Analysis of the War on Terror Discourse from the Perspective of Systemic - Functional Linguistics - Dissertation Example

Download file to see previous pages Halliday’s Systemic-Functional Linguistics. Before we go into the actual formation in the speeches, let us first re-examine the core essence of the Interpersonal Metafunction within SFL itself. There are three component areas: the speaker/writer persona, social distance, and relative social status. Interpersonal Metafunction within SFL Societies, or individual if you like, form contexts based on experience. The evolution of experience, therefore, equals the evolution of meaning. However, the system of this formation is more a maze than a cycle because almost every components is a variable whose value is relative to almost every receiver in the formation of the experience. On the interpersonal level, the context and meaning of a text depends largely on speaker/writer, the giver of the text. From the image, persona, and all that constructs the speaker/writer stands for, the context is formed and subsequent meaning to the text is attached. It is, therefore, almost impossible to examine any process of information exchange by isolating the speaker or source of the message from historical frameworks. By now, some of you are probably saying that contexts are also largely formed by the receiver’s personal experience. ...
However, expressions of future orientation or modalities are not independent causations that you can examine in isolation. In fact, these are results rather than causes of a long process where language is constructed, evolved, deconstructed and elevated to a position of power that can change countries and its destiny. A political speech is one clear example of how the interpersonal metafunction can influence and even manipulate human experience through systematic functional linguistics. Political speeches are delivered rarely as a mode of reporting. Political speeches are delivered to convince, gain votes, get approval of current and prospective voters primarily and all the other secondarily. There is, perhaps, no other platform of communication where meanings are pre-formed even before actual linguistics than a political speech. The persona or source of the message has already formed his meanings through the political parties he or she has chosen to join, stance on political issues, overall media behaviour, and even, physical appearance. The personal forms the social standing and establishes the social distance. Yes, those meanings can be changed as receivers form their own contexts but it can also be enforced once the speaker imposes his or her own using different rhetoric, form different ideas, and establish different presets. The rhetoric used in that speech was one that inspired, not forced take note, the entire nation into war. The text that was used, the thematic formation, and the poetry above the message operated across texts and across time. To demonstrate how the Interpersonal Metafunction in a Political Speech can manipulate human ...Download file to see next pagesRead More