IDEATIONAL METAPHOR IN BARACK OBAMA'S
SPEECH OF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
A THESIS
Submitted to the English Applied Linguistic Study Program in
Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Magister Humaniora
By:
DESTA GLORIA SIAHAAN Registration Number: 8146111013
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
In the name of Jesus Christ, the son of Allah, the most gracious and the
most merciful whom she would like to express her sincere gratitude, Allah the
almighty who has given her blessing health, strength and patience in the process
of completing this thesis in the title the ideational grammatical metaphor in
Barack Obama’s Speech as a partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree
of Magister Humaniora at the Postgraduate of English Applied Linguistics
Program, State University of Medan.
This thesis would not also have been possible brought into existence
without the help of a great many people. The writer would like to express her
gratitude to Prof. Amrin Saragih, MA., Ph.D, her first adviser, and Prof. Silvana Sinar, M.A., Ph.D, her second adviser for their so generous assistance, guidance, advice, and precious time they spent on supervising and guiding this
thesis.
The writer would also like to express her gratitude to the head of English
Applied Linguistics Program, Dr. Rahmad Husein, M.Ed, his secretary, Dr. Sri Minda Murni, M.S and Farid Ma’ruf who have assisted her in the process of administration requirement during the process of her study in the postgraduate
program. Special thanks to the all lecturers of the English Applied Linguistics
Program, State University of Medan who have given their valuable knowledge to
Thanks are due to her proposal reviewers and examiners, Dr. Sri Minda Murni, M.S., Dr. Zainuddin, M.Hum, and Dr. Anni Holila Pulungan, M.Hum for their appropriate and helpful commentaries and constructive suggestions.
An un-expressible gratitude to her beloved Mother, Marlina Napitupulu, for her love, patience, prays, and supports in keeping encouraging the writer to
finish her study. This thesis is for her mother. Her little twin sisters Debora Siahaan and Deboris Siahaan, and her elder sister Friyenni Siahaan, her lovely nephew Jonathan Rafael Purba, brother in law, Yandi Botliman Purba, Purba
(Jojo), and Jan Rodearsen Purba for their sincere and most reliable comfort, and above all, their love and support.
And the last, it is honor for her to convey thanks to her colleagues for their
helps and supports. Special thanks to her beloved friends Ahmad Fadli, S.Pdi, Ahmad Fuad, S.Pdi, Dessi Septaria Ginting, S.Pd, Haya Harratika Tarigan, S.Pd, Iis Aprianti S.Pd, Ressica S.Pd, Sari Dwi Rahayu, S.pd, Vieny Nazrillah Siregar, S.Pd and all her classmates A1 LTBI 2014 for their motivation and support. Lastly, the writer offers her regards and blessings to all of those who
supported her in any respect during the completion of this thesis. Thank you very
much.
Medan, April 2016
ABSTRACT
Siahaan, Desta Gloria. The Ideational Grammatical Metaphor in Barack Obama’s Speech. A thesis: English Applied Linguistics Study Program. Postgraduate School, State University of Medan 2015.
ABSTRAK
Siahaan, Desta Gloria. Ideasional Metapor dalam Pidato Barack Obama dalam Pemilihan Presiden. Tesis: Program Studi Linguistik Terapan Bahasa Inggris. Pascasarjana, Universitas Negeri Medan 2016.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pages
Acknowledgement ... i
Abstract ... iii
Table of Contents ... v
List of Tables... vii
List of Appendices ... viii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ... 1
1.1 The Background of the Study ... .1
1.2 The Problems of the Study ... .7
1.3 The Objectives of the Study ... .7
1.4 The Scope of the Study ... .8
1.5 The Significant of the Study ... .8
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE ... .9
2.1 Metaphor ... .9
2.2 Grammatical Metaphor ... 10
2.2.1 Ideational Metaphor ... 11
2.2.1.1 Types of Ideational Metaphor ... 18
2.2.1.2 Ideational Metaphor in context of Situation ... 22
2.2.2 Interpersonal Metaphor ... 24
2.2.2.1 Metaphor of Mood ... 24
2.2.3 The Nature of Speech ... 27
2.2.4 Barack Obama’s Speech ... 28
2.2.5 Relevant Studies... 30
2.2.6 Conceptual Framework ... 31
CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD ... 34
3.1 Research Design ... 34
3.2 Data and Source of Data ... 34
3.3 The Technique of Data Collection ... 43
3.4 The Technique of Data Analysis ... 35
3.6 The Trustworthiness of the Study ... 37
CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ... 40
3.1 Data Analysis ... 40
3.2 Findings ... 46
3.3 Discussion ... 48
CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ... 52
5.1 Conclusions ... 52
5.2 Suggestion ... 54
REFERENCES ... 55
LIST OF TABLES
Pages
Table 1 Types of Ideational Grammatical Metaphor ... 18
LIST OF APPENDICES
Pages
Appendices 1 Ideational Metaphor Realized in Barack Obama’s Speech ... 57
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Background of the Study
Metaphor is a well-known phenomenon in language. People
sometimes use metaphor in conveying their judgments and attitudes. They use
metaphor to express something indirectly. Halliday, the author of the famous
work “An Introduction to Functional Grammar” is one of the linguists who spent
long time to study on metaphor in general and Grammatical metaphor in
particular.
There are three types of metaphor, lexical, grammatical and
contextual metaphor. Grammatical Metaphor (GM) is one of the most
interesting theoretical notions developed by Halliday (1985/1994) within
Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG). GM is a major area of interest within the
field of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Halliday (1985) defined GM as
employing one grammatical class or grammatical structure instead of another.
SFG has dissociated itself from viewing metaphors as simple lexical transference
of meaning. The literature puts the accent on the grammatical aspect of the
variation, which is considered a significant element in rhetorical transference
2
functionally dominant, as certain metaphorical expressions may be interpreted in
terms of grammar as an efficient instrument for achieving variation in meaning.
SFL considers language as a semantic layout of meanings that are generally
bound up with a particular context. According to SFL, language thus cannot be
separated from either its speakers or its context. The real beginning of the
conscious study of grammatical metaphors began with Halliday. The term
grammatical metaphor, as conceptualized by Halliday, fulfills certain important
needs in discourse and text, including opening up a new dimension of a semantic
space. Halliday (1985, 1994) referred to GM as the incongruent ways of encoding
language. Therefore, GM, as a resource for incongruent coveyance of
information, seems to be a characteristic feature of scientific texts, since it allows
objectification as well as abstraction. He puts forward two types of realization
relationship between grammar and semantics, respectively named “congruent”
and “incongruent”. Congruent realization or unmetaphorical form just means the
natural relation between semantics categories and grammatical categories. On the
other hand, incongruent realization or metaphorical form refers to the unnatural
relation between semantics and grammatical categories. The incongruent ways of
encoding language are referred to as GM (Halliday, 1985, 1994; Halliday &
Matthiessen, 1999). GM has been of paramount importance in the development
of scientific genre, particularly in the form of nominalized processes (Webster,
3
of mood), which Ideational metaphor (IGM) includes process types and
nominalization; only ideational grammatical metaphors of the latter kind
will concern us in this paper.
Nominalization is the most common form of ideational grammatical
metaphor, especially in science, technology, political and business discourse.
Nominalization turns actions or processes into concepts, while also reducing the
number of clauses and compressing more information into each nominal group.
As Halliday has argued in his IFGs (Introduction to Functional Grammar; in all
three editions of 1985, 1994 and 2004), each nominalized or metaphorical
wording in the metaphorical domain has its congruent wording in the congruent
domain. The metaphorical domain explains the situation in more interesting and
more formal ways in comparison with the congruent one. The most common form
of Ideational metaphor seems to be nominalization, which is a characteristic
feature of scientific texts. According to Halliday (2004), “nominalization is the
single most powerful resource for creating grammatical metaphor” .
Sinar (2008: 7) states that discourse is related to the social context since
the discourse is used in communication. The use of Ideational metaphor is
motivated by social context which covers the context of situation. It means that
social context play a role in the production of ideational metaphor in discourse.
Ideational metaphor that the researcher used to analyze the data is one
of the GM classifications. With Ideational metaphor people can shift their
4
“thing” which can be represented by nominal group as a way to make their words
more understandable and reduce the ambiguities of the words.
Grammatical metaphor is a substitution of one grammatical class, or one
grammatical structure, by another, for example, “his departure instead of he
departed” (Halliday & Martin, 1993: 79). Halliday used the term grammatical
metaphor to refer to the meaning transference from congruent to metaphorical in
grammar.
According to Halliday and Matthiessen (1997), noun is the most
grammatical metaphor in the word level, it makes the verbs which express the
process and the adjectives which express the characteristics metaphorical lose
functions of their own, so that they can not reflect something in the form of noun.
The example of this phenomenon can be found on Barack Obama’s speech
(episode: ‘A More Perfect Union’ in Philadelphia, March 18th, 2008) “I chose to
run for the presidency at this moment in history”. The metaphorical wording of
“chose to run” can be changed into “follow” since Barack Obama changes the
verb “follow” becomes “chose to run”. The problem of the readers or listeners is
they face difficulties in understanding the message of the speech. By identifying
the ideational metaphor in Barack Obama’s speech, the readers or listeners have
5
difficulties to understand the Ideational metaphors that are exist in a discourse. So
that we can see how he use Ideational metaphor towards what he expressed, and
enable us to have a better understanding of how Ideational metaphor work in
Barack Obama’s speech.
Many researchers have been done on ideational grammatical metaphor.
Kazemian, Behnam and Ghafoori (2013) investigate Ideational metaphor in
Scientific Texts: A Hallidayan Perspective. This paper adopts Hallidayan
Systemic Functional Grammar to pinpoint and analyze nominalization and the
role played by it. With a corpus of 10 authentic scientific texts drawn from very
influential magazines, the analysis is conducted based on nominalization, its
frequency and process types. Shahab and Davtgari (2015) interprets Ideational
metaphor in Pharmaceutical Research Articles. The study was an attempt to
examine the frequency, process type, and function of IGM in the discussion
sections of pharmaceutical research articles.
This research concerns to ideational grammatical metahor in social context
because a discourse cannot be separated from context. The research is done to
investigate the Ideational metaphor in Barack Obama’s speech. Barack Obama’s
speech commonly presented in formal situation; so, it is believed that people
could encounter the use of GM especially the ideational one in its presentation.
For that reason, the researcher chose to analyze the application of
Ideational metaphor in Barack Obama’s speech to find out how GM is useful for
6
The second reason for the researcher to choose this data not only because
Barack Obama is one of the most inspiring people in the world but also his
speech becomes special and popular after he has become a president of the
United State. The researcher decided to conduct a study entitled “Ideational
Metaphor in Barack Obama’s Speech of Presidential Election”.
Moreover, now Barack Obama is an American President who is famous
for not only his talent in political field but also in numerous persuasive speeches
because the language he chose always makes his speech powerful and convincing.
One of the strategies that we are easy to recognize in all his speeches is using not
only lexical metaphors but also grammatical metaphors to make the discourse
vivid and easy to understand for all classes of citizen.
The research aims at describing how ideational grammatical metaphor are
employed Barack Obama’s speech and also identifying the type of ideational
grammatical metaphor used in it. By this research, the researcher wants to
find out if the application of ideational grammatical metaphor in a speech is
considered useful or the otherwise.
In conclusion, the reseacher chose this topic because of my interest in
metaphor in general and GM in particular; the appearance with high frequency of
metaphor in adult speeches and the admiration to American President Barack
7
1.2 The Problems of the Study
Based on the background above, the following questions were forwarded
as the research problems.
(1) What types of ideational metaphor are found in Barack Obama’s speech?
(2) How is ideational metaphor linguistically realized in Barack Obama’s
speech?
(3) Why is ideational metaphor coded in the way it is in Barack Obama’s speech?
1.3The Objectives of the Study
In relation to the problems, the objectives of the study are
(1) to identify the types of ideational metaphor are found in Barack Obama’s
speech, and
(2) to describe how the ideational metaphor linguistically realized in Barack
Obama’s speech.
(3) to reason for ideational metaphor coded in the ways it is in Barack Obama’s
speech.
1.4The Scope of the Study
The scope of this study is limited into the ideational metaphor on Barack
Obama’s speech. There are three aspects which observed in this study. The types
8
Ideational metaphor in Barack Obama’s speech and the reason why Ideational
metaphor used in Barack Obama’s speech. This study applies the concept theories
of the systemic functional linguistics (SFL) proposed by Halliday.
1.5The Significance of the Study
A study which is designed to cover some intended result should have the
significances.
a. Theoretically
The objective of this study is to show how the types of Ideational metaphor
are existed in the Barack Obama’s speech. Thus, theoretically the results of the
study are expected to display Ideational metaphor as the context of ideational
metaphor is applied.
b. Practically
The objectives of this study are;
(1) Expanding the insights in terms of Ideational metaphor and its application in
the speech.
(2) Introducing to the readers the result of Ideational metaphor and its application
52
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
In this chapter, the researcher gives the conclusions and suggestions. The
conclusion that is given is the conclusion which is obtained from the result of the
research that is illustrated in the previous chapter. The suggestion that is given is
for other researchers.
5.1 Conclusions
After analyzing the data, are drawn as the following :
1) There are six types of ideational metaphor that found in Barack Obama’s
speech. They are type 1 (Adjective => Noun), type 2 (Verb => Noun), type 5
(Verb =>Adjective), type 12 (+ verb), type 13 (i) (Noun => (various)) and
type 13 (ii) (adverb => adjective). In addition, the types of ideational
metaphor that did not realize in Barack Obama’s speech are type 3
(Preposition(al phrase)), type 4 (Conjunction => Noun), type 6
(Preposition(al phrase)=> Adjective), type 7 (Conjunction => Adjective),
type 8 (Preposition(al phrase) => verb), type 9 (Conjunction => verb), type
10 (Conjunction => preposition(al phrase)) and type 11 (+ noun).
2) Ideational metaphor linguistically realized in Barack Obama’s speech by
53
The metaphorical wording can be changed into congruent wording. The
quality of the congruent expression of the clause “resented” is an adjective
becomes thing in “resentments” which is a noun in the metaphorical one
(type 1). The verb “inherit” which is the process of the clause is changed to
the thing “an inheritance” in the metaphorical form which is a noun (type 2).
Process of the congruent “finish”, which is a verb, is being used as the
adjective “unfinished” in the metaphorical form (type 12). Process of the congruent “follow”, which is a verb, is being used as the verb “chose to run” in the metaphorical form type 13 (i). The word in the congruent form
“profoundly” which is a circumstance is shifted into adjective in “profound”
for the metaphorical form (type 13).
3) The reason ideational metaphor coded in the ways it is in Barack Obama’s
speech is to help the readers or listeners have better understanding to mean
the meaning of the Barack Obama’s speech. The problem of the readers or
listeners is they face difficulties in understanding the meaning of the speech.
By identifying the ideational metaphor in Barack Obama’s speech, the
readers or listeners have better understanding to mean the meaning of the
Barack Obama’s speech. Barack Obama used metaphor in conveying his
judgments and attitudes. He used metaphor to express something indirectly.
The special function of nominalization in speech is the condensing function,
54
and more ambiguities and also to describe a state, a concept or an action
more comprehensively than is possible and simultaneously it is
appealed to the senses, to interest, to clarify ‘graphically’, to please, to
delight, to surprise and affect the reader’s mind and force the reader/listener
to think creatively.
5.2 Suggestions
In relation to the conclusions, the suggestions are staged are as the
following:
(1) To the other researchers it is suggested to do more research about Barack
Obama’s speech.
(2) To the people in order to understand the types of speech that is used not
only in speech but also in other discourse.
(3) To all of us as the writer or reader who read this thesis in order to understand
