An Analysis of Transitivity in President Muhammadu Buhari’s June 12, 2019 Democracy Day Speech

Citation: Yerima MAINA (2020). An Analysis of Transitivity in President Muhammadu Buhari’s June 12, 2019 Democracy Day Speech. Yobe Journal of Language, Literature and Culture (YOJOLLAC), Vol. 8 Department of African Languages and Linguistics, Yobe State University, Damaturu, Nigeria. ISSN 2449-0660

AN ANALYSIS OF TRANSITIVITY IN PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI’S JUNE 12, 2019 DEMOCRACY DAY SPEECH

Yerima MAINA

Abstract

This paper analyses the political discourse of President Muhammadu Buhari’s address at the June 12, 2019 Democracy Day after he was sworn in for the second term. The study adopts Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistic model known as the transitivity model to inquire into the use of language in the speech. It focuses on different processes and participants used in the address. The study unearths that the material processes dominate other processes followed by relational and mental processes. Throughout the analysis, there was no behavioural process. The dominant use of material processes suggests that President Buhari construes the world in terms of his past and present achievements and portrays himself and his administration as the key players who transformed and brought Nigeria back to its feet using the personal pronoun “we”. Relational processes as the second most used process type, “will” were highly used to concretise Nigerians confidence that he dedicates his life in serving the country. Furthermore, all the types of mental processes were used judiciously namely cognition, perception and reaction processes. He further utilises verbal processes which portrays him as the direct sayer in the verbal clauses using the personal pronoun “I”. Finally, existential processes were used to show existence of some phenomena.

1.0 Introduction

Buhari gave his inaugural address for his second term in June 12, 2019. This was done to commemorate the democratic election of M.K.O. Abiola on the 12^th June, 1993, in what has been adjudged to be Nigeria’s freest and fairness elections. It was, however, cancelled by Ibrahim Babangida.  M.K.O. Abiola was later detained after he declared himself president. 29^th May was initially the official democracy day in Nigeria, marking when Olusegun Obasanjo took office as the President of Nigeria in 1999, ending the multiple decades of military rule that began in 1966 and interrupted only by a brief period of democracy from 1979 to 1983. On June 6, 2018, eight days after May 29, 2018 had been celebrated as Democracy Day, the president Buhari-led federal government of Nigeria declared June 12 as the new Democracy Day.

According Van Dijk as cited in Yahya, (2019), Political discourse, as a genre of discourse in discursive practices, is indispensably full of ideological processes in its language use. It is ideological in nature and political ‘texts’ are invested by ideologies because “if there is one social field that is ideological it is that of politics” (Van Dijk, 2006a, p. 732). The political ‘text’ could be spoken or written delivered by political leaders, such as presidents, prime ministers, party chairmen and parliamentary leaders among others, at a political event like the inaugural ceremonies of a political leader, election campaigns and parliamentary sittings. It is through these discursive practices within political discourse that ideologies are learned, expressed and propagated and, as well, they (political ideologies) “typically organize people and society in polarized terms (Van Dijk, 2000, p. 43)”. The polarization of the political ideologies is expressed in political discourse by emphasizing our good things and emphasizing their bad things. It may also be expressed by de-emphasizing our bad things and de-emphasizing their good things. The above political polarization is what Van Dijk (2000, p. 44 & 2006b, p. 734) calls it “the ideological square”. The ideological squares are under the general strategies of positive Self-presentation and negative Other-presentation. The square of “emphasizing our good things” and “de-emphasizing our bad things” belong to the former while that of “emphasizing their bad things” and “de-emphasizing their good things” belong to the latter. In addition, any meaning that is associated with positive things tends to be associated or link with the in-group of the speaker (positive Self-presentation) through careful selection of the lexical items to emphasizes that while the reverse is the case for out-group members.

In the analysis of political discourse, Halliday’s transitivity model is used as a means of unravelling the meanings concealed in the speech. On their part, Kirvalidze and Samnidge (2016, p. 161), argue that political thoughts and actions are inseparable from political speech. Words, actions and events work together; words interpret events or actions, as well as constitute political facts, while actions in various ways help words gain their political efficacy. Analysis of political discourse should treat discourse as an instrument of doing politics, either in a strategic or constructive sense. As Jahedi and Abdullah (2014), point that spoken or written utterances constitute the performance of speech acts such as promising, asking, asserting and warning.

2.0 Literature Review

Yahaya (2019), in his analysis of political discourse of 5 inaugural speeches in  Nigeria’s fourth republic, shows that the presidents used ideological discourse categories such as positive self-representation, natural self-glorification,  and victimization to emphasize the positive things about the in-group to which they are members while they used categories such as negative other-presentation, hyperbole, metaphor, distancing, actor and description to emphasize the negative things about the out-group. According to Sharndama (2015) in his analysis of President Buhari’s Inaugural Speech the content of the speech consists of appreciation, exposition of ideological plans as to the direction of the new government and subtle criticism of the past government. On his part, Borgstrom (1982) argues that the distribution of specificity and vagueness in a politician’s speeches can be explained through a consideration of the power of the relationship between him and his audience.

Adjei and Mensah’s (2016) disagree with the present study, their study unveiled that most of the bitter political experiences and challenges are represented in material process while the present study used the mental processes in representing President Buhari’s bitter political experiences and challenges. Ibrahim (2011) in her study on El-Saadawi’s God Dies by the Nile revealed that it is correct to state that material processes denote an action hence powerful position; or to claim that female characters who are described without any material processes are necessarily helpless and therefore to negotiate position of power for themselves. This notion is critical to Ong’ond (2016), where he highlights the negative image associated with the Al-Shabaab as the actor. It unveiled that Al-Shabaab is always the ‘doer’ of violence which causes insecurity. It indicates that all the material processes are related to violence and destruction. Kenyans have been represented as the victims of the Al-Shabaab. In Maina’s (2019) analysis of the transitivity on Habila’s Measuring Time uncovers that the transitivity systems portrayed Mamo as weak but intellectual and an introvert while LaMamo is portrayed as strong, bold and an extrovert. For Boukari and Koussouhon (2018), note in their study that the text is concerned with establishing relationships between entities in clauses especially by describing some participants through attributive processes by defining other participants through the identifying processes and by encoding possession through possessive processes.    

2.1 Theoretical Framework

The transitivity model is an important and powerful semantic concept in Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics. The transitivity theory is one of the systems in the ideational function of language. Ideational function is one of the meta-functions of language namely the ideational, textual and the interpersonal meanings.  Transitivity according to Simpson (2004), refers to generally how meaning is represented in a clause. Clauses represent events and processes of various kinds. Transitivity aims to make clear how the action is performed by whom and on what. This notion is crucial to Halliday and Matthiessen (2014), who argue that the transitivity system constructs the world of experience into a manageable set of process types and each process type provides its own model or schema or model for construing a particular domain of experience as a figure of a particular kind. This notion is crucial to Nguyen (2012) who claims that Halliday’s theory of transitivity could be used to study the clausal structure which is based on the main verb of sentence because transitivity aims to make it clear, how the action is performed by whom and on what. According to this theory of transitivity, different processes are distinguished according to whether they represent action, speech, states of mind or states of being. Cunanan (2011) elaborates that the transitivity model basically presents how the world is perceived in three dimensions: the material world, the world of consciousness and the world of relations. It categorizes potential number and the semantic roles assigned to the participants according to the nature of the processes.  There are six classifications of the transitivity processes namely material, mental, relational, verbal, behavioural and existential processes.

Material process is a process of doing or happening. This process expresses an action or activity which is typically carried out by a ‘doer’ or ‘agent’. This means an entity having energy, volition and intention that is capable of initiating and controlling the action, usually to bring about some change of location or properties in itself or others (Downing & Locke, 2006, p. 128).

Mental process according to Downing and Locke (2006), are those processes through which we organize our mental contact with the world. It is a process which has to do with our own consciousness. There are four main type: Cognition, such as know, understand, believe, doubt, remember and forget, perception, encoded verbs such as see, notice, hear, feel and taste; affectivity, such as like, love, admire, miss and hate; desideration such as hope, want, desire and wish.

Relational processes are processes of ‘being’ in the specific sense of establishing relationships between two entities (Simpson, 2004, p. 24). Relational processes are typically realized by the verbs be or verb of the same class known as copular verbs (Bloor & Bloor, 2011, p. 120).

Verbal process according to Downing and Locke (2006, p. 151), are processes of ‘saying’ or ‘communicating’ and are encoded by verbs such as, tell, repeat, ask, answer and report. They have one participant which is typically human, but not necessarily (the sayer) and a second essential participant, which is what is said, asked or reported (the said).

Behavioural processes are processes of behaving. According to Halliday and Matthiessen (2014, p. 301), are least distinct of all the six process types because they have no clearly defined characteristics of their own; rather, they are partly like the mental process. It is a processes which presents outer manifestations of inner workings (Iwamoto, 2007). Such processes include cough, cry, stare, laugh, sneeze, cough etc.

Existential processes are processes of existing or happening. The basic structure consists of unstressed there + be a nominal group (There is a man at the door; There was a loud bang). There is no participant as it has no semantic context, although it fulfills both a syntactic function as subject and a textual function as ‘presentative’ element (Downing & Locke, 2006).

This theory suits the analysis because it examines the structure of sentences which are represented by various processes. This helps the analyst to probe and unlock what flows directly through the mind of the persona.  It also gives the researcher the opportunity to analyse the actions, thoughts and utterances of the characters using the six classifications of transitivity processes.

3.0 Method of Data Analysis

The method adopted for analysing the data, first and foremost the speech was parsed into constituent clauses because transitivity analysis requires breaking down of complex sentences into simpler clauses. Therefore, the clauses were parsed according to the arrangement of the transitivity pattern by isolating the processes from the participants as well as the circumstances. The analysis is done in accordance to steps developed by Burton (as cited in Adjei and Mensah, 2016, p. 40) by isolating the processes and determining which participant (who or what) is doing each process; determining what sorts of processes they are, and which participant is engaged in which type of process and finally, verifying who or what is affected or seems to be affected by each of these processes.  

4.0 Data Analysis and Discussion

4.1 Choice of Actors in the Clauses

The study examines nominal and pronominal groups used as actors who initiated or performed different activity in the clauses in the address. The choice of such actors is highly commendable. The analysis reveals ten main actors who were assigned various responsibilities namely I, we, our, Nigerians, who, my, agentless, Boko Haram, security agencies and crime. However, some of the clauses are found to be agentless. Such clauses, President Buhari deliberately omitted the actors slot leaving it blank as if the processes or actions happened on their own. The analysis of the actor roles unravels that the pronoun we have the highest occurrence with a representation of 41.85% out of the 10 main actors that reoccur in the 227 clauses. The pronoun “I” comes second with the descriptive percentage of 18.94% followed “agentless” with 14.98%, followed by personal pronoun “our” with a representation of 8.81%. Other nominal phrases include Crime/Insecurity with a representation of 5.29%. Nigerians and interrogative pronoun who has 2.63% each while Security agencies have 2.20% as Boko Haram and personal pronoun “my” have 1.32% each. See below table for illustration. Just as in Eruchalu’s (2017), reveals that President Buhari utilises the personal pronoun “our” more than any other in his two speeches of 1984 and 2015 inaugural speeches. This unravels a shift as compared to the 2019 speech where he uses “we” frequently.

4.1.1 Statistical Distribution of the Actors

Actors	Frequency	Percentage
I	43	18.94%
We	95	41.85%
Our	20	8.81%
Agentless	34	14.98%
Boko Haram	3	1.32%
Nigerians	6	2.63%
Who	6	2.63%
Crime	12	5.29%
Security Agencies	5	2.20%
My	3	1.32%

President Buhari opens his speech by praising the Almighty God who spared our lives using “agentless clause” followed by the use of personal pronoun “we”. He uses it in referring to himself and his administration because personal pronoun shows inclusiveness. He uses it in unravelling the successes his administration has achieved in his first tenure. Moreover, he uses it in revealing that the successes recorded in his administration, he did not achieve it alone rather with the support of his cabinet. The actor I in the speech reveals that President Buhari identified himself as the actor and sole doer of many of the processes. He portrays himself as an active participant who transformed the country after it collapsed from the past administrations.

4.1.2 Material Processes

Material process is a process of doing or happening. It is a process of activity or action carried out by a doer or agent. The material processes predominate other processes with 62.98% representation. President Buhari uses the material processes more than any processes right from the onset of the address. He uses it to construes the world in terms of physical actions of his past and present happenings. In the beginning of his address, he uses it to comment on the privilege to mark the longest period of unbroken democratic leadership and the 5^th peaceful transfer of power from one democratically elected government to another in Nigeria. Furthermore, he used it to comment on the role and importance of INEC for its successful conduct of peaceful, transparent and credible elections. He skillfully uses the material clauses to show tangible and concrete happenings his administration is doing. In Adjei and Mensah’s (2015) study on Kurfour’s farewell speech unravels that Kurfour portrays himself as an active participant, a leader of action who assures the masses that he has done his best to propel the needed growth people were yearning for using material processes.  However, President Buhari uses conditional clauses to express optimism by virtue of Nigeria’s vast mineral and human resources, “with leadership and a sense of purpose, we can lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years”, Buhari stated. He utilises such clauses at the beginning of his speech, such clauses for instance:

4. I ensured that INEC got all the resources it needed.

23b. We have contributed to UN peace-keeping responsibilities all over the world.

34a. We can lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years.

In the middle of the address, Buhari uses material clauses to point out some of the achievements recorded during his term in governance. Through the process of doing, he confidently affirms that his administration has provided a solid foundation and critical measures for transforming Nigeria. He assures support to foreign investors to invest in the country. However, most of the processes, are conditional-material clauses. In other words, they are clauses which do not actually take place, for instance:

42c. Our government will continue to work to reduce social economic inequality.

43b. We are more committed than ever to work with private sectors.

50a. As chairman of ECOWAS, I will be hosting a regional security meeting.

In the end of the address, he uses material clauses to draw Nigerians attention to be patient because nation building takes time and charge every Nigerian to contribute in rebuilding the nation. Furthermore, the President uses the material clauses in correcting injustice by approving the recognition of June 12 as Democracy Day and invested the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola and Babagana Kingibe with national honours.

4.1.3 Mental Processes

President Buhari utilises the mental processes to distances himself and his administration from blame of lingering kidnapping, banditry and Boko Haram. He recounts that even the policed best countries experienced similar cases. He also uses the cognition processes to tell Nigerians his repertoire and wealth of experiences in public service. Using the processes of perception, President Buhari senses that strong correlation exists between joblessness, economic inequality and insecurity. He skillfully utilises the process of reaction to welcome ideas and plans which his administration would adhere in developing the nation. Furthermore, he perceives the consequence of fighting corruption that if one fights it, it fights back. Below clauses are some instances of mental clauses in the speech.

9. Even the best policed countries are experiencing increasing incidence of unrest and are finding it hard to cope.

13d. I know no service but public service.

51a. We realised that if you fight corruption, corruption fights back.

60. We will continue to listen to your ideas and plans.

65k. This government will not tolerate actions by any individual or groups who seek to attack our way of life.

 

4.1.4 Relational Processes

Relational processes are processes of “being” in the specific sense of establishing relationships between two entities (Simpson, 2004). It is a process that is typically realised by the verb ‘be’ or verb of the same class popularly known as copular verbs (Bloor & Bloor, 2011). President Buhari uses the attributive relational processes to compare an existing phenomena facing the country as a unique rather a regional issue not Nigeria alone such as desertification and drought. He uses relational processes of possession to notify Nigerians that he was a beneficiary of free education “I have had the privilege free education”. He uses relational clause in boosting Nigerians’ confidence, for instance, “I can therefore do no more than dedicate the rest of my life to work for the unity of Nigeria and uplift Nigeria”. Furthermore, he outlines some visible entities that Nigeria possesses if carefully and judiciously used would boost the economy of the land. He uses possessive relational processes in pin-pointing those entities using the main verb have. He stresses that what Nigeria requires is to make judicious use of its vast human and mineral resources. President Buhari uses “we” in referring to himself and his administration as the main carrier of the development his administration has brought and other programmes to be executed in the future.

However, he frequently uses the relational processes will to concretize the audience confidence that he dedicates his life in serving the country to the best of his ability in next four years. Examples of relational clauses used in the address.

11. I have the privilege of free education.

13b. I have been in a public service.

22c. We possess all the ingredients of a major economic power.

25. We are the shock absorber of the West African sub-region

4.1.5 Verbal Processes

Verbal processes are processes of saying. It lies on a borderline between mental and relational processes. It has one participant called the sayer. Below are examples of verbal processes used in the address.

6. I thank you all the people who worked for our party.

49. The problems call for increased regional and international cooperation.

61. I also thank the labour unions, farmer groups and associations.

65. As I mentioned earlier, critical feeder roads will be build.

70. Henceforth, it will be called MOSHOOD ABIOLA NATIONAL STADIUM

Table 3:              Example of Verbal Processes Identified in the Address

Sayer	Process	Target	Verbiage
I	thank	you	all
The problems	call	for increased regional and Int’l cooperation	—
I	thank	the labour unions	—
I	mentioned	—	earlier
It	will be called	Moshood Abiola National Stadium	—
I	thank	you	—

In the address, president Buhari refers to himself as the direct sayer in the verbal clauses using the pronoun I. The analysis shows that verbal processes in the speech are carried out by Mr Buhari which clearly unearths that he has taken the role of the sayer. This indicates that most of the propositions and promises are made by the president himself. He uses the verbal processes to expresses his gratitude to those that worked with him during campaigns and those that voted him as well as security agencies, unions and traditional rulers. He uses it to congratulate the re-elected and newly elected state Governors and members of the National Assembly. He further utilises verbal processes to praise small businesses “I would like to make special mention to promoters of our small business”. Moreover, President Buhari uses verbal processes for other reasons; for instance, to emphasize: the problems call for increased regional and international cooperation; he again uses it for declaration, “it will be called Moshood Abiola National Staduim”.

4.1.6 Existential Processes

This is the process of existing or happening. It has no participant as it has no semantic context. Though it is preceded by a dummy “there”. However, it serves to indicate the feature of existence, and it is needed interpersonally as subject (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p. 257). Buhari address comprises 22 existential processes with a representation of 7.59%. He uses the existential processes as follows.

43a. There remains the urgent need to modernize our roads and bridges.

44c. We know that there exists strong correlation between economy, inequality and injustice.

56. Nationwide development cannot occur from Abuja alone.

President Buhari utilises existential processes to show continual existence of crimes despite the government commitment in tackling insecurity yet it still exists. He was quoted to have said that even the best policed countries experienced such cases of insecurity, but he reiterates that his administration’s commitment to work closely with States and Local Governments, Diplomatic Corps and all Nigerians to rebuild and reposition the country as the heartbeat and reference point of African continent.

Moreover, President Buhari is worried about the existence, that is, the urgent need to modernize Nigeria’s critical infrastructure such as roads and bridges, where he mostly attributed the blame of infrastructural decay to the previous government, as 16 years of People’s Democratic Government misruled. He further utilises it to unearth his concern in the rapid growth of Nigeria’s population and its effect in the future. He therefore, suggests a way forward through investment in social and hard infrastructure.  He uses the existential processes to emphasize that developing Nigeria cannot only occur in Abuja alone rather he enjoins all and sundry to participate in developing the country.

4.2 Discussion

In the analysis, Mr Buhari uses the pronoun “we” with the representation of 41.85% more than any actor or participant role in referring to himself and his administration. He made use of high actor roles (material processes) than any other processes with the representation of 62.98% in construing the world in terms of his past and present happenings and recounts himself and his administration as the key players in transforming the country during his first tenure. However, he utilises material processes using conditional clauses to project what his administration is willing to do in the second term which he referred to as the Next Level. The president portrays himself and his administration as the key players in transforming the country because the processes attributed to him are goal-directed. However, he frequently utilises relational processes “will” to concretize Nigerians confidence that he dedicates his life in serving the country. The relational processes are not just coded by verb “to be” but through a variety of intensive verbs or copular verbs where the participant’s roles for these processes include carrier and attribute. He skillfully utilises the mental processes to distances his government from blame on the lingering cases of insecurity such as banditry Boko Haram and kidnapping by citing the best policed countries experienced similar cases. Buhari thus, perceives the intricacies of fighting corruption that once one fights it, it fights back. He also uses mental processes to tell Nigerians his repertoire and wealth of experiences in public service. Furthermore, he agrees to welcome ideas and plans which his administration would adopt in moving the country forward. Moreover, he executed some verbal processes which portrays him as the direct sayer in the verbal clauses using the personal pronoun I with 18.94%. This indicates that most of the propositions and promises are made by the president himself. He further uses existential processes with the representation of 7.59% to show continual existence of crimes despite the government’s commitment in tackling insecurity. Meanwhile, he is worried about the existence, that is, the urgent need to modernize Nigeria’s critical infrastructure such as road and so on where he mostly attributed the blame of infrastructural decay to the previous government, as 16 years of People’s Democratic Party misruled.    

5.0 Conclusion

This paper examines an analysis of transitivity in President Muhammadu Buhari’s 12^th June, 2019 democracy day speech to unravel the concealed meanings in the address. Certain processes are shown in unravelling the hidden messages encapsulated in the speech. This is the flavour of the transitivity framework through which President Buhari’s message was interpreted. The speech captures all the transitivity processes except the behavoural process. This signals that throughout the address there was no involuntary action. In essence, the speech does not involve any process which presents outer manifestation of inner workings.   

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