The Study of Systemic Functional Linguistic
toward the Inaugural Address Text of President Joko Widodo
by
Dr. Kamsinah Darwis, M.Hum
pascaunhas111@gmail.com
Faura, S.S.,M.Hum
Postgraduate Program
Faculty of Cultural Sciences
Hasanuddin university
ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the inaugural address of Ir. H Joko Widodo, the
President of the Republic of Indonesia. The study aimed to explain (1) transitivity
system focusing on ideational meaning in the address text, and (2) relationship
between the transitivity system and the situational context in the address text.
In order to achieve the objectives of the study, SFL theory, audio method and
note taking technique are applied. The data were oral text obtained from internet in
the form of video. The data were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively.
The results of the analysis indicate that (1) transitivity system focusing on
ideational meaning consists of process, participant, and circumstance. Types of
process are material, relational, verbal and mental. Of the 58 clauses as samples of the
study, material has the highest appearance, followed by behavioral, relational, verbal,
and mental process respectively. Next, types of participant are actor, senser, sayer,
phenomenon, token, receiver, client, recipient, beneficiary, attribute, and behaviour.
Actor has the highest appearance. Types of circumstance are manner, cause, role, and
location. Manner has the highest appearance and the lowest is location; (2)
Relationship between the transitivity system and the context of situation is very close
since transitivity system in the text makes the interpretation of the situational context
easy. Material which shows the highest appearance means that Joko Widodo put an
emphasis on action in leading Indonesia in years to come. The lowest appearance of
mental shows that Joko Widodo in his leadership did not fully involve mental relation
to emotional. The most participants are actors. Joko Widodo in his address never
mentioned himself, but always used the word “we”, meaning that all Indonesian
people and himself must be involved in carrying out his duty as a leader of
Indonesian nation.
Key words: transitivity, situational context, inaugural address text
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A. INTRODUCTION
Language is a means of communication to express aims and objectives to
addressees. It has a very important role in our life since language is used to convey
message, sign, idea, feeling, and wish to make the communication run smoothly.
Language is also said to be a semantic system for making meaning with other system
for encoding the meanings it produces. According to Halliday, semantics does not
simply refer to the meaning of words, but it is the entire system of meanings of a
language. The meanings which he refers are encoded in wordings grammatical
sequences, or ‘syntagms’. Next, the relation between the meaning and the wording is
not an arbitrary one, but the form of the grammar relates naturally to the meanings
that are being encoded. Here, the functional grammar is designed to bring this out; it
is a study of wording, but one that interprets the wording by reference to what it
means (Halliday, 1990: XVll ).
This study used Halliday’s systemic functional linguistic theory which pays a
great attention to the relationships between language and its function. The function
here, is focused on ideational one which has role as a means of representing pattern
of experience. A fundamental property of language is that it enables human being to
build a mental picture of reality, to make sense of their experience of what goes on
around them, and inside them. In this case, a clause is the most significant
grammatical unit, because it is the clause that function as the representation of
process. It means, our most powerful conception of reality is that it consists of
‘going- on’, of doing’, ‘happening’, ‘feeling’, ‘being’ These goings-on are sorted out
in the semantic system of language, and expressed through the grammar of clause.
Language as a social semantic system was analyzed through
functional
grammar. Here, an inaugural address text in Indonesian language taken as the source
of data or object of the study since the study would like to see the universality of
Halliday’s theory which, of course, has different sentence pattern from English which
always becomes Halliday’s object of study.
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The presidential address is the representation of an event, fact, or idea of
someone’s experience. The aim and objective of the address consist of a set of clauses
and each clause contains three elements: process of event, participant or agent, and
situation around the process. By analyzing the three elements through transitivity
system, the ideational meaning of the speech can be revealed.
The inaugural address of Joko Widodo was the object of the study. This is due
to his position as a high ranking official which is influential enough in Indonesia so
that his address that contains the use of transitivity system is interesting to study
especially to reveal the ideational meaning contains in his vision and mission
organized in an address read during his inauguration as the President of the Republic
of Indonesia.
B. OBJECTIVES AND RESEARCH METHOD
This study aimed to explain types of process and circumstances found in the
inaugural address text of the seventh President of the Republic of Indonesia, Ir. H.
Joko Widodo, through transitivity system, and relationships between transitivity and
situational context in the inaugural address text.
This study applied audio method and note taking techniques. The source of
data was oral text of the inaugural address of the President of the Republic of
Indonesia delivered in front of the plenary meeting of MPR (People’s Consultative
Assembly) at the MPR building in Jakarta on October 24, 2014. The data were
obtained in video form from internet downloaded through sites www.youtube.com.
The descriptive qualitative method was employed supported by quantitative method
using a simple statistical analysis to support the analysis of percentage for the
appearance of the use of process and circumstance.
In order to achieve the objectives of the study, LSF theory was applied to
discuss the transitivity system dividing language into three components of meaning:
ideational meaning, interpersonal meaning, and textual meaning. However, in this
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paper the discussion was focused only on ideational meaning which consists of
process, participant, and circumstance. This study also analyzed situational context
which consists of field of discourse, tenor of discourse, and mode of discourse and
then made a relationship between transitivity and situational context.
C. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In order to understand thoroughly the discussion in this paper, there are five
terms need to define. The terms are : text, systemic functional linguistics, transitivity
and context of situation.
1. Text
A good place to start is to say more precisely what functional linguists mean
by text. A text is a unit of language in use. It is not a grammatical unit, like a clause
or sentence; and it is not defined by its size (Halliday and Hassan (1976: 1). This
definition was revised in 1985 by the same authors as follows: A text is a piece of
language in use; that is, ‘language that is functional’ (Halliday and Hasan 1985 in
Butt 2000:3). Whereas Butt, et al said that:
A text’s length is not important and it can be either spoken or written . what is
important is that a text is a harmonious collection of meanings appropriate to its
context. This unity of purpose gives a text both texture and structure. Texture
comes from the way the meaning in the text fit coherently with each other- in
much the same way as the threads of a piece of fabric or carpet re woven
together to make a whole. Structure refers to the way that most piece of
language in use will contain certain obligatory structural elements appropriate
to their purpose and context (Butt, 2000:3).
Therefore, a text can be described as a type of super sentence that is grammatical unit
which is bigger than a sentence but related to a sentence, and at the same way, a
sentence is also related to clause, and a clause is related to phrase, etc. Text can also
mean a complex unit consists of subject, predicate, object which correlate each other
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to form meaning.
Further, a text always occurs in two contexts, one within other. The outer
context around a text is called context of culture in which we get some idea of the
importance of context of culture in shaping meaning such as when we think of the
differences in forms of address, in ceremonies, in politeness and in significant
activities between one culture and another. Within the context of culture, speakers
and writers use language in many more specific contexts or situations which is called
context of situation or inner context. The combination of these context results in the
differences and similarities between one piece of language and another, or would be
implicated in the differences (Butt 2000:3-4).
2. Systemic Functional Linguistics
Systemic Functional Linguistic theory was pioneered by M.A.K. Halliday of
the University of Sydney in Australia. This theory is a continuation of Firth’s theory
and was influenced by Boas, Hymes, and Bloomfield of America.
The followings are the interpretations of the SFL theory. The the term
systemic (S) implies three things: (1) systemic relation and their choice in various
possibilities in a network system of relationship and choice begun from general to
specific features which is vertical or paradigmatic, (2) systems of meaning involved
and interrelation in its relation to phenomena under investigation, and (3) systems of
meaning which becomes the basis behind, below and above and around it or beyond
the phenomena Further, the term functional (F) implies three things: discourse
analysis which gives attention to (1) functional realization of system in structures and
patterns structurally in the forms of horizontal and syntagmatic, (2) functions or
meaning in the language, and (3) functions and meaning operating at the level and
dimension are varied in language under study. Finally, the term linguistics (L) has
two implications: (1) discourse analysis adopts a linguistic theory representing a
special theory and framework of study in discourse analysis into and appears from
linguistic discipline following the SFL theory principles, and (2) in investigating the
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phenomena, discourse analysis applies language approach interpretatively in the
forms of semantics, thematic, and interdiscipline (Sinar, 2008: 13-15).
It is also said that SFL has functions as follows:
“to understand the nature and functions of language; to understand
what all languages have in common (i.e. what are the properties of
language as such), and what may differ from one language to another;
to understand the quality of texts: why a text means what it does, and
why it is valued as it is; to understand how language varies, according
to the user, and according to the functions for which it is being used;
to understand literary and poetic text and the nature of verbal art: to
help people learn foreign languages; to help train translator and
interpreter, to understand the relationship between language and the
brain; to understand the language of the deaf (sign); to write
reference work (dictionaries, grammars; to understand the relation
between language and culture, and language and situation; to
understand many aspects of the role of language in the community
and the individual: multilingualism, socialization, ideology ,
propaganda, etc.; to design systems for producing and understanding
speech, and converting between written and spoken text; to design
more economical and efficient means for the transmission of spoken
and written text (Halliday, 1990: xxx).
Therefore, this SFL theory does not only study grammar, but also study the whole
system of semantics in the context. Besides that, this linguistic theory focuses more
on the relationships between language and situational context.
3.
Transitivity
The language metafunction components are ideational, textual, and inter-
personal which represents language organization. It is in the semantic system,
lexicogrammatic, and phonology/graphology of language. Further, grammar operates
through clause notion with 3 sets of choice made to form clause. The choice was
made by the maker of clause through transitivity, taxis, theme, and mood. Systems of
transitivity, taxis, theme, and mood are realized in ideational, textual, and inter-
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personal functions. Then the ideational function which consists of experiential
function is realized by the transitivity clause system, and logical function is realized
by complex clause system that is taxis system. The textual function is realized with
theme-rheme system and interpersonal function is realized in mood system (Sinar,
2008:30-31).
The concept of transitivity system are semantic categories which explain in
the most general way how phenomena of the rea world are represented as linguistic
structure (Halliday, 1990: 102). This is emphasized again by Halliday in his later
work that realization of linguistic experience of the language user is called
transitivity and a complete unit of SFL study in a clause should consists of three
components i.e. process, participant, and circumstance. Process indicates verb as
mentioned in clause; and participant is person or thing involved in the process: while
circumstance is an environment in which participant involved in the process. Thus,
these provide the frame of reference for interpreting our experience of what is going
on. As the core of the experience is process, it determines number and category of
participant and determines circumstance as well. Circumstance also gets impact
from pg8rocess indirectly since mental and material processes often appear together
with location and manner circumstance.
Further, categorization of process consists into six types. Three of them are
said to be primary process i.e., material, mental and relational processes. While the
others are said to be supporting process i.e., behavioral, verbal and existential
processes. Next, participant can be a person or other thing playing role as goal, actor,
behavior, senser, carrier, value, existence, phenomenon, attribute, token, receiver,
client, recipient, beneficiary, and verbiage. Finally, circumstance can be determined
through identification of its types as follows: extent/range, location, manner, cause,
environment, matter, role, accompaniment, and angle..
4. Context of Situation
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Context of situation is a context in which the things going on in the world
outside the text that ‘make the text what it is’ are covered. These are extralinguistic
features of a text which are given substance in the world and grammatical patterns
that speakers and writers use consciously or subconsciously to construct texts of
different varieties and that their audience uses to classify and interpret. In order to
understand a text in context properly, understanding to situation and cultural context
is necessary.
Next, context of situation consists of three elements (1) field of discourse, (2)
tenor of discourse, and (3) mode of discourse. Field of discourse is an interaction
activity related to two dimensions: what is being said and for what purpose. Further,
field of discourse can be divided into (1) experience field, (2) short term objective,
and (3) long term objective (Butt, 1995 in Darma, 2009: 191). Whereas tenor of
discourse refers to who is talking. Halliday said that tenor of discourse points to
people taking part at the nature of tenors, position, and their role. Thus, types of
relations and what roles are among tenors also belong to tenor of discourse. Likewise
permanent and temporary relationships both type of speech role they make in
conversation and the whole chain of relationships which is important for the group
who involved them. Finally, mode of discourse which characterizes the intrinsic
function of situational context refers to a part played by language. This is hoped by
tenors played by language in that situation which includes organization of text
symbolic, its position, function in context, and channel (whether it is spoken or
written, or combination of both). Likewise with its rhetoric mode that is what the
text to achieve concerning the topic of understanding such as persuading, explaining,
educating, and the like.
D. TRANSITIVITY SYSTEM IN INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF THE
PRESIDENT JOKO WIDODO.
Since the space for presentation is limited, not all samples were discussed in
this paper. So, only certain samples representing others were used to reveal the
objectives of the study. Besides that, tables and graphs are hoped to help explain the
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discussion of data analysis.
In inaugural address text of the President Joko Widodo,
five kinds of transitivity processes were found. They are material, behavioral,
relational, verbal, and mental. Each kind of process has its own appearance. For
examples:
Data (51)
Sebagai nahkoda yang dipercaya oleh rakyat, saya mengajak semua warga
bangsa untuk naik ke atas kapal RI
Sebagai nahkoda
Saya
mengajak
yang dipercaya
Semua warga
untuk naik ke
bangsa
atas kapal RI
Receiver
target
oleh rakyat
Role
Sayer
verbal
Data (51) shows that the phrase: Sebagai nahkoda yang dipercaya oleh rakyat
indicates role circumstance. Next, the word saya indicates sayer participant; the
word mengajak indicates verbal process, while the phrase semua warga bangsa
indicates receiver, and the last untuk naik ke atas kapal RI indicates target/ goal
participant
Data (52)
Kita akan kembangkan layar yang kuat
kita
akan
Aktor
kembangkan
layar
yang kuat
material
range
cara (qualitas)
Data (52) shows that the word kita indicates actor; the word kembangkan shows
process material; the word layar indicates range. Finally, the phrase yang kuat
indicates manner circumstance.
Data (54)
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Saya akan berdiri di bawah kehendak rakyat dan konstitusi
saya
akan
Sayer
berdiri
di bawah kehendak rakyat dan
konstitusi
material
location circumstance.
Data (54) shows that the word Saya is a sayer; akan berdiri indicates process
material; and phrase di bawah kehendak rakyat dan konstitusi indicates location
circumstance.
Based on the analyses of the whole data, the writer finds that the percentage of
transitivity process is described in table 1 as follows:
Table 1. Percentage of Transitivity Process in Inaugural text of President Joko
Widodo
No
Experiencer Type
Clause number
Total
%
1
Process
Material
17, 18, 19, 24, 31,
33, 34, 35, 39, 40,
41, 44, 45, 49, 52,
53, 54, 55
18
32.73%
2
Behavioral
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9,
10, 11, 12, 13, 14,
47.
14
25.46%
3
Relational
8, 16, 21, 22, 23,
28, 32, 36, 37, 50,
10
18.18%
4
Verbal
15, 27, 42, 46, 25,
48, 51.
7
12.73%
5
Mental
20, 26, 29, 30, 38,
43,
6
10.91%
The above table shows that the types of process which are in the inaugural text are:
material, behavioral, relational, verbal, and mental. Of the 58 clauses as samples of
the study, material has the highest appearance, followed by behavioral, relational,
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verbal, and mental process respectively. Material process which shows the highest
appearance means that Joko Widodo put an emphasis on action in leading Indonesia
in years to come. The lowest appearance of mental shows that Joko Widodo in his
leadership did not fully involve mental relation to emotional.
Next, types of participant are actor, senser, sayer, phenomenon, token,
receiver, client, recipient, beneficiary, attribute, and behaviour. Actor has the highest
appearance.
Types of circumstance are manner, cause, role, and location. Manner has the
highest appearance and the lowest is location.
Percentage of The Appearance of Circumstance
E. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TRANSITIVITY SYSTEM AND
THE SITUATIONAL CONTEXT
Relationship between the transitivity system and the situational context is very close
since transitivity system in the text makes the interpretation of context of situation
easy. The most participants are actors. Joko Widodo in his address never mentioned
himself, but always used the word “we”, meaning that all Indonesian people and
himself must be involved in carrying out his duty as a leader of Indonesian nation.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Butt, David. Rhondda Fahey, Susan Feez, Sue Spinks, Colin Yallop. 2001. Using
Functional Grammar: An Explorer’s Guide. Second edition. Sydney:
Macquarie University.
Darma, Yoce Aliah. 2009. Analisis Wacana Kritis. Bandung: Yrama Widya.
Halliday, M.A.K. 1990. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London, New
York, Melbourne, and Auckland: Edward Arnold.
Sinar, Tengku Silvana. 2008. Teori dan Analisis Wacana: Pendekatan Sistemik
Fungsional. Medan: Pustaka Bangsa Press.
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