CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THE SPEECHES OF

PRESIDENT BENIGNO S. AQUINO III

A Thesis
Presented to
The Faculty of the Graduate School
College of Arts and Sciences
University of Southeastern Philippines
Obrero, Davao City, Philippines

In Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree
Master in English in Applied Linguistics

by

Teresa Autida-van der Zee

March 2013
 Republic of the Philippines
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHEASTERN PHILIPPINES
College of Arts and Sciences
Obrero, Davao City

DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY

I, Teresa Autida-van der Zee, declare that this research is original to the best of my

knowledge. I declare further that this activity was undertaken by me.

Teresa Autida-van der Zee

March 2013

ii
 APPROVAL SHEET

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of English in

Applied Linguistics, this thesis entitled, “Critical Discourse Analysis of the Speeches of

President Benigno S. Aquino III” prepared and submitted by Teresa Autida-van der

Zee is herby recommended for approval and acceptance.

CATHERINE M. ROBLE, Ph.D.

Adviser

________________________________________________________________________

Approved by the Committee on Oral Defense with the grade of _____

ROWENA C. NUERA, Med-LT

Chair

RIOLIZA B. MOLINA, M.A. MILAGROS VILLAS, Ph.D.

Member Member

________________________________________________________________________

Accepted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of

English in Applied Linguistics.

Comprehensive Examination: EXEMPTED

March 26, 2013 Dr. Eveyth P. Deligero

Date Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

iii
 ABSTRACT

This study entitled, CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THE

SPEECHES OF PRESIDENT BENIGNO S. AQUINO III, aimed to determine the

structure and discourse features of the three (3) speeches of President Benigno S. Aquino

III.

The structure and discourse features of the three (3) significant speeches of

President Benigno S. Aquino III, the Inaugural Address 2010, State of the Nation

Address of 2011 and 2012 were analyzed base on the transitivity and modality meta-

functions of Halliday (1985).

Based on the analyses of data, findings revealed that 1) The over- all structure of

the speeches of President Benigno S. Aquino III used linguistic units which express

determination, willingness and intention on the part of the speaker; could easily be

understood by the hearers and spectators; was easy to embrace and understand despite of

the different issues he brought up on economy, health, education and even the on-going

corruptions of the previous administrations; he used personal pronouns that are associated

with a grammatical person in the first person plural form and linguistic constructions that

indicate a relationship of possession, which highlighted foremost his successful and

competent administration as well as the people and supporters who believe in his current

leadership and better governance; and 2 (a) The discourse features in terms of transitivity

in speeches of President Benigno S. Aquino III expressed something that is done; (b) in

terms of modality, he used linguistic units to seek common ground and/ or cooperation as

well as sense of belongings within the group. It revealed his attitude or opinion about the

truth of a proposition expressed by a sentence and made his audience to plainly accept his

iv
speeches, thus, it aided him great emphasis to serve and show his positivity to achieve

greater goals.

Based on these findings, the researcher recommended for the emphasis on critical

discourse studies using micro and macro-structural approach in the analysis of text; that

language learners are advised to be taught and be motivated to critically analyze text in

the form of spoken or written discourse using the Critical Discourse Analysis. For

language teachers, the researcher suggested to systematically apply Critical Discourse

Analysis as an approach in their language teaching as an effective pedagogical tool.

Finally, for future researchers, it is suggested to conduct similar studies of spoken

discourse in different contexts and genres with more outputs.

v
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The researcher would like to acknowledge with deep gratitude to those who

offered their guidance and invaluable contribution to the success of this study.

Foremost, to the Lord Jesus Christ, the creator of all things; for His wisdom,

strength and the assurance of His word through the Holy Bible. And above all, for His

super abounding grace that sustains the researcher during the course of this endeavor.

To Dr. Catherine M. Roble, the researcher’s thesis adviser for her

encouragement, assistance and sincerity in contributing her expertise of this research

work;

To Prof. Rowena C. Nuera, panel chair, for her significant input, constructive

criticism and good judgment;

To Dr. Milagros Villas, panel member, for her invaluable time and suggestions

in reviewing the study;

To Prof. Rioliza Baquial-Molina, panel member and grammarian, for her

persevering effort and time in reviewing the technicalities of the research contents;

To Prof. Rikka Drillon-Borre and Prof. Irish Mae G. Fernandez, research

validators, for their precious time and efforts in examining the content of the research

analyses;

To Prof. Liza C. Asombrado, for her undying support and assistance of the

researcher’s administrative needs within the university;

To Ms. Michelle C. Lim, for her never ending assistance, availability,

encouragement and friendship;

To Mr. Mar Elbert Logroño, for extending his assistance on technical expertise;

vi
 To Pastor Mario Indino and his wife, Mrs. Eugenie Angela Hampp-Indino,

for their assistance in imparting their brilliant ideas and for their prayers;

To Autida and van der Zee family, for the love, support and words of

encouragement;

And to Rob van der Zee, for all his positive inputs, never ending love and

support; and so as his spiritual guidance towards the success of this study.

This research would not have been triumphant without all your support. Thank

you very much.

T. A. v/d Z.

vii
 DEDICATION

The researcher would like to humbly dedicate this thesis

To her Savior and Lord Jesus Christ;

to her loving husband, Rob van der Zee;

to their dear son, Paulus Pieke van der Zee;

and

to her supportive family and friends.

T. A. v/d Z.

viii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page ……………………………………………………………………… i

Declaration of Originality…………………………………………………….. ii
Approval Sheet ……………………………………………………………….. iii
Abstract ……………………………………………………………………….. iv
Acknowledgement …………………………………………………………….. vi
Dedication …………………………………………………………………….. viii
Table of Contents …………………………………………………………….. ix
List of Tables …………………………………………………………………... xi
List of Figures …………………………………………………………………..xii
CHAPTER PAGE
I INTRODUCTION

Background of Study ……………………………………………………………. 1

Statement of the Problem ………………………………………………………... 3
Scope and Limitation of the Study ………………………………………………. 4
Theoretical Lens …………………………………………………………………. 5
Significance of the Study ………………………………………………………... 8
Definition of Terms ……………………………………………………………… 8

II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

Related Literature ……………………………………………………………….. 10

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) …………………………………….. 10
Further Development of CDA …………………………………………. 11
Critical Discourse Analysis as a Pedagogical Tool …………………….. 13
Discourse Features ……………………………………………………… 17
Transitivity …………………………………………………….. 17
Modality ……………………………………………………….. 19
Spoken Discourse Analysis …………………………………………….. 20
Speeches ………………………………………………………………... 21
Philippine President Benigno S. Aquino III ……………………………. 24
Related Studies …………………………………………………………………... 25

III METHODS

Research Design …………………………………………………………………. 31

Corpora of the Study …………………………………………………………….. 31
Research Locale …………………………………………………………………. 31
Data Gathering Procedure ……………………………………………………….. 32
Research Instrument ……………………………………………………………... 34

IV RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Over-all Structure of the Speeches of Benigno Aquino III ……………………… 38

Inaugural Speech Address 2010 ………………………………………… 39
State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2011 …………………………….. 45

ix
 State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2012 …………………………….. 53
Discourse Features of Speeches in Terms of Transitivity ………………………. 58
Inaugural Speech Address 2010 ………………………………………… 59
State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2011 ……………………………... 61
State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2012 ……………………………. .. 63
Discourse Features of Speeches in Terms of Modality ………………………….. 66

V SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

Summary of Findings …………………………………………………………..... 68

Conclusions ………………………………………………………………………. 69
Recommendations ……………………………………………………………….. 70

REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………………….. 71

APPENDICES …………………………………………………………………………… 79

a. Letter to the College Dean

b. Corpora of the Study
c. Analysis of the Corpora

CURRICULUM VITAE

x
 LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Analysis of Modal Verbs and Levels of Politeness ………………….. 35

Table 2. Analysis of Verb Tenses …………………………………............…… 35

Table 3. Analysis of Pronouns ……………………………………………..…… 36

Table 4. Transitivity Analysis ………………………………………………….. 36

Table 5. Over-all Structure of the Speeches

of President Benigno S. Aquino III ………………………………….. 38

Table 6. Discourse Features of the Speeches in Terms of Transitivity ……....... 58

Table 7. Discourse Features of the Speeches in Terms of Modality ………….. 66

xi
 LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 1. Procedure of the Study …………………………………………………. 32

xii
 Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the background of the study, problems to be answered,

scope and limitation, theoretical lens, significance of the study and the definition of terms

used in the current study.

Background of the Study

Language is a primary tool of human communication and through this means

human discourse takes place. A communication process mainly involves a speaker and a

listener in which both participants perform a mutual action of exchanging ideas. Through

a spoken language an individual could freely express his thoughts in various genres like

interviewing, reporting or delivering a speech. However, the scientific study of spoken

language has historically been overshadowed by the study of written language (Linell,

1982) partly because of technical difficulties connected with the collection and analysis

of spoken language data.

A critical study of language in spoken discourse has increased remarkably using

critical discourse analysis (CDA) as an approach. It has spread to new areas of the world

and to great many disciplines (Fairclough, Graham, Lemke and Wodak, 2004). The

primary focus of CDA is on the effect of power relations and inequalities in producing

social wrongs, and in particular on discursive aspects of power relations and inequalities.

This includes questions of ideology, understanding ideologies to be ‘meaning in the

service power’, (Thompson, 1984).

Text is the core of a spoken discourse. It is an authentic language material which

is delivered by the speaker to the hearers having different levels of education,

backgrounds and interpretations. Hence, it is primarily important to look into how the

weaving of linguistic structure and discourse features are interrelated in revealing the

social practice of dominance, power and ideologies. The uncovering of these hidden

motives could be discovered through critically analyzing beyond the text.

The researcher’s claim in this particular study is based on the Systematic

Functional Grammar of M.A.K. Halliday (1985) critical discourse approach. He puts two

vital components such as systematic grammar and functional grammar. These two are

inseparable parts for an integral framework of linguistic theory. Likewise, Halliday thinks

of the meta-functions which are inherent in any languages and that include the ideational

function (transitivity), the interpersonal function (modality) and textual function.

Speeches are considered as a distinctive genre of a spoken discourse that is

subject for examination of grammatical aspects of language. The writers and speakers in

this genre must instill the awareness on the usage of linguistic features as well as the

formation of ideas. This means that it must be presented and exercised with authority,

strategy and power of persuasion for the delivery of these speeches reflects the speaker’s

identity and societal position.

In the context of political arena, Van Dijk (1998b) claims that political discourse,

gender inequality, media discourse, and the like, should be emphasized, although to date

most discourse studies dealing with any aspect of power, domination and social

inequality have not been explicitly conducted under the label of CDA.

Furthermore, Beard (2000: 2) contends that it is important to study the language

of politics because it enables an individual to “understand how language is used by those

who wish to gain power, those who wish to exercise power and those who wish to keep

2
power.” Linguists’ enthusiast like Van Dijk (1995, 2006) and De Wet (2010) perceive

politically structured discourses as instruments of mind control by the dominant ideology.

In the context of political genre in the Philippines, there has been a study

conducted by Jibrin (2003) focusing on the State of the Nation Address (SONA) of the

former presidents, namely: Ferdinand E. Marcos, Joseph E. Estrada, and Gloria M.

Arroyo. However, the researcher has not come across local researches that concern the

critical discourse analysis on the speeches of the 15th President Benigno S. Aquino III.

Therefore, the researcher chose this study to uphold the need to establish the

discourse patterns of the following speeches of President Benigno S. Aquino III:

Inaugural speech delivered on June 30, 2010, State of the Nation Address (SONA)

delivered on July 25, 2011 and State of the Nation Address (SONA) delivered on July 23,

2012.

The main purpose of the study was to emphasize the importance of research on

critical discourse analysis of spoken discourse in the context of politics as it is deemed

crucial to reveal the discursive aspects of power relations and inequalities in the society.

Through the investigation of the speech structure and discourse features, it revealed the

persuasive strategies engaged by President Aquino to respond to the purpose of a specific

political community.

Statement of the Problem

The study aimed to analyze the speeches of President Benigno S. Aquino III, with

the purpose of establishing the discursive patterns in the structure of the speeches. It

deployed the principles of critical discourse analysis as an approach in critically

analyzing the points.

3
 Specifically, this study sought the answer to the following questions:

1. What is the over-all structure of the speeches of President Benigno S. Aquino

III in the following:

a. Inaugural Speech in 2010;

b. State of the Nation Address in 2011; and

c. State of the Nation Address in 2012?

2. What are the discourse features of the speeches of President Benigno S. Aquino

III in terms of the meta-functions of (a) transitivity and (b) modality (levels of

politeness)?

Scope and Limitation of the Study

The researcher was limited only in determining the structure (modal verbs, tenses

of verbs and the pronominal choice of personal and possessive pronouns) of the speeches

through the two (2) meta-functions. The ideational function, paralleled to transitivity

system which is represented by six (6) types of processes (material, mental, relational

[attributive and identifying], verbal, behavioral and existential processes) and the

interpersonal function, concentrated on modality (levels of politeness) using the

Systematic Functional Grammar of Halliday (1985) in analyzing the speeches of

President Benigno S. Aquino III.

This study involved a purposive selection of the three (3) significant speeches of

the president; his Inaugural speech delivered on June 30, 2010 after taking the oath as the

15th Philippine President at the Quirino Grandstand in Manila, State of the Nation

Address (SONA) delivered on July 25, 2011 and State of the Nation Address (SONA)

4
delivered on July 23, 2012 at the Session Hall of the House of Representatives, Batasan

Pambansa Complex, Quezon City, Philippines.

Theoretical Lens

Critical discourse analysis is an offshoot of applied linguistics rooted in the

tradition of critical social scientific theory (Khan and Hare, 2006: 70). According to

Janks (2001: 26), critical discourse analysis stems from a critical theory of language that

sees the use of language as a form of social practice. This approach analyzes discourses

from the real world and studies social problems such as dominance, inequality, racism,

and powerlessness.

The famous critical discourse analyst, Norman Fairclough, is considered as one of

the founders of critical discourse analysis as applied to the sociolinguistic field. In his

book on Language and Power, Fairclough (1989) discusses how power and dominance

are enacted by the speaker. He discusses the methodological framework for analyzing

discourse and emphasizes three dimensions when analyzing discourse, that is,

description, interpretation and explanation. Furthermore, Fairclough’s concept in CDA is

inspired by Halliday’s approach to Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), Fairclough

(2003: 5).

Fairclough (1993) presented his definition on CDA as follows:

CDA as discourse analysis which aims to systematically

explore often opaque relationships of causality and
determination between (a) discursive practices, events and
texts, and (b) wider social and cultural structures, relations
and processes; to investigate how such practices, events
and texts arise out of and are ideologically shaped by
relations of power and struggles over power; and to explore
how the opacity of these relationships between discourse
and society is itself a factor securing power and hegemony
(p. 135).

5
 This study is mainly anchored on the grounded theory of M.A.K. Halliday’s

(1985) Systematic Functional Grammar. It has two components: systematic grammar and

functional grammar. These are two inseparable parts for an integral framework of

linguistic theory. Systemic grammar aims to explain the internal relations in language as

a system network, or meaning potential. This network consists of subsystems from which

language users make choices. Functional grammar aims to reveal that language is a

means of social interaction, based on the position that language system and the forms that

make it up are inescapably determined by the uses or functions which they serve

(Zhuanglin, 1988: 307).

The framework of Halliday (1985) serves as the basis for the analysis of the meta-

functions which are the three aspects of meaning that are present in each clause in each

language: the ideational (transitivity), the interpersonal (modality) and the textual meta-

functions. However, in this study, the researcher basically focused on two meta-

functions, the ideational (transitivity) and interpersonal functions (modality) through the

levels of politeness using Halliday’s framework.

Ideational Function (Transitivity)

The first role of language is ideational or transitivity. In traditional grammar,

transitivity was developed as the concept of transitive or intransitive verb (Halliday,

1976: 159 in Haratyan, 2011) whether the verb takes an object or not, but in SFL it

functions to link grammar to the meta functions; however, in Halliday’s terms,

transitivity as a major component in experiential function of the clause deals with the

“transmission of ideas “representing ‘processes’ or ‘experiences’: actions, events,

processes of consciousness and relations”, (Halliday, 1985: 53).

6
 Thus, transitivity has inter-related options to represent different types of process

or experience investigated from above, below, and around consists of process, participant

with different labels such as Actor, Goal; Senser, Phenomenon; Carrier, Attribute; and

circumstance including Cause, Location, Manner, Means and Instrument.

According to Halliday (1976: 159), process refers to a semantic verb (doing,

happening, feeling, sensing, saying, behaving, and existing) and anything that it expresses

like event, relation, physical, mental or emotional state when sorted in the semantic

system of the clause is classified into material, relational, mental, verbal, behavioral, and

existential processes. These Linguistic “processes” as the products of our perception of

the world are socially and culturally constructed with participants, any animate or

inanimate noun phrase in circumstances expressed by adverbial and prepositional

phrases, (Halliday, 1985: 101-102).

Interpersonal Function (Modality)

In interpersonal meta-function, the degree of intimacy or distance and the type of

the relationship between the writer and reader or participants in a text is explored through

the type of modality. Halliday & Martin (1981:30) defines interpersonal communication

which embraces three grammatical categories of speech function, modality and tone.

However, for modality category, the interpersonal meta-function concentrates on social

roles and relationship express by the speaker’s judgment toward a certain topic through

the formality level or degree of politeness: high, median and low through the use modal

verbs.

Additionally, the interpersonal meaning is ‘meaning as a form of action: the

speaker or writer doing something to the listener or reader by means of language’

7
(Halliday, 1985: 53). In this function, establishing the language users' statuses and roles

and transmitting these statuses and roles is evident.

Significance of the Study

The current study is significant to the following:

Students. They may be able to comprehend the discursive patterns and

ideological aspects of the political speeches, write their own research papers with

enthusiasm and value the importance of the study in their field of interests.

Instructors. They may be able to concede the significance of critical discourse

analysis in language teaching to both speaking and writing discourses. And that

they may never cease to broaden their knowledge concerning other teaching styles

and strategies which they can make use inside their classrooms.

Politicians. They may be able to have an idea on the impact of their speeches to

the public especially that they are into impressing the people of their commitment

to serve the country, Philippines.

Voters. They may be able to understand the rhetorical persuasive strategies of the

politicians’ manipulative language in winning their trust and confidence.

Future Researchers. They may continually expand the boundaries of linguistics

especially sociolinguistics concerning CDA and value its application in language

teaching.

Definition of Terms

The following terms are operationally defined to provide clarity on the terms used

in this study.

8
Benigno S. Aquino III. In this study, the term refers to the political leader of

the democratic government of the country and who currently holds the title as

the 15th president of the Republic of the Philippines. Specifically, his speeches

were subjected to critical discourse analysis.

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). It is a field that is concerned with

studying and analyzing written and spoken texts to reveal the discursive

sources of power, dominance, inequality and bias, Van Dijk (1998a). In this

study, this term refers to the approach for analyzing the patterns in the

speeches of Benigno Aquino III.

Speeches. This term refers to the three (3) significant speeches of Benigno

Aquino III, specifically the Inaugural Address in 2010, State of the Nation

Address 2011 and of 2012. In this study, this refers to the corpora subjected

for analysis of the study.

9
 Chapter II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter contains the related literature and reviews of studies culled by the

researcher that support the current study.

Related Literature

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)

In the late 1970s, Critical Linguistics (CL) was developed by a group of linguists

and literary theorists at the University of East Anglia (Fowler et al., 1979; Hodge &

Kress, 1979). Their approach was based on Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics

(SFL). Critical linguistics practitioners such as Trew (1979a, p. 155) aimed at “isolating

ideology in discourse” and showing “how ideology and ideological processes are

manifested as systems of linguistic characteristics and processes.” This aim was pursued

by developing CL's analytical tools (Fowler et al., 1979; Fowler, 1991) based on SFL.

Following Halliday, these CL practitioners view language in use as

simultaneously performing three functions: ideational, interpersonal, and textual

functions. According to Fowler (1991, p. 71) and Fairclough (1995b, p. 25), whereas the

ideational function refers to the experience of the speakers of the world and its

phenomena, the interpersonal function embodies the insertion of speakers' own attitudes

and evaluations about the phenomena in question, and establishing a relationship between

speakers and listeners. Instrumental to these two functions is the textual function. It is

through the textual function of language that speakers are able to produce texts that are

understood by listeners. It is an enabling function connecting discourse to the co-text and

con-text in which it occurs.

 Halliday's view of language as a “social act” is central to many of CDA's

practitioners (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999; Fairclough, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1995b,

1995a; Fowler et al., 1979; Fowler, 1991; Hodge & Kress, 1979). According to Fowler et

al. (1979), CL, like sociolinguistics, asserts that, “there are strong and pervasive

connections between linguistic structure and social structure”. However, whereas in

sociolinguistics “the concepts 'language' and 'society' are divided…so that one is forced

to talk of 'links between the two’”, for CL “language is an integral part of social process”

(Fowler et al., 1979, p. 189).

Another central assumption of CDA and SFL is that speakers make choices

regarding vocabulary and grammar, and that these choices are consciously or

unconsciously “principled and systematic” (Fowler et al., 1979, p. 188). Thus, choices are

ideologically based. According to Fowler et al. (1979), the “relation between form and

content is not arbitrary or conventional, but… form signifies content”. In sum, language

is a social act and it is ideologically driven.

Further Development of CDA

Over the years Critical Linguistics (CL) and what recently is more frequently

referred to as CDA (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999; van Dijk, 1998a) has been further

developed and broadened.

Recent work has raised some concerns with the earlier work in CL. Among the

concerns was, first, taking into consideration the role of audiences and their

interpretations of discourse possibly different from that of the discourse analyst. The

second concern has called for broadening the scope of analysis beyond the textual,

extending it to the intertextual analysis. Fairclough (1995b) has raised both issues. He

11
claims that the earliest work in CL did not adequately focus on the “interpretive practices

of audiences.” In other words, he claims that CL has, for the most part, assumed that the

audiences interpret texts the same way the analysts do. In a similar vein, commenting on

Fowler (1991), Boyd-Barrett (1994) asserts that there is “a tendency towards the classic

fallacy of attributing particular ‘readings’ to readers, or media ‘effects,’ solely on the

basis of textual analysis” (p. 31).

The other issue put forward by Fairclough (1995b) is that while earlier

contributions in CL were very thorough in their grammatical and lexical analysis they

were less attentive to the intertextual analysis of texts: “the linguistic analysis is very

much focused upon clauses, with little attention to higher-level organization properties of

whole texts”.

Despite raising these issues with regard to earlier works in CL, Fairclough

(1995b) inserts that “mention of these limitations is not meant to minimize the

achievement of critical linguistics--they largely reflect shifts of focus and developments

of theory in the past twenty years or so”. The “shifts of focus and developments of

theory” which Fairclough (1995b) talks about, however, have not resulted in the creation

of a single theoretical framework. What is known today as CDA, according to Bell &

Garret (1998), “is best viewed as a shared perspective encompassing a range of

approaches rather than as just one school”.

Also, Van Dijk (1998a) stresses that CDA “is not a specific direction of research”

hence “it does not have a unitary theoretical framework.” But, van Dijk (1998a) asserts,

“given the common perspective and the general aims of CDA, we may also find overall

conceptual and theoretical frameworks that are closely related.”

12
 A clear distinction of CDA and DA is defined by Rashidi and Souzandehfar

(2010), according to them:

Discourse Analysis (DA) focuses on the relationship

between language forms and a limited sense of context and
tends to be oriented to a narrow understanding of the larger
social, cultural and ideological forces that influence our
lives, CDA goes much further toward addressing the
ideological dimensions of discourse. It is a version of
discourse that does not posit language use free of
ideological conditions.
CDA is a type of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way

social power abuse, dominance and inequality are enacted, reproduced and resisted by

text and talk in the social and political context. With such dissident research, critical

discourse analysts take explicit position, and thus want to understand, expose and

ultimately to resist social inequality (Van Dijk, 1998).

As an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse, CDA views “language

as a form of social practice” (Fairclough 1989: 20) and focuses on the idea that social and

political domination is reproduced by “text and talk.”

Furthermore, Van Dijk (1988) states that CDA is concerned with studying and

analyzing written texts and spoken words to reveal the discursive sources of power,

dominance, inequality and bias, and how these sources are initiated, maintained,

reproduced and transformed within specific social, economic, political and historical

contexts. By so doing, it illuminates ways in which the dominant forces construct texts

that favor their interest.

Critical Discourse Analysis as a Pedagogical Tool

CDA has a number of pedagogical implications. In the context of literary and

education, Fairclough (1995) pointed out that:

13
 Schools are heavily involved in these general developments
affecting language in its relation to power” (p. 220), and
that this “problematic of language and power” is
“fundamentally question of democracy” (p. 221).

Fairclough then argued that if individuals are to deal productively as citizens with

the challenges of the social world, they need to be educated toward the development of a

critical language awareness that “develops their capacities for language critique,

including their capacities for reflexive analysis of the educational process itself” as well

as analysis of the larger social, cultural, and linguistic contexts in which education

occurs.

The critical language awareness (CLA) as a pedagogical tool may perhaps be

most powerful when it is used as a form of meta-discourse in classroom discussions. A

meta-discourse, means taking a step back from the discussion of a given topic to talk

about the ways in which group members are using language to make meaning that

embodies assumptions and beliefs or ideological positions (Fairclough, 1995).

Likewise, as stated by Norton and Toohey (2004: 1) advocates of critical

approaches to second language teaching are interested in relationships between language

learning and social change. From this perspective, language is not simply a means of

expression or communication; rather, it is a practice that constructs, and is constructed

by, the ways language learners understand themselves, their social surroundings, their

histories, and their possibilities for the future.

In line with the language teaching concerning critical discourse analysis (CDA),

Auerbach (1995: 9) stresses that:

Pedagogical choices about curriculum development,

content, materials, classroom processes, and language
use, although appearing to be informed by a political

14
 professional considerations, are, in fact, inherently
ideological in nature, with significant implications for
learners’ socioeconomic roles. Put simply, our choices
as educators play a role in shaping students’ choices’.

On the other hand, Kumaravadivelu (1999: 479) believes that the text is less

important than the processes of engaging with the text: ‘In the context of the ESL

classroom, as in any other educational context, what makes a text critical has less to do

with the way its content is constructed by the author (though it surely matters) than the

way it is deconstructed by the teacher and the learner’.

To sum up, learners may need to be taught how to interrogate a text, how to

engage in ‘critical reading’ (Wallace, 1992), and how to problematize both the overt and

the covert cultural, political and gendered messages of the text. At the same time, as

Canagarajah (1999: 194) warns, it is not simply a matter of attempting to instill a critical

mind-set: ‘It is condescending to think that students have to be led by the noses to express

opposition’. And he adds that ‘activities prescribed in ESL textbooks as ways of

encouraging critical thinking are modeled on Eurocentric thought processes’.

An article on Introduction: Theory and Practice in Critical Discourse Analysis

written by Luke that is found and published online at

(http://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/ed270/Luke/SAHA6.html), he states that

studies of UK, US and Australian classrooms have focused on how classroom talk could

shape and reshape what would count as knowledge, subjectivity, legitimate social

relations and textual practices.

Classroom talk is a primary medium through which teachers and students

construct ‘readings’ of textbooks, in effect reshaping text structures, features and

knowledge into authoritative interpretations. The turn-taking structure of classroom

15
lessons and other spoken texts could be analyzed for its topic and propositional

macrostructure, to document patterns of who could speak, when, about what topics and

with what officially recognized authority and force. As noted, ethno-methodological

studies of classroom talk detail many of the typical discourse moves and techniques with

which teachers regulate classroom knowledge. Recent studies of gender and cultural

identity document how students' resistance can reshape school knowledge and social

relations (Gutierrez Larsen and Kreuter, 1995).

Furthermore, in the article authored by Luke, he added that CDA employs

interdisciplinary techniques of text analysis to look at how texts construct representations

of the world, social identities, and social relationships. This has already enabled the

detailed study of policy texts, official curriculum documents, textbooks, teachers'

guidebooks, and student writings. It has also been used to look at a range of formal and

informal spoken texts, including classroom talk, administrators' public talk, staff room

talk and parent-teacher interviews.

Several recent studies of the social construction of school knowledge attempt to

track different discourses across a range of texts within school systems (Corson, 1995). In

the study of social science education in Australian secondary schools, Lee (1996)

examined syllabus documents, textbook forms, teacher commentaries on students and

student work, classroom talk, and students' written assignments. Operating from a

poststructuralist feminist perspective, she documented the construction of gender and

gendered textual practices. This research design, used by many Australian and UK

researchers, involves a series of text analyses that use different analytic tools, but which

are nested within an overall set of social theoretic frameworks and sociological questions.

16
 In its constructive moment, critical discourse analysis is being used as the basis

for the teaching of “critical language awareness” and “critical literacy” to students in

Australia and the UK (Fairclough, 1992a). Critical deconstruction and social critique are

key teleological principles of, respectively, post-structuralist discourse theory and

Frankfurt School social analysis. The assumptions of such curricula are: (a) that students

can be taught how to critically analyze the texts of the culture around them as part of

literacy and social science education; and, (b) that critical literacy is the `new basic' for

postmodern conditions.

Discourse Features (Transitivity and Modality)

Transitivity

It is a semantic system to analyze representations of reality in a linguistic text and

create the same experience through various lexico-grammatical options influenced by

different mind styles or authorial ideology, (Fowler, 1986:138). It manifests how certain

choices encode the author’s certain ideological stance affected by social and cultural

institution because according to Fowler these linguistic codes cannot reflect reality

neutrally and definitely embody ideologies, (1986:27) It also functions as a rich analytic

tool utilized in critical discourse analysis, dealing with “who or what does what to whom

or what?” where actor, action and goal as affected are highlighted.

According to Yumin, (2007) she states that this specific discourse feature is

mainly represented by the transitivity system in grammar. In this system the meaningful

grammatical unit is clause which expresses what is happening, what is being done, what

is felt and what the state is and so on.

17
 Furthermore, Zhuanglin (1988: 312) claims this function mainly consists of

transitivity and voice. This function not only specifies the available options in meaning

but also determine the nature of their structural realizations. Hence, the transitivity

system includes six processes: material process, mental process, relational process,

behavioral process, verbal process and existential process as presented by Zhuanglin

(1988) in Wang, (2010).

a) First, material processes are those in which something is done. These

processes are expressed by an action verb (e.g. eat, go, give), an actor

(logical subject) and the goal of the action (logical direct object, usually a

noun or a pronoun).

b) Second, mental processes express such mental phenomena as ‘perception’

(see, look), ‘reaction’ (like, please) and ‘cognition’ (know, believe,

convince). A mental process involves two participants, senser and

phenomenon.

c) Third, relational processes could be classified into two types: attributive

and identifying. The former expresses what attributes a certain object has

or what type it belongs to, for example: The temperature is high. The latter

expresses the identical properties of two entities.

d) Fourth, verbal processes are those of exchanging information. Commonly

used verbs are say, tell, talk, praise, boast, describe, etc. In these

processes the main participants are sayer, receiver and verbiage.

e) Fifth, behavioral processes refer to physiological and psychological

behavior such as breathing, coughing, smiling, laughing, crying, staring,

18
 and dreaming, etc. Generally, there is only one participant—behaver,

which is often a human. This kind of processes is much like the mental

process. Behavioral process may sometimes be hardly distinguished from

a material process that has only one participant. This depends on whether

the activity concerned is physiological or psychological.

f) And finally, the existential processes represent that something exists or

happens. In every existential process, there is an existent; for example,

“There is a girl in the garden.”

Modality

The core of modality analysis is the concept of politeness. Politeness had been

elaborated by Hirschova (2006) in Svarova (2008) by saying that “in its pragmalinguistic

sense, politeness is a special way of using the language to institute smooth

communication and self-defense of the individual in his/her interaction with other

communicating individuals.”

Likewise, according to Zhuanglin (1988: 313) modality refers to the intermediate

ranges between the extreme positive and the extreme negative. It is one of the most

important systems in social communication. On the one hand, it could objectively express

the speaker’s judgment toward the topic. However, it can show the social role

relationship, scale of formality and power relationship. In English, except modal verbs,

modal adverbs, adjectives, there are also personal pronouns, notional verbs, tense, direct

and indirect speeches to express the modalization. Finally, Holmes (1995) as cited in

(Gibson et al., 2009), suggests that "'politeness' is used to refer to behavior which actively

expresses positive concern for others, as well as non-imposing distancing behavior".

19
 Spoken Discourse Analysis

The analysis of discourse is concerned both with spoken and written texts. In both

cases, discourse analysis attempts to explain how linguistic form relates to functions, a

relationship which is not univocal, that is one given linguistic form does not lead

necessarily to only one function.

Widdowson’s perspective (2004) stated that:

Texts can be written or spoken, and must be described in

linguistic terms and in terms of their intended meaning.
Discourse, on the other hand, as text in context, is defined by
its effect. Furthermore, discourse “is the pragmatic process of
meaning negotiation”, and text, its product (2004: 8).

Spoken and written discourses have different social uses and communicative

functions, which makes the form of spoken and written texts completely different.

Written discourse analysis (WDA) is more inclined to confine its treatment to

what is normally written texts, studies of cohesion, or the links between the different

parts of the text, and coherence, or the links between the different “ideas” of words, have

also helped to define what a good speech is for the public for problem-solution pattern in

Hoey (1983) situation + problem + response + evaluation have contributed to planning

better writing courses.

Whereas, spoken discourse analysis as defined by Richards, Platt and Weber

(1985: 84) is the study of how sentences in spoken and written language form larger

meaningful units such as paragraphs, conversations, interviews, etc. Thus, discourse

analysis then, is concerned with linguistic analysis beyond the sentence and morpho-

syntax, which was the original object of study of linguistics.

20
 Another definition describes spoken discourse analysis as the discipline which

studies the relationship between form and function in verbal communication (Rekema,

1999: 13). So, it does not attempt to describe solely the surface of the linguistic

phenomena, but also the intentions and purposes which underlie them, sometimes from a

critical perspective.

Other way to portray is “the study of the relationship between language and the

contexts in which it is used” (McCarthy, 1991: 5). Therefore, it also aims at setting the

linguistic event in a communicative context with the intention of explaining and

understanding the production and reception of words. One influential approach to the

study of spoken discourse is that developed at the University of Birmingham, where

research initially concerned itself with the structure of discourse in school classrooms

(Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975).

Hence, there are logical aspects of spoken or verbal discourses that obviously

differ from that of solely written discourses, mainly the physical and visual aspects of

delivery. (a) The tone of the voice of the speaker. (b) Gestures, both his hands, body

language, eye contact, etc. (c) Audience impact or reactions at the moment. (d) The speed

as a tool use to put emphasis in certain areas. (e) The repetitions of certain phrases or

words. By these one can almost determine hidden thoughts or unspoken words by the

outward appearance and movements of the speaker.

Speeches

Generally, speech is defined as a vocalized form of human communication. The

amazing truth that human beings have the ability to express thoughts and information by

the articulation of sounds is by far one of the undeniable evidences that human beings

21
are unique among all God's creation. Naturally, humans engage in speech activities in

different context daily. For example, at home with family and friends, or may be in their

working zones, people use their preferred choice of codes, languages styles and dialects

depending of course on their orientation of language.

When discussing about speech, the speech act theory as proposed by Austin

(1962) is directly noted when it comes to language. Austin discovered the performative

utterances and the concepts on locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. These

three (3) concepts could be summarized in a simple definition.

A locutionary act is the performance of an utterance. It talks about the actual

utterance and its ostensible meaning. While the illocutionary act, is the performance of an

act in saying something. And lastly, the perlocutional acts, refers to the speech acts that

have an effect on the feelings, thoughts or actions of either the speaker or the listener. In

other words, they seek to change minds, for instance, the actual effect such as persuading,

convincing, scaring, enlightening, inspiring, or otherwise getting someone to do or realize

something, whether intended or not (Austin, 1962).

Basically, there are four (4) types of speeches specifically to inform, to instruct, to

entertain and to persuade (Basic Types of Speeches). However, the principle purpose of a

speech would generally fall into one of the four (4) basic types. First, the informative

speech serves to provide interesting and useful information to the audience. Secondly, the

demonstrative speech has many similarities with the first one. But the main difference

lies in including an actual demonstration of how to the thing one is teaching. Thirdly, a

persuasive speech works to convince people to change in some way, the way they think

and do something, or to start doing something that they are not currently doing. And

22
lastly, the entertaining speech, it provides pleasure and enjoyments that make the

audience laugh or identify with anecdotal information.

However, in this study, the researcher utilized the presidential speeches delivered

by President Benigno S. Aquino III. These speeches talked on different issues and were

particularly anchored on the various situations, events and sectors of the Philippine

government, and the affairs of the country. Basically, as it is observed most of the

presidential speeches fall into a monologue kind of speech.

The term monologue comes for the Greek etymology which means 'speaking

alone.' According to Sankey (2000) he defines monologue as follows:

a monologue is a predominantly verbal presentation

given by a single person featuring a collection of ideas,
often loosely assembled around one or more themes.
Note that I do not define it as a strictly verbal
presentation; many, though certainly not all, successful
monologists also employ nonverbal elements to great
effect, such as, their use of facial expressions and hand
gestures, along with a variety of props and stage
devices.

Hence, the corpus of this present study is focused on the Inaugural Speech (2010)

and the State of the Nation Address (SONA 2011 and 2012) of the President Benigno S.

Aquino III. In the Philippines, it is a norm in the political context that an inaugural speech

is delivered by the newly elected president to inform the president’s intentions and goals

of its new leadership.

On the other hand, the State of the Nation Address (SONA) is delivered annually

during the leadership’s term of presidency. This is carried out for the purpose of

informing the nation and public of what the president’s administration has done in the

different angles and issues of the country. The speech mainly talks about the

23
accomplishments of the leader’s platforms, reports the current situation and presents

solution to the problems of the nation. Generally, the speech contains powerful words to

impress the hearers of the conduct of the president’s duties and responsibilities in the

country.

The medium of language used during the delivery of the speeches of President

Benigno S. Aquino III was originally in Filipino. However, for the purpose of this study,

the researcher opted to utilize the English translated version of the speech as the basis for

the analysis of the corpora.

Philippine President Benigno S. Aquino III

Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III is a famous political icon also known as

Noynoy Aquino or PNoy, who was born on February 8, 1960. Currently, Aquino holds

the position as the 15th President of the Republic of the Philippines after winning the

presidential election in 2010. He studied in Ateneo de Manila University for his

elementary, high school, and college education, and graduated in 1981 with a Bachelor of

Arts in Economics. After finishing his degree, Aquino joined his family in their exile to

Boston, United States and returned to the Philippines in 1983 shortly after the

assassination of his father and held several positions working in the private sector.

Aquino is a fourth-generation politician: his great-grandfather, Servillano

“Mianong” Aquino, served as a delegate to the Malolos Congress; his grandfather,

Benigno Aquino, Sr., served as Speaker of the House of Representatives of the

Philippines from 1943 to 1944; and Aquino’s parents were President Corazon Aquino

and Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr.

24
 He is a leading member of the Liberal Party and holds the position of Vice-

Chairman of the Liberal Party, having assumed the post on March, 2006. Previously, he

held the positions as Secretary General of the party (1999-2002), Vice-President of the

Luzon Liberal Party (2002-2004), and Secretary General of the party (2004-16 March

2006).

In 1998, Benigno S. Aquino III was elected to the House of Representatives as

Representative of the 2nd district of Tarlac Province. Noynoy Aquino was subsequently

re-elected to the House in 2001 and 2004. In 2007, having been barred from running for

re-election to the House due to term limits, he was elected to the Senate in the 14th

Congress of the Philippines. And now, Benigno S. Aquino III holds the highest political

position in the country Philippines.

Related Studies

There were few studies in critical discourse analysis which focus specifically on

presidential speeches in the political context. However, a successful CDA study has been

conducted by Wang (2010) entitled, “A Critical Discourse Analysis of Barack Obama’s

Speeches”. This research was based on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) theory and

Systematic Functional Linguistics (SFL), which analyzed Barack Obama’s presidential

speeches mainly from the point of transitivity and modality, wherein the language used,

was described on how to serve the ideology and power. The result of the study showed

the following: first, Obama used more simple words and short sentences instead of

difficult ones; second, from the transitivity analysis of the speeches, the material process,

a process of doing, has been used most to show what the government has achieved, what

they are doing and what they would do; third, modality refers to a speaker’s attitudes

25
towards or opinion about the truth of a proposition expressed by a sentence. Through the

analysis of modality, Obama made the audience more easily to understand and accept the

political speeches by means of modal verbs, tense and first person pronouns; and lastly,

he used simple present tense to present the domestic and worldwide situations ranging

from political, economic and cultural fields at present. Moreover, by using first person

pronouns and religious belief, Barack Obama successfully shortened the distance

between him and the audience. So it could help Obama persuade the public to accept and

support the policies of present administration.

Although the study of Wang (2010) has similarities in this present study in terms

of its scope on transitivity and modality analysis using Halliday’s framework; however, it

differed on its speaker or subject, the corpus as well and the setting of the study which

have been utilized for the analysis. In this current study, the researcher used the corpora

of the speeches of Philippine President, Benigno S. Aquino III while Wang (2010) made

use of the speeches of the American President, Barack Obama.

Furthermore, an article study of Rudyk (2007) examines power relations of

George Bush's manipulative use of language and the effect it has on the recipients’

mental models. The research is entitled "Power Relations in President Bush's State of the

Union Speech". This research investigation relied on the framework of Van Dijk (2006)

in manipulation wherein such control could take the form of legitimate persuasion or

illegitimate manipulation, the basic difference between them being whether or not the

influence is against the recipient’s fully conscious will and interests. The result of the

analysis revealed the signs of manipulation at the levels of syntax, semantics and

26
pragmatics. A multidisciplinary approach to manipulation elicits discursive, cognitive

and social mechanisms of manipulation in the text of the speech.

The difference of Rudyk’s work from the present study is its great emphasis on

language manipulations found in Bush’s speech. Apart from the additional focus on

discursive patterns of the speeches, the corpus used in the analysis of the related study

was delivered by a native American- English speaker unlike that of this paper which

focused on the speeches spoken by a Filipino politician who considers English as second

language.

Additionally, a recent study conducted by Kamalu and Agangan (2011) as

reflected in Language, Discourse and Society, Volume 1, Number 1, of Language and

Society RC 25 of the International Sociological Association, entitled “A Critical

Discourse Analysis of Goodluck Jonathan’s Declaration of interest in the PDP

Presidential Primaries” examined the text of the President Jonathan‘s declaration of his

candidacy for his party‘s presidential primaries. The study employed a qualitative

approach in the analysis of the text to tease out the meaning potential of the rhetorical

strategies employed in the speech and the ideology they encode. Critical discourse

analysis (CDA) and Systemic Functional Linguistics unearth the underlying ideology and

persuasive strategies used in the declaration speech. The study revealed the following: (1)

that a conscious deployment of diverse rhetorical strategies by the President to articulate

an alternative ideology for the Nigerian nation; (2) that the President used a variety of

persuasive strategies such as appeal to ethno-religious sentiments, alignment with the

suffering majority of the country, and reconstruction of childhood experiences to entreat

and manipulate the conscience of his party and other Nigerians; and (3) the study also

27
showed the deployment of delegitimization strategies to threaten undesirable groups such

as criminals, miscreants, and corrupt individuals.

The related study of Kamalu and Agangan (2011) was concentrated on one

particular speech of President Goodluck Jonathan which is the declaration of his

candidacy. Moreover, the research locale of their study was based in South Africa

particularly in Nigeria. Compared to the present study, this basically focused on two

speech events namely, Inaugural Address (2010) and the State of the Nation of Address

(SONA) of the year 2011 and 2012 in the Republic of the Philippines.

Another CDA study entitled “A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Debates

between Republicans and Democrats over the continuation of War in Iraq” of

Aghagolzadeh and Khorshid (2009) as reflected in the International Journal of

Criminology and Sociological Theory, Vol. 2, No. 1, June 2009, 218-229 was conducted.

The study analyzed the speeches of the two presidential nominees of the two parties:

republican and democratic specifically John McCain and Barack Obama. They selected

one of their speeches on a similar topic (Iraq War) and incorporated their states in the

framework of CDA introduced by Van Dijk. The results revealed that the two senators

take two opposite strands on the same event. They used language as a means of

promoting their own social, political, personal interests. Indeed, language is an effective

means for power struggle.

The investigation of Aghagolzadeh and Khorshid relied on the claims and

framework of Van Dijk (2004) and was focused on the macro strategies of 'positive self-

representation' and 'negative other- representation', (which are intimately tied up with

'Polarization' of in group vs. out group ideologies or US-THEM) plus the other 25 more

28
subtle strategies. However, the present study is anchored on the grounded theory of

Systematic Function Grammar (SFG) of Halliday (1985), in which the study’s main

objective was to determine the discursive patterns found in the presidential speeches of

Benigno Aquino III in terms of ideational (transitivity) and interpersonal (modality)

functions.

Finally, in the Philippine setting, a recent CDA study on media discourse was

conducted by Cortuna and Naval (year), in the University of the Philippines in Diliman

entitled, Foucauldian Advising: Discourse Analysis on Knowledge-Power Relations as

Manifested in the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Emily Post and DZMM’s Dr. Love. The

study used the Althusser's concept of ideology and of Michel Foucault's knowledge-

power discourse with the three stages of CDA: the description of text, the interpretation

of discursive practice, and the explanation of social practice. The result revealed that the

strategy of the advice was to sharply prohibit advice-seekers to move away from the

status quo. The tone for this advice is usually straightforward, reflecting the advice-

givers’ inclination toward the dominant ideology. In contrast, the advice leaning toward

the emancipation of individuals was rather laidback. Before advice-givers considered

giving advice-seekers permission to explore alternative discourses, they first noted

certain conditions. Hence, the researchers concluded that Philippines is still conservative

in terms of preserving societal institutions such as marriage explains the content of the

advice column articles and program transcriptions and why there is a stark difference

between giving advice leaning either to Althusser or Foucault. The social context of the

ideologies embedded in the counseling process in the media shows that alternative

29
discourses are still emerging in our society. Thus, Foucault’s emancipatory framework is

not yet thoroughly integrated in the Philippine social context.

Though the study of Cortuna and Naval (year) was concentrated in both written

and spoken discourse from the newspaper article of Philippine Daily Inquirer and radio

airings recorded. The difference of their study from this study was the concept and

framework they employed. Likewise, this present study focused on the transcribed

spoken discourse of a speaker who is Filipino politician and not a newspaper writer and

radio anchor.

30
 Chapter III

METHODS

In this chapter, the research design, corpora, research locale, the procedures and

research instruments used in the study are discussed.

Research Design

This is a descriptive-qualitative study which utilized the method of Critical

Discourse Analysis of the speeches of Benigno Aquino III. It is qualitative in nature as it

is designed to deal with the complexities of meaning in social context, which are

naturalistic (not controlled), observational (not experimental), and more focused on

problems of validity than on those of reliability and generalizability. Moreover, discourse

research is inherently interpretative (Trappes-Lomax in Schiffrin et al., 2008).

Corpora of the Study

The corpora of this study were sourced from the three (3) selected speeches of

President Benigno S. Aquino III with specified dates. The speeches were delivered in

three consecutive years in two different events namely, an Inaugural Address delivered

last June 30, 2010 and State of the Nation Address (SONA) delivered on July 25, 2011

and July 23, 2012. These speeches were chosen since these were the most significant

speeches of Benigno S. Aquino III during his term.

The speeches were examined theoretically using Halliday’s framework on

Systematic Functional Grammar of transitivity and modality (1985).

Research Locale

This study was conducted in the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of

Southeastern Philippines, Bo. Obrero, Davao City.

Data Gathering Procedures

The Fig. 2 below shows the summary of procedures applied in this specific study.

Fig. 2. Procedure of the Study

Seeking Permission to Conduct the Study

Dr. Eveyth P. Deligero
Dean, CAS-USeP

Online Retrieval of Corpora of the Study

(http://www.pcoo.gov.ph/)

Analyzing the Corpora of the Study

Framework: Halliday (1985)
Research Instruments: Gouling (2006); Pingping (2007)
in Wang (2010) and Halliday (1994)

Peer Review Debriefing

Criteria for validation: Lincoln and Guba (1985)
Validators: Ms. Jan Rikka Drillon-Borre, MA and
Ms. Irish Mae G. Fernandez, MA.

Presenting, Describing and Interpreting

the Results

In conducting the study, the following procedures were observed:

1. Seeking Permission for the Conduct of the Study

At the onset of the conduct of this study, the researcher wrote a letter to

the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Eveyth P. Deligero, asking

permission to allow the researcher perform the study (See Appendix A).

2. Retrieving Corpora of the Study

32
 In this study, only three (3) speeches of President Benigno S. Aquino were

purposively selected namely: Inaugural Address in 2010, State of Nation Address

in 2011 and in 2012. These speeches were retrieved from http://www.pcoo.gov.

which is the official communication’s website of the Philippine president.

3. Analyzing the Corpora of the Study

The texts of the three (3) speeches of President Benigno S. Aquino III

served as the corpora of the study which were analyzed using the framework of

the Systematic Functional Grammar of Halliday (1985). The researcher made use

of a top-down approach to determine the structure (modal verbs, tenses of verbs,

personal and possessive pronouns); the discourse features on the frequency of

ideational or transitivity processes (i.e. material, mental, relational, behavioral,

verbal and existential); and the ideational function or modality (levels or

politeness) based of the texts on study.

Furthermore, in identifying the structure and discourse features in the

corpora of the study, the researcher made use of the research instruments

proposed by Gouling (2006) and Pingping (2007) in Wang (2010), and Halliday

(1994) have been applied in terms of modal verbs, pronouns and (Halliday, 1994)

for tenses of verbs. These research instruments were used and served as guideline

in identifying the discourse features found in the corpora of the study.

4. Peer Debriefing for the Review of the Analysis of Corpora

Sarantakos (1994) has rightly asserted that validity is a methodological

element not only of the quantitative but also of qualitative research. Therefore, the

33
 researcher of this current study utilized the proposed four (4) criteria of Lincoln

and Guba (1985) for judging the soundness of qualitative research.

The criteria include: 1) Credibility, this means confidence in the 'truth' of

the findings that could be demonstrated in a tedious engagement and persistent

observation (the researcher has devoted half a year in analyzing the corpus of the

study) and or peer checking/inquiry audits; 2) Transferability, this refers to the

degree to which the results of qualitative research could be generalized or

transferred to other contexts or settings; 3) Dependability, this shows that the

findings are consistent and could be repeated. This could be enhanced by time

triangulation (the researcher in this study collected the instruments for analysis

from three (3) years to distinguish whether a pattern could be determined in the

corpora per year); 4) Confirmability, this refers to the degree to which the results

were confirmed or corroborated by others. This was done by submitting the

analysis of corpora of this study in a careful evaluation of the validators, namely:

Ms. Jan Rikka Drillon-Borre, MA and Ms. Irish Mae G. Fernandez, MA.

5. Presenting, Describing and Interpreting the Results

Finally, the results of the analysis were presented and described to draw

conclusions and recommendations for future researches on the same subject

matter.

Research Instrument

Herein are the instruments utilized in the analyses of the corpora based on

Gouling (2006); Pingping (2007) in Wang (2010), and Halliday (1994).

34
Table 1. Analysis of Modal Verbs and Levels of Politeness
(Guoling, 2006 in Wang, 2010)
Modal Verbs (Levels of Politeness)
Positive Level Examples
This is the use of a linguistic unit (modal verb) to Low can, may, could, might, dare
seek common ground and/or cooperation as well as
sense of belongingness within the group. The
Median will, would, should, shall
speaker use modal verbs to intensify interest to High must, ought to, need,
hearer, use in-group identity markers, seek has/had to
agreement, avoid disagreement, presuppose/assert
common ground, offer/promise, be optimistic,
give/ask reasons, assume/assert reciprocity, and
offer sympathy/understanding towards the hearer/s.
Negative
This includes indirectness and apologies. These Low needn't, doesn’t, didn’t,
modal verbs tend to express respect and need to, have to
consideration to the hearer. Modal verbs that show
conventional indirectness, hedging, pessimism,
Median won't, wouldn’t, shouldn’t,
minimal imposition, deference, apology, impersonal isn’t, wasn’t
relationship between the speaker and the hearer, High mustn't, oughtn’t, can’t,
nominalization, and incurring a debt/not indebting couldn’t, mayn’t, mightn’t,
the hearer. hasn’t, hadn’t
Table 2. Analysis of Verb Tenses (Halliday, 1994)
Verb Tenses
Past Present Future
Simple Danced dance/dances will/shall dance
The principal function of these verbs
is to refer to a situation, an
occurrence, or event in the past,
present, and future time.
Perfect had eaten has/have will/shall have
These involve verb constructions that eaten eaten
express finished actions that are
relevant to the time referred to or ones
that continue up to the time referred
to.
Progressive was/were am/is/are will be walking
These pertain to verb constructions walking walking
that indicate actions or conditions
continuing in the present, past, or
future. These verbs also describe
something that takes place during a
limited time period.

The Table 1 was used as guideline for the analysis of modal verbs and levels of

politeness; while Table 2 was used for the verb tenses found in the corpora of the study.

35
Table 3. Analysis of Pronouns (Wang, 2010)
Pronouns
Personal Pronouns that are associated with a particular grammatical person,
which may come as first person, second, or third; or depend on number
– singular or plural; gender, case, or formality are considered personal
pronouns.
First I (Me)
We (Us)
Second You (You)
Third He (Him)
She (Her)
It (It)
They (Them)
Possessive Linguistic constructions that indicate a relationship of possession are
known as possessive pronouns.
My (Mine)
Our (Ours)
Your (Yours)
His (His)
Her (Hers)
Its (Its)
Their (Theirs)
Table 4. Transitivity Analysis (Pingping, 2007 in Wang 2010)
Ideational Function (Transitivity)
Processes Participants Core Meaning
Material Actor, Goal This process expresses something that is done, hence,
these processes are expressed by action verbs. Actor is
represented with a logical subject; and the Goal of the
action is represented with a logical direct object.
Mental Senser, This process denotes mental phenomena as
Phenomenon ‘perception’, ‘reaction’, and ‘cognition’. This involves
two participants: the Senser and the Phenomenon.
Relational This process can come in two modes: Attributive or
Identifying. It is Attributive if it gives attributes or
mentions the type it belongs to; and Identifying when it
expresses the identical properties of two entities.
Verbal Sayer, Receiver, This process refers to those of exchanging information.
Verbiage The main participant (Sayer) provides information
(Verbiage – direct or implied) to the addressee/s
(Receiver).
Behavioral Behaver This process pertains to physiological and
psychological behavior (i.e. breathing, smiling, crying,
staring, etc.) There is only 1 participant (Behaver) who
‘experiences’ the action denoted by the verb.
Existential Existent This process represents that something exists or
happens. In this process, the existent (a noun, pronoun)
is usually introduced by expletives.

36
 As shown in the previous page, Table 3 serves as the guideline for the analysis of

verb tenses; while Table 4 shows the basis for transitivity analysis.

Although the identification of the ideational function (transitivity) and the

interpersonal functions (modality) could be criticized for its subjectivity, the researcher

hence dealt with the problem through the validation suggestion of Lincoln and Guba

(1985).

37
 CHAPTER IV

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

This chapter presents the tabulations and the interpretation of the data analyzed.

Over-all Structure of the Speeches of President Benigno S. Aquino III

Table 5. Over-all Structure of the Speeches of President Benigno S. Aquino III

INAUGURAL
SONA 2011 SONA 2012 TOTAL
ADDRESS 2010
Freq. % of Freq. % of Freq. % of Freq. % of
(F) F (F) F (F) F (F) F
MODAL VERBS
can, may, could, might, dare 13 19 37 23 26 19 76 21
needn't, doesn’t, didn’t, need to, have to 0 0 8 5 5 4 13 3
will, would, should, shall 49 70 84 52 87 63 220 60
won't, wouldn’t, shouldn’t, isn’t, wasn’t 7 10 13 8 13 9 33 9
must, ought to, need, has/had to 1 1 9 6 6 4 16 4
mustn't, oughtn’t, can’t, couldn’t, mayn’t,
0 0 9 6 2 1 11 3
mightn’t, hasn’t, hadn’t
Total of Modal Verbs 70 100 160 100 139 100 369 100

TENSES
Simple 48 42 153 47 149 38 350 42
Perf 4 3 24 7 54 14 82 10
Present
Prog 1 1 29 9 25 6 55 7
Perf Prog 0 0 1 0 1 0 2 0
Simple 20 18 65 20 101 26 186 23
Past Perf 4 3 8 2 6 2 18 2
Prog 0 0 2 1 1 0 3 0
Simple 38 33 45 14 50 13 133 16
Future Perf 0 0 0 0 3 1 3 0
Prog 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0
Total of Tenses in Speech 115 100 327 100 391 100 833 100

PERSONAL PRONOUNS
1st Person I (Me) 46 19 47 9 34 6 127 10
We (Us) 54 22 169 32 191 35 414 32
2nd Person You (You) 25 10 44 8 29 5 98 8
3rd Person He (Him) 0 0 8 1 9 2 17 1
She (Her) 1 0 2 0 0 0 3 0
It (It) 19 8 40 8 47 9 106 8
They (Them) 14 6 62 12 47 9 123 10
POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS
My (Mine) 24 10 8 2 10 2 42 3
Our (Ours) 32 14 87 17 113 21 232 18
Your (Yours) 8 4 9 2 10 2 27 2
His (His) 1 0 8 1 10 2 19 1
Her (Hers) 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
Its (Its) 5 2 6 1 8 1 19 1
Their (Theirs) 13 5 36 7 34 6 83 6
Total of Pronouns in Speech 243 100 526 100 542 100 1,311 100

No. of Words in Speech 2,063 5,992 6,842 14,897

No. of Sentences in Speech 121 291 368 780
 Inaugural Address 2010

In the preceding page, Table 5 shows the results of the analysis of the first corpus

which is the Inaugural Address speech of President Benigno S. Aquino III that is

composed of 121 sentences with 2,063 words.

In the first corpus of the study, the analysis of modal verbs shows a significant use

of the modals, i.e. will, would, should, and shall got the highest occurrence of (49) or 70

percent, aside from being an expression of simple future tense, the use of the modal will

expresses determination, willingness, and intention on the part of the speaker, (Guide to

Grammar and Writing). Shown below are excerpts from the first corpora of the study

where the modal verb will was manifested in the following lines;
P3, S8
I will dedicate my life to making our democracy reach its fullest potential:
that of ensuring equality for all.
P7, S28
This is the beginning of my burden, but if many of us will bear the cross we
will lift it, no matter how heavy it is.
P13, S40
I will set the example. S41 I will strive to be a good model. S42 I will not
break the trust you have placed in me. S43 I will ensure that this, too, will be the
advocacy of my Cabinet and those who will join our government.

This is confirmed in the study of Wang (2010), “the high percentage of the use of

modal verbs is appropriate to the speaking since the addresses are delivered in spoken

form. Compared with other verbs, modal verbs are more easily identified and understood

and then accepted because at the time of listening to the speeches, there is no time for the

audience to reflect”

The second highest modal verbs, i.e. can, may, could, might, dare obtained the

frequency of 13 or 19 percent. Shown in the following lines are samples from the corpus.
P6, S22
In moments when I thought of only my own welfare, I also wondered - is it
possible that I can find the peace and quiet that I crave in another country?

39
 P21, S60
Quality education, including vocational education, so that those who
choose not to attend college or those who cannot afford it can find dignified
livelihood;
P24, S64
The armed forces and the police risk their lives daily so that the nation can
live in peace and security.
P44, S113
We will design and implement an interaction and feedback mechanism
that can effectively respond to your needs and aspirations.

On the other hand, the negative modals i.e. won't, wouldn’t, shouldn’t, isn’t, and

wasn’t were found to be very few in the first corpus with a frequency of seven (7) or 10

percent of the total number of modals used. Below are samples from the first corpora of

the study.
P13, S42
I will not break the trust you have placed in me.
P17, S52
We will not disregard the needs of our students.
P20, S58
We will not be the cause of your suffering or hardship.

In the samples found above, the negative marker ‘not’ emphasizes the lack of

necessity for the proposition expressed by the modal ‘will’ to happen that the speaker

promises to do the opposite of the first proposition of the sentences: e.g. ‘break the trust’,

‘disregard the needs of students’, and ‘be the cause of suffering or hardship’.

The first corpus of the study is an inaugural address, purposely delivered to

enumerate briefly the speaker’s administrative principles and convince the audience of

his appropriateness, present a new administration in a more favorable light, and win a

large amount of support from the audience. This explains why these types of modals were

mostly used in the first speech. Biber et al., 1999, states that research and reference

grammars identify central (or core or principal or nuclear) modal verbs (also called

‘‘modal auxiliaries,’’ ‘‘verbal modality markers,’’ or simply ‘‘modals’’) that are used to

express modality, and these usually (but certainly not always) include can, could, may,

might, shall, should, will, would, and must.

40
 Furthermore, the inaugural address marks the beginning of a major political

leader’s term of President Benigno S. Aquino III. To be able to make a mark as the new

elected president, it is apparent that the speaker in the first corpus of the study explicitly

expressed his intentions for his upcoming term. The modal will had been beneficial in

expressing this determination on doing something; likewise, the modal can helped

establish the hope on the audience towards better governance out from what they hear out

of the speaker’s message.

For the analysis of tenses of verbs, majority show the high percentage in the use

of Simple tenses: Simple Present tense ranked the highest percentage of 42 percent,

seconded by Simple Future tense of 33 percent and followed by Simple Past tense of 18

percent. However, a very minimal percentage was recorded on the usage of Present

Perfect and Past Perfect tense 3 percent, and Past Present Progressive tense which is only

1 percent. Shown are samples taken from the first corpus of the study.

The Simple Present tense of verbs was used in the Inaugural Address of President

Aquino in the excerpts below with its implied meanings.

P12, S38
Our foremost duty is to lift the nation from poverty through honest and
effective governance. (Stating responsibility)
P4 S 12
We know what it is like to be denied justice, to be ignored by those in whom
we placed our trust and tasked to become our advocates. (Stating fact/giving an
opinion)
P7 S25
Today marks the end of a regime indifferent to the appeals of the people.
(Giving an opinion)
P9 S31
We are here to serve and not to lord over you. (Emphatic expression)

There are other functions of the Simple Present tense of the verb in political

speeches.
P13 S39
The first step is to have leaders who are ethical, honest, and true public
servants. (Set Plans)

41
 P31 S85
Begin the process of providing true and complete justice for all.
(Directions)
P48 S120
Join me in continuing this fight for change.
P37 S93
This is what democracy means. (General statements)

This result shows that President Aquino commonly used non-complicated

structure of sentence as he delivered his inaugural speech to the Filipino people. Hence,

this supported in study of Wang (2010), where it is natural that simple present tense ranks

with top priority since the addresses are to present the domestic and worldwide situations

ranging from political, economic and cultural fields at present. Moreover, the use of the

tense facilitates the creation of a close relationship between the president and his

audience and the easy identification and acceptation of the validity of the assertions

contained in the speaking.

On the other hand, the use of the Simple Future tense of the verb, which came

second in the rank of most used tenses with frequency of 42 or 31 percent of the total

number.

The use of Simple Future tense is manifested in the following samples taken

from the corpus of the study.

P8, S29
Through good governance in the coming years, we will lessen our
problems. 30 The destiny of the Filipino will return to its rightful place, and as
each year passes, the Filipino’s problems will continue to lessen with the
assurance of progress in their lives. (Stating the visions of the nation he is
leading)
P3 S8
I will dedicate my life to making our democracy reach its fullest potential:
that of ensuring equality for all. (Single action)
P43 S113
We will design and implement an interaction and feedback mechanism
that can effectively respond to your needs and aspirations. (Future intent)
P47 S118
I shall carry the torch forward.

42
 The simple future tense indicates the speaker’s plan of actions or even expected

things in the future according to Halliday, (1994). The tense further helps the speaker lays

out his reforms or results of these in the future, considering that the first corpus serves as

an initial speech for someone who has been recently elected to the position. Aside from

showing the government’s capabilities, the tense helps clarify to the audience the

promises of a better future ahead of them and hence, building up the audience’s

confidence towards the one speaking.

Table 5 also shows minimal distribution of the Simple Past tense of verbs, with

the frequency of 23 or 17 percent of the total. The Simple Past tense of verbs was utilized

in the following lines taken from the Inaugural Speech 2010 of Benigno Aquino III,

which is the first corpus of the study.

P3, S6
My father offered his life so our democracy could live. 7 My mother devoted
her life to nurturing that democracy. (Concurrent past actions of memorable
events in the political history of the country)
P10 S35
It is the promise I made during the campaign, which you accepted on
election day.

The verb ‘made’ indicates an action completed sometime in the past.

Additionally, there are other specific functions that the simple past tense can be used for

include:
P6, S21
They endured hardship, risked their lives because they believe that
compared to their current state here, there is more hope for them in another
country, no matter how bleak it may be. (Past actions)

The simple past tense is used to refer things or actions in the past, Halliday

(1994). The function of these verbs indicating an act done in the past lie in the idea that

newly elected officials usually state their promises and plans with direct or indirect

comparisons of the previous administration’s successes and failures on the background.

43
This is very effective in setting the similarities and differences the present speaker has

over the previous leader, to create an impression towards his/her audience.

As shown in Table 5, the pronouns used in the first corpus were clearly presented

and tabulated. Hence, the remarkable used of the first person pronouns we (us) and I (me)

obtained the highest percentage of 22 and 19 respectively. Moreover, the outstanding of

score of 14 percent and 10 percent were found on the usage of possessive pronouns, our

(ours) and my (mine). Shown below are excerpts from the first corpus of Aquino’s speech

where pronouns were used as a discursive strategy to gain the trust and confidence of

the Filipino;
P1, S2
I never expected that I will be here taking my oath of office before you, as
your president. 3 I never imagined that I would be tasked with continuing the
mission of my parents. 4 I never entertained the ambition to be the symbol of
hope, and to inherit the problems of our nation.

The pronoun (I) basically refers to himself as the newly elected president of the

nation thus it highlights his success and authority as the chief leader of the nation. On the

other hand, (my) pertains to his dearly beloved parents who left a great legacy in the

political history of the Philippines in which every citizen now is benefiting the freedom

of democracy that they brought to the nation. Here, the use of the possessive pronoun

(my) followed by the noun parents was used to gain the sympathy of the Filipino

audience as Aquino recalled the heroic actions of his parents. The pronoun (you) simply

pertains to the people and supporters of him. While (our) forms part of the in-group

identification which basically refers to the country and its people.

During the campaign we said, “If no one is corrupt, no one will be poor.”
P11, S36
37
That is no mere slogan for posters -- it is the defining principle that will serve
as the foundation of our administration.
P12, S38
Our foremost duty is to lift the nation from poverty through honest and
effective governance.

44
 P35, S91
If I have all of you by my side, we will be able to build a nation in which
there will be equality of opportunity, because each of us fulfilled our duties and
responsibilities equally.

Also, the pronoun (we) can refer to an inclusive or exclusive identification of

(P11, S36),
specific group. But in the example shown above it functions as an inclusive

identification for it refers to Aquino and to his political party. The studies of Pennycook

(1994) and Bull and Fetzer (2006) have proven that political speeches are stuffed with

personal pronouns, both in the singular and plural, to strategically show power, solidarity,

and/or authority.

Furthermore, the use of the first person pronoun ‘I’ (singular) in the first corpus

could show the speaker’s personal involvement in the promises mentioned, specifically

when it comes to contexts dealing with the Filipino masses. On the other hand, the first

person pronoun ‘we’ (plural) reduced the speaker’s involvement and instead necessitated

the involvement of the audience being addressed to. This is coherent with the study of

Brozin (2010) on the strategic use of pronouns in Obama’s speeches, which revealed that

the pronoun we shows speaker’s claim of authority as spokesman for the whole country.

On the basis of the structure, overall, President Benigno S. Aquino’s 2010

Inaugural Address revealed the apparent use of the modal verbs will, would, should,

shall; extensive use of the simple aspect of the past, present, and future tenses of the

verb; the widespread mention of the first person pronoun, both the singular (I) and the

plural (we) and the possessive pronoun (ours).

State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2011

For the analysis of modal verbs, Table 6 shows the total of 160 modals used in the

2011 State of the Nation Address of President Aquino which has 291 sentences with

45
5,992 words. The modals, i.e. will, would, should, shall obtained the highest occurrence

of 84 or 52 percent, this shows that these modals were also maintained in the second

corpus of the study, still for the purpose of maintaining a favorable image to the audience

(Guoling, 2006).

The modals will, would, and should still rank as the commonly used modal verbs.

Again the strong determination, willingness, and intention from the speaker may be

culled from the series of modals will found in the analyzed speech.
P17, S65
We are holding accountable—and we will continue to hold accountable—
those who practice this culture of entitlement in all government offices, as there
are still some who think they can get away with it.
P19, S74
A thorough investigation of all those involved in the case is underway; we
will blacklist all contractors proven to have engaged in foul play.

The modal would obtained a frequency of 22 in the second corpus of the study.

Would, functioning as an expression of profound intention of doing something, is the past

tense of will, (Guide to Grammar and Writing).

P1, S1
I stood before you during my inauguration and promised: we would do away
with the use of the wang-wang.
P13, S55
I say to those who would lead us astray: if you will further disadvantage
the poor, do not even think about it. 56 If all you would do is to fill your own
pockets, do not even think about it.

Aside from the mentioned function, would also state a condition like in the

sentence below.
P13, S50
For example, we uncovered and stopped an ill-advised plan to dredge Laguna
Lake. 51 We would have borrowed 18.7 billion pesos to remove 12 million cubic meters of
silt—which would have re-accumulated within three years, even before the debt could be
fully paid.

The modal verb should, on the other hand, denote a strong recommendation or to
suggest an action or to show that it is necessary, (Modal Verbs and Their Meaning) as
shown in the following samples.

46
 P11, S45
Their franchise had lapsed in 2007; their collections should have been remitted to
the national government.
P62, S231
It should be personal for all of us, because we have all been victimized by
corruption.

Moreover, found in Table 5 in the second corpus, the second highest frequency of

37 or 23 percent for the modals, i.e. can, may, could, might, dare. Nevertheless, few were

recorded on the use of i.e. won't, wouldn’t, shouldn’t, isn’t, wasn’t; 13 or 8 percent, for

the modals, i.e. must, ought to, need, has/had to and i.e. mustn't, oughtn’t, can’t, couldn’t,

mayn’t, mightn’t, hasn’t, hadn’t earned 6 percent and lastly the modal verbs, i.e. needn't,

doesn’t, didn’t, need to, have to scored only 5 percent. Shown below are the excerpts of

the second corpus of the study where modal verbs are used.
P16, S63
Today we can see that our taxes are going where they should, and
therefore there is no reason not to pay the proper taxes. 64 I say to you: it’s not
just the government, but our fellow citizens, who are cheated out of the benefits
that these taxes would have provided.
P24, S87 88
How many years have we been over-importing rice? Many Filipinos
thought that there was nothing we could do about it.

Generally, the median level, in both positive (i.e. will, would, should, shall) and

negative polite modals, (i.e. won't, wouldn’t, shouldn’t, isn’t, wasn’t) was still apparent in

the corpus. The modal verbs found in this corpus simply indicate that President Aquino

has projected the optimistic or positive attitude of in which he presented though the

manipulative use of his political language. Regardless of particular motivations in varied

contexts, politicians and political institutions are sustained by persuasive or manipulative

uses of language (Chilton & Schäffner, 1997).

In the analysis of aspects of verbs, Simple Present tense garnered the highest

frequency of 153 or 47 percent from the total tenses used in his State of the Nation

Address of 2011. In addition, the Simple Past tense got the second highest frequency of

47
65 or 20 percent and Simple Future tense of 45 or is equivalent to 14 percent. The rest of

the tenses only got a minimal percentage as recorded in the second corpus of the study.

The present tense of the verb is used to state facts, to refer to perpetual or habitual

actions, and to discuss speaker’s own ideas on an issue, Halliday (1994). Occasionally,

the simple present tense of the verb is used for dramatic effect, narrating an event in

present tense as though it were happening now. Few of the speech’ excerpt is shown in

the following lines with different purposes and usage. The Simple Present tense of the

verbs was used in different intentions and purposes.

P3 S9
The law authorizes only the President, the Vice President, the Senate
President, the Speaker, the Chief Justice, and police vehicles, fire trucks, and
ambulances to use sirens in the fulfillment of their official duties—no one else.
(Stating a fact)
P31, S117
At times I wonder if the stories about some of our past stand-offs are
true—that when cannons were aimed at our marines, they could only reciprocate
by cutting down a coconut tree, painting it black, and aiming it back. 118 True or
not, that time is over.
P10 S35
There is confidence and there is hope; the government is now fulfilling its
promises. (Emphatic Expression)

Or was used in a declarative form in referring to national defense and the

economic situation of the country;

P30, S114
Speaking of security, does enhanced security not also enhance our
national pride?
P40, S159
How can they buy products and services from businesses if they do not
have a proper income?

The Simple Past tense of the verb is used to narrate events and to refer to an

author or an author's narration of the developments in an author's ideas over time,

Halliday (1994). Hence, the Simple Past tense of verbs in the second corpus was used in

referring to the past actions of those who were corrupt and abusive in power;

48
 P11, S41
Given the persistence of the wang-wang attitude, wasn’t their sentiment
justified? 42 This was the attitude that allowed helicopters to be bought as if they
were brand new, but had in fact already been extensively used). 43 This was the
attitude that allowed GOCC officials, like those in the Philippine National
Construction Corporation, to pay themselves millions of pesos in bonuses, even
as they failed to render decent service and plunged their respective agencies
deeper into debt. 44 Before they stepped down from their positions, the former
heads of the PNCC gifted themselves with two hundred and thirty-two million
pesos.

In contrast, the Simple Future tense of the verb often suggests that a speaker will

do something voluntarily- the speaker offers to do something for someone else. It

expresses the idea that a person intends to do something in the future. It does not matter

whether the plan is realistic or not.

The Simple Future tense was used in various ways with implied meanings and

this is being manifested in the excerpts found below.

P1 S1
I stood before you during my inauguration and promised: we would do away
with the use of the wang-wang. (Actions completed in the past)
P2 S4
It was routinely used by public officials to violate traffic laws,
inconveniencing ordinary motorists—as if only the time of the powerful few, and
no one else’s, mattered. (Habitual Actions in the Past)
P65, S242
When the new Ombudsman, former Supreme Court Justice Conchita
Carpio-Morales, takes office, we will have an honest-to-goodness anti-corruption
office, not one that condones the corruption and abuses in government. 243 I
expect that this year, we will have filed our first major case against the corrupt
and their accomplices. 244 And these will be real cases, with strong evidence and
clear testimonies, which will lead to the punishment of the guilty. (Stating the
future expectations of the government and its people from specific individual)

The result of the analysis of the first corpus in which the simple tense was

commonly used is supported in study of Wang (2010), where it is natural that simple

present tense ranks with top priority since the addresses are to present the domestic and

worldwide situations ranging from political, economic and cultural fields at present.

Moreover, the use of the tense facilitates the creation of a close relationship between the

49
president and his audience and the easy identification and acceptation of the validity of

the assertions contained in the speaking.

For pronouns, as shown in Table 5 (page no), the State of the Nation Address

(SONA) of 2011 demonstrated the frequent use of the personal pronouns in the first

person of the plural form we (us), having the frequency of 169 or 32 percent.

The pronoun (we) was commonly utilized by President Aquino’s speech to

emphasize and acknowledge the good results they have brought to the its present

administration, however, it also implies or represents the victim or the abused groups in

the society based on the excerpts shown in the following lines.

P3 S10
Yet the flagrant abuse we bore witness to prompts us to ask: if they felt it
their privilege to flout the simplest traffic laws, how could we expect them not to
help themselves to a share of projects funded by the Filipino people?
P5 S17
We have fought against the wang-wang, and our efforts have yielded
results.
P6 S21-22
At one time, we thought that for the PSE Index to reach 4,000 points
would be, at best, a fluke. We now routinely exceed this threshold. (Inclusive
‘we’)

The inclusive ‘we’ provides an idea of the speaker’s intent to include the

audience’s involvement in the concerns mentioned in the speech. This further implies that

the speaker aims to share responsibility with the audience.

P8 S27
Let me remind you: in the nine and a half years before we were elected into
office, our credit ratings were upgraded once, and downgraded six times by the
different credit ratings agencies. (Exclusive ‘we’)

The exclusive ‘we’, on the other hand, mentions the collective entity that works

with the speaker and does not include the audience. Looking at the examples, it can be

deduced that the pronoun ‘we’ is used most frequently by the speaker in order to

persuade the audience to work as a team as it were by producing apparent collective

utterances, for example “we will” “we shall” etc. Hence, this is confirmed in the study of

50
Walker (2007), explains this prevalent use of the pronoun ‘we’ by saying that politicians

can never be certain that the decisions they have made will always necessarily be viewed

in a positive way. Therefore the use of ‘we’ spreads the responsibility. ‘We’ can certainly

be manipulated for political effect and is used in these speeches to establish a sense of

group unity.

Wilson (1990) in Partington (2003), claims that inclusive pronoun ‘we’ (speaker

and listener) can be used as a strategy to express solidarity; whereas, exclusive pronoun

we (speaker and other/s excluding the listener) can be used to share responsibility, that is,

actions are not only the responsibility of one individual. The first person pronouns can be

used by politicians in their strategies “to gain the people’s allegiance, to have them

believe that the decisions that are being made are the right ones” (Wilson, 1990, p. 71, in

Partington, 2003). On the other hand, the use of inclusive pronoun ‘we’ may indicate the

exclusion of some other groups, which implies a division between ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Also, the pronoun (us) was used inclusively to influence and persuade the

people in changing the negative attitude into a good and positive mentality;
P80, S282
Let us stop pulling our fellow man down. 283 Let us put an end to our crab
mentality. 284 Let us make the effort to recognize the good that is being done.

As Beard (2000: 43), confirms in his study that personal pronouns make up a big

part of political speeches, because they can give an idea of whom the speaker in question

identifies with. The pronominal choices in political speeches are also interesting because

they make an important influence to the overall effect.

Furthermore, the possessive pronouns our (ours) obtained the highest frequency

of 87 or 17 percent. As shown in the excerpts, the possessive form of pronoun our (ours)

was used to highlight the good and positive outcome of economic activities under his

51
leadership, likewise it was used to identify of those being oppressed from their rights

who also pertains to the same fellow Filipino citizens of President Aquino;
P16, S63
Today we can see that our taxes are going where they should, and
therefore there is no reason not to pay the proper taxes. 64 I say to you: it’s not
just the government, but our fellow citizens, who are cheated out of the benefits
that these taxes would have provided.

On the other hand, the pronoun they (them) ranked the third highest form of 62 or

12 percent, this was used to identify to those who were bad, labeled as negative and

unscrupulous government officials as shown in the samples below.

P2, S5
Instead of behaving like public servants, they acted like kings. 6 This
privilege was extended to their cronies and patrons, who moved along the streets
as if they were aristocracy, indifferent to those who were forced to give way and
were left behind.
P25, S89
We proved them wrong in the span of a year. 90 What was once an
estimated yearly shortage of 1.3 million metric tons is down to 660,000—that’s
almost half of the original amount.
P62 ,S228
Some of my critics say that I take this campaign against corruption
personally 229 It’s true: doing what’s right is personal. 230 Making people
accountable—whoever they may be—is personal. 231 It should be personal for all
of us, because we have all been victimized by corruption.

Noticeably, in the analysis of pronouns, the result showed that there was a clear

distinction on the representation of President Aquino’s speech between positive “self”

and negative “other” on the usage of pronouns of his political speech. Thus, the claim of

this particular feature is affirmed by the famous critical discourse analyst whose passion

is into CDA of political text Van Dijk (2004), according to him, “political speeches are

stuffed with the macro strategies of 'positive self-representation' and 'negative other-

representation', which are intimately tied up with 'polarization' of in-group compared to

the out-group ideologies or us-them”.

The analysis on the structure of the 2011 State of the Nation Address shows that

the corpus greatly exhibited the use of the modal verbs will, would, should, shall; with

52
evident the use of simple past, simple present, and simple future tenses of the verbs; also

found in the second corpus analyzed that the plural form of the first person pronoun (we)

was pervasive, plus a generous number of the possessive pronoun (our).

State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2012

The last corpus of this study also showed similarities with the other speeches in

terms of the results, although this speech contained the longest manuscript due to the

number of 368 sentences and 6,842 words compared to the other two speeches analyzed.

Evidently, the same result came out in the analysis of modal verbs used in

accordance to the other corpora of the study. The modals, i.e. will, would, should, shall

earned the highest frequency of 87 or 63, this was followed by the modals, i.e. can, may,

could, might, dare, 26 or 19 percent and modals, i.e. won't, wouldn’t, shouldn’t, isn’t,

wasn’t ranked the third highest frequency or percentage of 13 or 9 percent. While the

rest only obtained a minimal percentage from the total analysis of the modal verbs used

in this particular speech.

Shown below are excerpts extracted from the third corpus and as observed the

modals will, would, need to, had and has were repeatedly used.
P43, S171
We want ARMM to experience the benefits of good governance. 172 And
so, the solution: Synchronization—candidates in ARMM will run at the same time
as candidates in other parts of the country. 173 There would be less opportunity
for them to employ command votes for political patrons. 174 The result would be
fairer elections. 175 Thank you to Congress for passing the law synchronizing
ARMM with the national elections. 176 And why do we need to postpone the
elections? 177 Because, in their desire to return to or retain power, many are
prepared to engage in corrupt practices just to win again. 178 Imagine if we had
listened to the critics, and allowed the election to proceed under these
circumstances. 179 We would have perpetuated the endless cycle of electoral
fraud and official abuse that has led ARMM to become one of the poorest regions
in the country.

53
 Other modal verbs found in the third corpus were can (17) and may (7). Can is

used to express ability, in the sense of being able to do something or knowing how to do

something (Modal Verbs and Their Meaning), as shown in the sample below.
P20, S59
And we are building an environment where progress can be felt by the
majority.

Or, was used to express a theoretical possibility.

P18, S45
Now that we have had eight, can it still just be luck?

The modal (may) expresses any possible circumstance.

P19,
According to Bloomberg Business Week, “Keep an eye on the
S54

Philippines.” 55 Foreign Policy magazine, and even one of the leaders of ASEAN
100, said that we may even become “Asia’s Next Tiger.”

The propositions expressed by all these modals offer an optimistic perspective on

the part of the audience, another ideal strategy to be able to persuade the audience of the

government’s performance and satisfy them of the country’s accomplishments.

There were only a total of twenty 20 negative polite modals or 14 percent. Among

the negative polite modals, doesn’t or does not earned a frequency of 4. This modal

indicates the negative of the act of performing an action, an activity, or a task (Gouling,

2006) in (Wang 2010).

When it comes to the tenses of verbs, Simple Present tense scored the utmost

occurrence of 149 or 38 percent, seconded by Simple Past tense with the frequency of

101 or 26 percent and the Simple Perfect tense ranked the third frequency of 54 or 14

percent. The following excerpts are the taken from the corpus of State of the Nation

Address (2012) of President Benigno S. Aquino III as he presented various issues through

this particular speech.

54
 The Simple Present tense which principal function of these verbs is to refer to a

situation, an occurrence, or event in the present, (Halliday, 1994) was used in describing

and enumerating the available resources and services that his administration offers;
P15, S36
Relief goods are ready even before a storm arrives. 37 Rescue services are
always on standby, and the people are no longer left to fend for themselves. 38
This is now par for the course.

Or in a striking statement directly intended to those who were abusive in

power and authority;

P16, S39
Sirens only blare from the police cars, from ambulances, and from fire
trucks—not from government officials. 40 This is now par for the course. 41 The
government that once abused its power is finally using that power for their
benefit. (Present reforms)

Other functions of the tense include mentioning of current reforms to address

known problems, feat of his administration so far, and general statements.

P19,S53
Commentators the world over voice their admiration. (Accomplishments)
P33,S99
Challenges remain. (General statement)

Again, this is confirmed in the study of Wang (2010), where it is natural that

simple present tense ranks with top priority since the addresses are to present the

domestic and worldwide situations ranging from political, economic and cultural fields at

present. Moreover, the use of the tense facilitates the creation of a close relationship

between the president and his audience and the easy identification and acceptation of the

validity of the assertions contained in the speaking.

In contrast, Simple Past tense which principal function of these verbs is to refer to

a situation, an occurrence, or event in the past, (Halliday, 1994) was used in recalling the

criticisms when he took over the administration from the previous leadership;
P40, S126
When we assumed office and began establishing much-needed reform,
there were those who belittled our government’s performance. 127 They claimed
our achievements were mere luck, and what impact they may have as short-lived.

55
 The Simple Perfect tense, which principal function of these verbs is to refer to a

situation, an occurrence, or event in the past, (Halliday, 1994) was used in comparing the

results of his present leadership from to the previous governance.

P70, S255 256
But you have seen our style, and its ensuing results. You have seen
their style, and, especially, where that took us.

On the aspects of pronouns, Table 5 in page (#) shows the great proportion on the

occurrence of 191 or 35 percent in the usage of the first person pronoun we (us). This

ranked as the highest frequency in terms of personal pronouns used in the SONA of 2012.

Notice how different the pronoun ‘we’ was referring to.

P38,S113
For our State Universities and Colleges: we have proposed a 43.61
percent increase in their budget next …
P102,S363
Starting this year, we will implement a system in which bonuses are based
on their agency’s abilities …
P22,S70
This means that since we received our mandate, 23.31 million more
Filipinos have access to … (Exclusive ‘we’)

In contrast to the samples above, the samples below show the usage of the

pronoun (we) inclusively. As observed, the inclusive ‘we’ were used strategically to

convey that the speaker intentionally involved the addressees in his plans of reforms

and even in his successes.

It wasn’t too long ago when we began to dream again; when, united, we
P1,S2

chose the straight and righteous path; when we began to cast aside the culture of
wang-wang, not only in our streets, but in every sector of society.
P83,S287
What we have replaced these phantoms with: real housing, bridges, and
learning centers for Badjaos in Basilan.
P82,S280-281
While we are on the subject of peace, let us talk about a place that has
long stood as a symbol of frustrated hopes. 281 Before our reforms in the ARMM
began, what we had were ghost students walking to ghost schools on ghost roads,
to learn from ghost teachers. (Inclusive ‘we’)

56
 There are, however, different referents for the pronoun ‘we’. The exclusive ‘we’

does not refer to the addressee. This has been supported by Wales (2006) by saying that

“it is used to refer to the speaker and third parties who may or may not be present in the

immediate situation (may be the speaker’s cronies).” The use of this pronoun can, hence,

be exploited to share responsibility. The inclusive ‘we’, on the other hand, refers to the

speaker and the addressee, which the speaker presumed to speak on the hearer’s behalf.

Lastly, the pronoun our (ours) garnered the total frequency of 113 or 21 percent,

which scored the second highest although it is in the possessive forms of pronouns. The

result is manifested in President Aquino’s speeches on the usage of pronouns which is

supported by Bramley (2008) in Gocheco (2012), in her thesis at the Australian National

University, which she argued that pronouns were used to project positive images of the

politicians, in the context of the Australian political media interview. She went on to say

that pronouns are a key factor in “the construction of reality – a reality that is created and

understood in the discourse of the moment.”

The result is further confirmed and supported in the study of Green (2007) in

Gocheco (2012), Green investigated the use of pronouns as one of the discursive

strategies in political speech. The study yielded a consistent use of the in-group pronouns

such as we, our, and us in the four address sections. The minimal occurrence of the first

person singular pronouns was a response to 'the level of solidarity and responsibility'

(p.8) the politician wanted to portray. Thus, pronouns are used to create and reinforce

group identities to display power (Mooney, et. al, 2011). Therefore, the manifestations on

the use of pronouns, we (us) and our (ours), President Aquino maintained to portray as

57
positive image towards the Filipino nation as he presented the contributions and

platforms of his administration.

Discourse Features of the Speeches in Terms of Transitivity

Table 6. Discourse Features of the Speeches in Terms of Transitivity

Discourse Features in
INAUGURAL
Terms of Transitivity ADDRESS 2010
SONA 2011 SONA 2012 TOTAL
Meta-function
Frequency % of Frequency % of Frequency % of Frequency % of
A) TRANSITIVITY
(F) F (F) F (F) F (F) F
Material Process 68 63 209 61 220 48 497 55
Mental Process 14 13 24 7 33 7 71 8
Relational – Attributive 12 11 64 19 52 11 128 14
Relational – Identifying 3 3 16 5 46 10 65 7
Verbal 6 6 21 6 65 14 92 10
Behavioral 0 0 3 1 0 0 3 0
Existential 5 4 5 1 43 10 53 6
Total of Transitivity in Speech 108 100 342 100 459 100 909 100

Table 6 shows the consolidated results of the transitivity meta-function from the

three (3) corpora of the study which were the Inaugural Address, State of the Nation

Address of 2011 and of 2012. And as basis, the guideline of Pingping (2007) in Wang

(2010) was used in the analysis of this particular discourse feature.

As shown in Table 6 above, after consolidating all the processes used in the three

speeches of President Benigno S. Aquino III, it has been found out that the material

process constituted the largest distribution with a total frequency of 497 or 55 percent.

This process expresses something that is done, hence, these processes are expressed by

action verbs, (Pingping, 2007 in Wang, 2010). The second in over-all result was the

relational-attributive process with 128 or 14 percent. And verbal process obtained the

third highest frequency of 92 or 10 percent.

Each corpus is presented with excerpts to clearly show the discourse features in

accordance to the transitivity meta-function.

58
 Inaugural Address 2010

Among all the processes used in the 2010 Inaugural Speech, the material

processes indicated the largest frequency of 68 or 63 percent.

The excerpts shown in the box was taken from the first corpus of the study which

is the Inaugural Address (2010) where, the material process constituted the highest

process.

Actor Process Goal

P3, S6
My father … … offered his life … so our democracy could live
P3, S7
My mother … … devoted her life … to nurturing that democracy
P3, S8
I… … will dedicate my life … to making our democracy
P3, S9
My family … … has sacrificed much reach its fullest potential: that of
ensuring equality for all

The result of the figure above in which material process obtained the highest

percentage is confirmed in the study of Wang (2010), she investigated the inaugural

address of President Obama, the result revealed the material process, a process of doing is

a good choice in the address to demonstrate what the government has achieved, what they

are doing and what they will do in different aspects of affairs, home or abroad.

The second most used process in the first corpus is the mental process, with a

frequency of 14 or 13 percent. These processes have to do with affection, cognition, or

perception (Halliday, 1985). Likewise, this process is realized by two (2) participants: the

senser, the one who felt and perceived; and the phenomenon, that which is felt, thought,

and perceived.

In the next page, shown are excerpts found in the boxes from the first speech of

the President Benigno S. Aquino III. These samples were shown and labeled according to

their participants involved base on Halliday (1985) and Pingping (2007) in Wang (2010).

59
 Senser Phenomenon
P4, S10
I… know and feel …
P4, S11
We … know …
P6, S21
… they … believe …

Other processes found in the 2010 Inaugural Speech of President Aquino III

include the relational process.

Attributive Identifying
P14, S45 P6, S19
… the majority of them are honest. I am like you.
P37, S94 P16, S51
It (referring to democracy) is the … your government will be
foundation of our unity. your champion
P43, S110 P44, S112
… the dream starts to become a reality. You are the boss.

The relational process only registered a total frequency of 15 (12 for Attributive

and 3 for Identifying) and is equivalent to 14 percent as shown in Table 7.

Sayer Addressee/Recipient Verbiage

P15, S50
we those who have been put in positions by … this is my warning…
unlawful means
P11, S36
we … …“If no one is corrupt, no
one will be poor.”
P31, S82
… we those who talk about reconciliation … …there can be no
you (listener/audience) reconciliation without
P32, S86
… we justice.
… the acceptance of Chief
Justice Hilario Davide of the
challenge…

There were only six (6) verbal processes recorded from the first corpus of the

study. The verbal processes, which represent human experience “in the form of language”

(Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004), were used in delivering the speaker’s direct warnings to

those who may have been the reasons of the country’s present dilemmas, orders to his

60
fellow public servants, and explicit decrees to the Filipino masses being addressed. The

mental processes, which deal with thinking, feeling and perceiving, were, on the other

hand, strategically used to strike to the emotional side of the masses, leading to

persuasion.

Existent Existing
P9, S31
We are here … to serve and not to lord over you.
P25, S67
… today there will be … for farmers.
security … because we stood together and believed in
P42, S107
We are here today hope.

There were five (5) existential processes, and not a single behavioral process

found in the 2010 Inaugural Speech of the President.

Generally, when talking about transitivity, the 2010 Inaugural speech revealed

greater utilization of the material process, used in mentioning past performances, present

undertakings, and future plans strategically to persuade the audience (Filipinos) that the

speaker has schemes to improve the present state of the country with reference to the

previous administration’s actions; what followed was the mental process, which mentions

the speakers’ feelings and thoughts; and relational-attributive, which mentions attributes,

are another strategic way of telling the audience that the speaker is concerned with

whatever is happening, hence expressed his hopes for the betterment of the country.

State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2011

In the second corpus analyzed, Table 6 in page 57 shows a large proportion of

material processes used with a frequency of 209 or 61 percent of the processes found in

the speech. The material process highlights the speaker’s accomplishments and his

supposed plans for his audience, providing the notion that some entity does ‘something’.

61
This is still strategic since the speaker aims to persuade the audience that as someone at

the helm, he is doing his job. Found in the boxes are samples from the second corpus.

Actor Process Goal

P3, S9
The law … authorizes … … only the President, the
Vice Pres…
P5, S17
We… have fought … … against the wang-wang.

Table 6 also shows generous distribution of relational processes in the 2011

State of the Nation Address of Pres. Benigno S. Aquino III with a total frequency of 64 or

19 percent. These processes, attributive or identifying, are concerned with ‘being’,

‘possessing’, or ‘becoming’ according to Pingping (2007) in Wang, (2010).

Attributive Identifying
P2,S5 P2,S3
… they acted like kings … wang-wang had come to
P8,S31
Our economic team is hard at work to symbolize abuse of authority
P2,S7
sustain the momentum. … the wang-wang mindset; this
P23, S84
the culture of wang-wang once persisted is the mindset of Entitlement

The attributive processes relate to the attributes a certain object has, or talking

about the type it belongs to; while the identifying processes express the identical

properties of two entities. It may also be noted from the samples that non-literal language

may be present, being directly or indirectly compared or associated, Pingping (2007) in

Wang, (2010).

Mental process obtained the third highest frequency of 24 or 7 percent. On the

other hand, the Behavioral process recorded the extremely least frequency of three (3) or

less than one (1) percent. These processes refer to physiological and psychological

behavior, indicating activities in which both the physical and mental aspects are

inseparable and indispensable. For political speeches to be effective and realistic it is not

necessary to have large proportions of behavioral processes; rather, the audience expects

62
real accomplishments and practical plans and solutions to problems, not what-ifs and

impossible dreams.

Behaver Behavior
P26,S96 P26,S96
We … … envision two things …
P29,S111 P29,S111
I… … hear that there are still more …
P48,S195 P48,S195
… we … dream one day soon…

On the transitivity analysis of the 2011 State of the Nation Address, the speech

contained high distribution of material processes, followed by the relational processes

(both the Attributive and Identifying) with very minimal number of behavioral processes

which is the only account of behavioral process in all corpora studied. Since the hearers

are expecting pragmatic approaches from a leader in the three corpora, the behavioral

process is seen as weak for a political speech.

State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2012

Table 6 shows the processes found in the last corpus for analysis. As shown, the

material processes tallied the largest proportion among all the processes found in the

corpus, having a frequency of 220 or 48 percent. The sample of this process is shown in

the box below.

Actor Process Goal

P85,S299
We… engaged stakeholders in a in crafting our Executive
P94,S331
The private level-headed discussion … Order on mining.
sector … has likewise taken part in a to nurture those seeds into a
P98,S350
Our program ... bountiful harvest …
administration … will recognize … their contributions to our
society …

Again, the result of the figure above in which material process obtained the

highest percentage is confirmed in the study of Wang (2010), which she investigated the

63
inaugural address of President Obama, the result revealed the material process, a process

of doing is a good choice in the address to demonstrate what the government has

achieved, what they are doing and what they will do in different aspects of affairs, home

or abroad.

The verbal process ranked second in the most number of processes found in the

2012 State of the Nation Address, with a frequency of 65 or 14 percent. These processes

include all modes of ‘expressing’ and ‘indicating’. The content of what is said or

indicated could be realized as a full projected clause, or even made up of a string of

sentences (Halliday, 1985).

The components for this process includes the sayer, which is indicated by the

noun phrase (which are either humans or a collective entity); the receiver/addressee, may

be explicitly stated or named, or may be implied (by the pronoun ‘you’); and the

verbiage, or the message propounded by the speaker.

Sayer Receiver/Addressee Verbiage

P59,S55
Foreign Policy magazine (implied – Filipino we may even become
… one of the leaders of listeners; Philippines) “Asia’s Next Tiger”
ASEAN 10) (said) …

P97,S347
I (said) … Other people part of the you start doing your jobs,
administration before it’s too late.

P99,S353
Our (response) … Those who challenged With the New Year comes
the Philippines our resolution that all old-
age and disability
pensioners will receive no
less than five thousand
pesos monthly.

64
 Another process found in the 2012 State of the Nation Address with a generous

distribution is the Existential process, with a frequency of 43 or 9 percent. From the

term itself, this process emphasizes the existence of someone or something. As shown in

the samples below, the sentences that exhibit existential process were introduced by

expletives or by the adverb indicating currency (‘now’).

P16,S40
This is now (existing) par for the course.
P17,S42
the Philippines (existent) is now open for business under new management
(existing).
P18,S49B
now (existing), investors flock to us (existent)

The transitivity function of the 2012 SONA revealed high frequency of material

processes; this was followed by the verbal processes, which are direct pronouncements,

warnings, revelations, commendations, etc. of the speaker; and the existential processes

ranked third, mentioning the existence of personalities, trends, or concepts relevant to the

topic of the speech.

Over-all, on the basis of the above discussion on transitivity function of the

corpora analyzed namely, Inaugural Address, State of the Nation Address 2011 and 2012,

it can be deduced that there are linguistic devices that can illustrate the experiential meta-

function of the clause which represents a picture of reality as a complex of processes

associated with some participants and circumstances. The concept and framework of

Halliday (1985) on transitivity constructions exemplify the behavior and social function

of members in discourse, as well as the relationships and influences enacted between

them. These linguistic devices therefore can contribute ultimately to define the role of the

speakers as one of the country’s leaders. Through the systematic and strategic use of

65
these processes, the speaker can be successful in persuading the masses assembled

around him.

Discourse Features of the Speeches in Terms of Modality

Table 7. Discourse Features of the Speeches in Terms of Modality

Discourse Features in
INAUGURAL
Terms of Modality ADDRESS 2010
SONA 2011 SONA 2012 TOTAL
Meta-function
B) MODALITY Frequency % of Frequency % of Frequency % of Frequency % of
(Levels of Politeness) (F) F (F) F (F) F (F) F
Low Positive 13 19 37 23 26 19 76 21
Low Negative 0 0 8 5 5 4 13 3
Median Positive 49 70 84 52 87 63 220 60
Median Negative 7 10 13 8 13 9 33 9
High Positive 1 1 9 6 6 4 16 4
High Negative 0 0 9 6 2 1 11 3
Total of Politeness in Speech 70 100 160 100 139 100 369 100

Table 7 shows the consolidated results on the levels of politeness through the

modality analysis, in which the guidelines of Gouling (2006) in Wang (2010) was utilized

as the basis of the analysis.

In this study, the focus has been on the use of various modal verbs that are

markers of politeness in spoken discourses of President Benigno S. Aquino III. The core

of modality analysis is the concept of politeness. Politeness had been elaborated by

Hirschova (2006) in Svarova (2008) by saying that “in its pragmalinguistic sense,

politeness is a special way of using the language to institute smooth communication and

self-defense of the individual in his/her interaction with other communicating

individuals.”

As shown in the Table 7, there is great prevalence in the use of positive median

politeness, i.e. will, would, should, shall as manifested in the three speeches: Inaugural

Address, State of the Nation Address (2011) and State of the Nation Address (2012) with

(70, 52, and 63 percent respectively) with the total average mean of 60 percent. In

66
addition, the median level of politeness as used in the speeches of President Aquino

indicates also the intent of the speaker to reach a wide-range of addressee – both the rich

and the deprived; the learned and the uneducated.

However, the second highest level of modality is the low positive politeness, i.e.

can, may, could, might, and dare as shown in the table where the Inaugural Address

obtained 19 percent; State of the Nation Address (2011) scored 23 percent and State of

the Nation Address (2012) earned 19 percent. Thus, the average mean of the three figures

is 21 percent. Whereas, the median negative politeness ranked the third highest level of

modality, i.e. won't, wouldn’t, shouldn’t, isn’t, wasn’t in which the Inaugural Address

scored 10 percent, State of the Nation Address (2012) got 9 percent and State of the

Nation Address (2011)garnered 8 percent. Therefore, the total average of the three (3)

figures is 9 percent.

Table 7, in page 66, further shows very little distribution or the lowest of the high

negative polite modals, (oughtn’t, to, can’t, couldn’t, mayn’t, mightn’t, hasn’t, hadn’t)

which only obtained 3 percent as the total average mean of the three speeches. Negative

politeness distances the speaker to the audience, which refutes the purpose of delivering a

persuasive political speech. Every person, ordinary or with special role in the society,

maintains a face, defined by Brown and Levinson (1987) as “the public self-image that

every person projects.”

Politicians, for instance, should constantly be reminded that they cannot speak

casually as their own person, rather, they should speak in a manner that is acceptable and

appropriate to his political party and to the rest of the people in the community. This can

be termed politeness. As shown on the same table, the speeches have exhibited varied

67
frequency of occurrence of each level and type of politeness, as they have to adjust their

choice of words according to their audience’s stature.

The distribution of positive and negative politeness through the modal verbs does

vary. In the speech analyzed, positive polite modals were not used all throughout. This

finding is consistent with the article of Pilegaard (1997), which says that “The level,

form, and distribution of positive and negative politeness correlate with speaker’s status.”

The speaker, being at the helm of the country’s executive branch, would like to pose an

image that the audience can trust. Pilegaard (1997) goes on to say that “…these vary as a

function of the dynamics of the course of communication.” In addition, Holmes (1995) as

cited in Gibson et al., (2009), suggests that "'politeness' is used to refer to behavior which

actively expresses positive concern for others, as well as non-imposing distancing

behavior".

There were also remarks of solidarity, indications that the speaker was trying to

reach out to his listeners, the people whom he seeks favor from. There were also obvious

remarks of including himself (President Aquino) and the audience, giving room for

audience to think that the speaker feels and experiences their struggles and problems,

hence, he is a friend whom they can turn to. Considering the purpose of delivering the

speech, the speaker indeed tried to persuade the audience to believe him and his words.

Overall, the modality function has been noted since the overriding rationale of a

political speech is to ultimately gain the support of the people. President Aquino

delivered his speeches which considered his audience; their specific attitudes and

feelings. Being accepted in a political community may necessitate creativity in the use of

politeness expressed through the modals verbs.

68
 Chapter V

SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This chapter presents the summary, conclusion and recommendation of the study

based on the results gathered.

Summary of Findings

Based on the results of this study, the following findings are summarized:

1. (a) From the three (3) significant speeches, the Inaugural speech address

was delivered in a simple and plain structure. The structural analysis showed

that the modal verbs, shall, will and would obtained the highest percentage of

70 percent; seconded by the modals, can, may, could, might, dare 19 percent

and won't, wouldn’t, shouldn’t, isn’t, wasn’t ranked the third 10 percent,

which were commonly used. The tenses of verbs found in the first corpus

revealed that the simple present tense obtained the significant percentage of

42 percent; seconded by simple future tense of 33 percent. Moreover, the

usage of personal pronouns in the first person forms of we (us) scored 22

percent and I (me) got 19 percent, while the possessive pronoun our (ours)

earned 14 percent. Lastly, the first corpus was composed of 121 sentences

with 2,063 words.

(b) State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2011 in terms structural analysis, the

modal verbs will, would, should, shall got the highest percentage of 52 percent,

the tenses indicated the prevalent usage of simple present tense of 47 percent,

seconded by simple past form with 20 percent and 14 percent for simple future

tense. For personal pronoun, the first person form of we (us) scored the

highest, 32 percent in total. Likewise, the possessive pronoun our (ours)

 obtained largest percentage of 17 percent, followed by the pronoun they (them)

12 percent. And finally, this corpus consisted of 291 sentences with 5,992

words.

(c) State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2012 out of 139 modal verbs found,

63 percent scored the highest under will, would, should, shall. For verb tenses,

the simple present tense showed the frequently used form which has 38 percent

from the total and seconded by simple past tense 26 percent. Pronouns

manifested the prevalent usage of the first person in plural form of we (us) 35

percent and the possessive pronoun our (ours) scored 21 percent from the total

percentage of pronouns. Finally, this corpus was the longest speech which was

composed of 368 sentences with a total number of 6,842 words.

2. (a) The discourse features of speeches of Aquino III in terms of transitivity

showed that the transitivity function of material process and relational

attributive with the average percentage of 55 percent and 14 percent were

commonly and significantly used.

(b) In terms modality, the modal verbs showed that the median positive

politeness was evidently utilized in all the speeches which garnered the

average score of 60 percent in total.

Conclusions

Based on the findings of the study, the following conclusions are made:

1. The over- all structure of the speeches of President Benigno S. Aquino III

used linguistic units which express determination, willingness and intention

on the part of the speaker; could easily be understood by the hearers and

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 spectators; was easy to embrace and understand despite of the different issues

he brought up on economy, health, education and even the on-going

corruptions of the previous administrations; he used personal pronouns that

are associated with a grammatical person in the first person plural form and

linguistic constructions that indicate a relationship of possession, which

highlighted foremost his successful and competent administration as well as

the people and supporters who believe in his current leadership and better

governance.

2. (a) The discourse features in terms of transitivity in speeches of President

Benigno S. Aquino III expressed something that is done; (b) in terms of

modality, he used linguistic units to seek common ground and/ or cooperation

as well as sense of belongings within the group. It revealed his attitude or

opinion about the truth of a proposition expressed by a sentence and made his

audience to plainly accept his speeches, thus, it aided him great emphasis to

serve and show his positivity to achieve greater goals.

Indeed, the application of Critical Discourse Analysis in this study has revealed

different ideologies and unmasked the hidden motives of the speaker by emphasizing on

the positive and good actions of his societal position. The manifestation of authority and

dominance through the manipulative words prove that language is indeed powerful.

Recommendations

Based on the findings and conclusion of the study, the following points are

recommended:

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1. That the emphasis on the combination of micro and macro-structural

approach in the analysis of text should be a focus in conducting

researchers related to critical linguistic studies;

2. That language learners and students are advised to be taught and be

motivated to critically analyze text in the form of spoken or written

discourse using the Critical Discourse Analysis as an approach;

3. That language teachers are advised to systematically apply Critical

Discourse Analysis as an approach in their language teaching since it is a

proven pedagogical tool in honing their students’ skills not only to become

communicatively competent, but also to be a good and critical discourse

analysts and;

4. That another study on Critical Discourse Analysis in other contexts and

genres of spoken discourse in actual or live conversation should be

conducted with more linguistic outputs across discipline.

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