis of SOTU Address. In spite of much research on SOTU Address, research on SOTU Address which is done in Pragmatics, Cognitive Linguistics, Rhetoric, Systemic-Functional Grammar, Critical discourse analysis, Register and so on, and there is still no study of 2015 SOTU Address from the perspective of transitivity. Transitivity is an important linguistic theory, and plays an important role in discourse analysis. Since Halliday(1967) gives a new definition of transitivity. Transitivity is a semantic system, and it construes the experience of real world and mental world by employing several processes with corresponding participants and circumstances. 2016 will be the presidential election year. Therefore, it is worth analyzing the 2015 SOTU Address by President Obama.Based on Halliday’s transitivity system of Ideational function, this thesis conducts a transitivity study on 2015 SOTU Address of President Obama. Firstly, it explores the realization of six processes, main participants and circumstances in SOTU Address. Secondly, it is about the calculation of six processes, main participants and circumstances. The major findings are as follows:The research results show the feature of distribution of transitivity processes, participants and circumstances in 2015 SOTU Address of President Obama. From the highest frequency to the lowest, transitivity processes are distributed as follows: material process(64.1%), relational process(15.5%), mental process(13.7%), verbal process(3.9%), existential process(1.4%), behavioral process(1.3%); the distribution of participants is the first person pronouns in plural form we/us/our(66.5%), the first person pronouns in singular form I / my(16.2%), the third person pronouns they /them/ their(10.8%), the second person pronouns you/ your(6.4%); and the distribution of circumstances is location(37.8%), manner(31.5%), cause(15.9%), extent(3.98%), role(3.58%), matter(2.78%), contigency(2.78%), accompaniment(0.7%). Through the analysis of three factors, first of all, the highest material process indicates that President Obama is doing more specific contributions to Americans such as medical and educational issues in order to prove himself. Secondly, main participants the first person pronouns in plural form we/us/our rank the first with 66.5% in percentage. It reveals President Obama’s willingness to go forward with Americans together and expresses the intimate relationship between President Obama and Americans. Finally, as for circumstances, location circumstance is 37.8% in percentage reflecting the solemness of SOTU Address. It indicates the authority on SOTU Address.Middle class’ medical and educational issues are tackled in 2015 SOTU Address by President Obama. It will add more weight for President Obama in future presidential election. The first person pronouns in plural form indicates that he is trying to shorten the distance between him and audience. President Obama is to win support and trust no matter what he has done about domestic and international affairs.