Transitivity analysis of selected privilege speeches of Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago

• Main Author: Persieus S. Balog
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Department of English, Faculty of Arts and Letters, University of Santo Tomas 2019-12-01
• Series: Asian Journal of English Language Studies (AJELS)
• Subjects: language and power; philippine politics; political discourse analysis; privilege speeches; transitivity
• Online Access: https://ajels.ust.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/3_Transitivity-analysis-of-selected-privilege-speeches-of-Senator-Miriam-Defensor-Santiago.pdf

Politicians use language to express ideologies, manifest power, and persuade people. In this regard, linguists have been interested in studying how language, power, and ideology interplay in political discourse. Several researchers have examined the political rhetoric of some world leaders and politicians. However, results of these studies indicate that there is a dearth of research examining women’s political discourse in the Philippines. The presence of female politicians in leadership positions is limited, which may explain why women’s political discourse is not given much attention. Using Halliday’s (1994) transitivity model, this study seeks to analyze how Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago used transitivity processes to manifest social problems, inequalities, and power abuse in delivering her privilege speeches. Findings revealed that Senator Defensor-Santiago frequently employed material processes, followed by relational and verbal processes. She used material processes to emphasize the actions of people involved in illegal activities, discrimination of women in the workforce, and solutions to certain problems. Furthermore, relational processes were utilized to explain some concepts, attack someone’s credibility and character, and express the state of affairs of the country and women in society. Senator Defensor-Santiago also used verbal processes to strengthen her claims regarding some issues discussed in her privilege speeches.