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Oktober

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1 

 

 ELT FORUM 2 (2) (2013) 

 

Journal of English Language Teaching 
 

http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt 

 

 

THE IDEATIONAL MEANING IN THE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE 

BETWEEN BARACK OBAMA AND MITT ROMNEY 

CONCERNING CHINA’S THREAT 

 

Ghea Kyat Priyanka 

 

Department of English, Faculty Language and Arts, Semarang State University, Indonesia 

 

Info Artikel 

________________ 
Sejarah Artikel: 

Diterima  2013 

Disetujui  2013  

Dipublikasikan   

2013 

________________ 
Keywords: 

Ideational meaning, 

Transitivity, speech function, 

debate, context of situation 

____________________ 

 

Abstract 
___________________________________________________________________ 

This article deals with ideational meaning realized in transcript of the U.S. presidential debate 

between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney concerning China’s threat. Ideational meaning talks 

about subject matter. It relates to information about objects or to what the utterances are about. In 

realizing the subject matter of the debate transcript, three analyses are conducted; Transitivity, 

speech function, and also analysis on context of situation. The result based on those analyses shows 

two points of conclusion. Firstly, Obama through Material and Relational Processes stated his past 

actions and recent U.S. condition to show his success and through Mental Process he certainly 

stated his hopes for the future. Meanwhile, Romney through Material and Relational Processes 

certainly stated the unfortunate condition experienced by the U.S. as a result of Obama’s policies 

and through Mental Process stated his wish to the U.S economy. Both speakers invited the 

audiences to accept the information concerning those solutions. Secondly, context of situation 

influences the debate transcript in its language use. Some terminologies in the area of economy and 

trade emerge as the influence of Field. Those terminologies make the conversation focuses on the 

subject matter being analyzed, that is China as a threat to the U.S. 

 

© 2013 Universitas Negeri Semarang 

 
 Alamat korespondensi:  

   Gedung B3  Lantai 3  FBS Unnes  

   Kampus Sekaran, Gunungpati, Semarang, 50229 

   E-mail: ghekapekape@yahoo.com 

 

 

 

ISSN 2252-6706 

 

 

 

 

 

mailto:ghekapekape@yahoo.com


 

Ghea Kyat Priyanka / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

2 

 

INTRODUCTION 

 

 

Human beings are social creature that 

cannot live alone without doing any 

communication with their surroundings. By 

communicating, human beings deliver their 

ideas and wishes to others. The communication 

among them can be realized through a tool 

called language. Ramelan (1999:1) states that 

“man speaks language; he uses language as 

means of communication with other people, as 

tool to express his ideas and wishes”. Thus, 

language is a tool for human beings to do the 

communication in achieving their needs as 

social creature. 

Debate is an example of communication. 

“It is the process by which opinions are 

advanced, supported, disputed, and defended” 

(Branham, 1991:1). It is a kind of public 

speaking where people communicate their ideas 

and hold on to it by giving supporting logically 

reasons. In a debate, there will be two sides or 

persons who interact with contrary arguments 

concerning issues that are floored by the neutral 

side, the host of the debate. These two sides 

propose their arguments based on their own 

ideology or the way they put their point of view 

towards the issues. They give feedback to each 

other‟s arguments. 

Presidential debate is a debate between 

president‟s candidates from different parties. It is 

led by a moderator as the neutral side. The 

moderator floors the issue of the debate which 

will be responded by the speakers of the debate 

based on their point of view towards it. There is 

no direct scoring system in this kind of debate 

for the judges in presidential debate are the 

audience. The audience will regard the 

candidates‟ arguments towards the issue as their 

consideration in choosing their future leader. In 

every ideology that lies behind their arguments, 

there is message in it. The intention of the 

message is what could be called meaning of the 

message. As presidential debate is one of the 

ways to generate public‟s opinion, the arguments 

are delivered in order to make the audience 

agree with them. Thus, the candidates are to 

keep their end up in delivering the intended 

meaning in order to be accepted well by the 

audience. 

Understanding meaning cannot be taken 

for granted, otherwise it will lead to 

misinterpretation. A study which deals with it is 

called Systemic Functional Linguistics. This 

study reveals how meaning is constructed by 

analyzing not only the sentence but also the 

whole texts. According to Gerot and Wignell 

(1994:10) “all meaning is situated in a context of 

culture and situation.” Context of culture is the 

total cultural background, while context of 

situation is the environment of the text. Halliday 

in Jenny Hammond et al. (1992:2) suggests that 

“there are three variables within any context of 

situation that largely determine the language 

choices that are made in the construction of any 

language text.” Those are field, mode, and 

tenor. Field is the social activity taking place; 

mode is the channel of linguistic 

communication, while tenor is the relationship 

between participants.  

In this study, the writer will choose one of 

the variables of context of situation, that is field. 

Field exists in all language. There will always be 

certain focus of a topic that is discussed in a 

language, including in a debate. As debate is a 

discussion where each side holds on to their 

ideologies and arguments towards issue, thus, 

the issue must be something debatable, 

something interesting that challenges both 

critical point of view of the speakers towards it. 

In short, the issue in a debate, moreover in a 

presidential debate, must be something crucial 

for the life of people in general and for those 

taking part in the debate in particular. Thus, the 

writer finds it interesting to analyze one of the 

variables of context of situation, that is field. 

The writer will analyze the ideational 

meaning which shows the subject matter 

through Transitivity used in the transcript of the 

U.S. presidential debate between Barack Obama 

and Mitt Romney, particularly in the issue 

concerning China‟s threat. The U.S.‟ 

involvement in Cold War had made the relation, 

in whatever aspects of life, between the U.S. and 



 

Ghea Kyat Priyanka / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

3 

 

communist countries such as China were 

impossible to come true. The first U.S. and 

China relationship was started soon after 

Richard Nixon began to implement a new 

approach to international relations. He 

encouraged the United Nations to recognize the 

communist Chinese government. Formal 

diplomatic relations between these two countries 

keep on going despite some interpositions that 

happened many times. In 2000, Bill Clinton 

granted China permanent normal trade relations 

with the U.S. and paved the way for China to 

join the World Trade Organization in 2001. By 

2010, China has become world‟s second largest 

economy after the U.S. China‟s track record in 

doing international trade is seen by the U.S. as 

not playing by the rules. China‟s economic 

policy which is labor-intensive causes its ability 

in producing low-cost goods yet it has not met 

the international quality standard. It is regarded 

as a threat, particularly economic threat, to the 

U.S. Take a look from their long history, the 

U.S. and China relations are very dynamic. 

Thus, the writer finds it interesting to find out 

the content in the sense of what is going on at 

the time (the ideational meaning) that lies in the 

issue of the debate. 

 

Text 

Halliday and Hasan (1985:10) state that 

“text in the simplest way is language that is 

functional. By functional, we simply mean 

language that is doing some job in some 

context.” Furthermore, it is stated that text may 

be either spoken or written, or indeed in any 

other medium of expression that we like to think 

of. 

Text is functional in the sense that it 

represents meaning in a context. A text can be 

spoken or written. So, when we speak or write, 

we are actually constructing a text and trying to 

construct meaning through it. In reverse, when 

we read a book or listen to a song, we are trying 

to catch the meaning that the text represents. 

However, according to Hammond et al. 

(1994:5), “there‟s no clear dividing line between 

spoken and written language. Some spoken texts 

have features typically associated with written 

language, such as spoken argument in defense of 

a point of view…” Hence, debate then could be 

defined as an example of spoken text. 

 

Context 

According to Halliday and Hasan 

(1985:5), “there is text and there is other text 

that accompanies it; text that is „with‟, namely 

the con-text. This notion of what is „with the 

text‟, however, goes beyond what is said and 

written; it includes other non-verbal goings-on- 

the total environment in which a text unfolds.” 

In interpreting the meaning in a text, there are 

some aspects that are to be considered. Those 

aspects are what could be called as context. 

Gerot and Wignell (1994:10) claim that “all 

meaning is situated in a context of situation and 

culture.”  

 

Context of Culture 

“Context of culture determines what we 

can mean through being „who we are‟, doing 

„what we do‟, and saying „what we say‟” (Gerot 

and Wignell, 1994:10). Furthermore, Gerot and 

Wignell give an example of context of culture as 

follow: 

Suppose, like one of us, you grew up in 

mid-western United States, the eldest daughter 

in a large farming family. Being the eldest 

daughter in this circumstances automatically 

casts one in the role of „momma‟s little helper‟. 

That‟s who you are in the family. This in turn 

determines what you do within the family and 

what you say. 

 

It could be inferred, then, that context of 

culture controls and limits the utterances and 

sentences of the speakers and the writers in order 

not to swerve from the appropriate path of the 

existing culture surrounds them. In relation to 

context of culture and text, context of culture 

gives value to the text and constrain its 

interpretation.  

 

Context of Situation 

“Take the utterance: „Just put it beside 

those other ones‟. The meaning remains obscure 

until we know that it was said to a removalist 



 

Ghea Kyat Priyanka / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

4 

 

who had just lugged in another carton of 

household goods during moving one of us to 

Brisbane. Knowing the context of situation 

makes the utterances” (Gerot and Wignell, 

1994:10). 

The above example shows that it would 

be hard to interpret the sentence if we do not 

know exactly who actually the speaker is and to 

whom the sentence is delivered. Without 

knowing what actually the words „it‟ and „those‟ 

in the example above refer to, we cannot either 

precisely interpret the intention of the speaker.  

There are three aspects of context in any 

situation that have linguistic consequences. 

These are called the register variables. Gerot and 

Wignell (1994:11) state that: 

Field refers to what is going on, including 

activity focus (nature of social activity) and 

object focus (subject matter); mode refers to how 

language is being used, whether the channel of 

communication is spoken or written or language 

is being used as a model of action or reflection; 

tenor refers to the social relationships between 

those taking parts. These are specifiable in terms 

of status of power, affect, and contact. 

 

Metafunction 

Meaning which is carried out by language 

is not limited into only one meaning. Based on 

Halliday‟s Systemic Functional Linguistic, there 

are three types of meanings: a meaning about 

the interaction (an interpersonal meaning); a 

meaning about reality (an ideational meaning), 

and a meaning about the message (a textual 

meaning). These three types of meaning are 

known as the metafunctions (Eggins, 1994:225).  

The three functions or constituents of 

interpersonal, ideational, and textual are also 

differentiated into three roles of Subject, Actor, 

and Theme. Each of those roles makes up a 

separate strand in the overall meaning of the 

clause. Halliday (2004:58-59) states that: 

A clause has meaning as an exchange, a 

transaction between speaker and listener. The 

Subject is the warranty of the exchange; A 

clause has meaning as a representation of some 

process in ongoing human experience. The 

Actor is the active participant in that process. 

Meanwhile, Theme is the point of departure for 

the message. It is the element the speaker selects 

for „grounding‟ what he is going on to say. 

 

Despite having different roles in realizing 

meaning, those three functions can exist at the 

same time in one clause. Therefore, the three 

strands of meaning can be analyzed in a clause 

only. For the sake of a clearer explanation, 

below is the example. 

Kate, I read your new book yesterday. 

 Kate I Read your new book yesterday 

Interpersonal 

Adjunct: 

vocative 
Subject Finite Predicate Complement 

Adjunct: 

adverbial 

Residue Mood Residue 

Ideational  Actor Process: Material Goal Circ.: time 

Textual Theme Rheme 

 

Constituent of interpersonal will be 

discussed first. In analyzing the clause, it uses 

Mood system which consists of Subject and 

Finite. Finite functions in negotiating meanings. 

Based on the analysis above, the Subject is 

placed by „I‟, while the Finite lies in the word 

„read‟ in which it is fused with Predicate. In this 

case, the word „read‟ negotiates that the speaker 

did something to Kate‟s new book; that is 

reading it. Thus, an interaction happens in this 

scope. It could be described that the speaker told 

Kate that he had read her new book the day 

before. Later, it opened chance for Kate to give 

responses to what the speaker had told her. 

Thus, it is clear that interpersonal constituent 

reveals a meaning of interaction. 

The second is constituent of ideational. It 

is about encoding people experiences of the 

world around them. From the analysis above, it 

is clear that the Process attempts to represent an 

experience of the Actor. In this case, the speaker 

gave information to Kate that he had read her 



 

Ghea Kyat Priyanka / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

5 

 

new book the day before. Then, the content of 

what the speaker delivered which is expressed 

from what the Actor represents is what can be 

called as the ideational meaning of the clause.  

The last is constituent of textual. It reveals 

meaning about message. In constituents of 

textual, the system of Theme are broken down 

into two functional components; Theme as given 

information and Rheme as new information. 

The term given here means that the information 

has existed before the new one appears. In this 

case, it could be informed that „Kate‟ and „I‟ 

already existed before the conversation 

happened. Meanwhile, „read your new book 

yesterday‟ has just created because of the 

existence of Kate and I. Thus, there is a causal 

relationship between Theme and Rheme in the 

sense that Theme as given information produces 

Rheme as new information. 

 

Ideational Meaning 

According to Derewianka (2011:13), “one 

important function of language is to enable us to 

represent what is going on in the world; to talk 

about our experience, to reflect on our 

observations, to share knowledge and ideas.” It 

concerns with how language functions to 

represent different kinds of experience. Halliday 

refers to this as the „experiential‟ or „ideational‟ 

function of language. It is centrally influenced by 

field of discourse. 

As ideational meaning talks about 

experience, then it relates to information about 

objects or to what the utterances are about. 

Ideational meaning provides answers to 

questions such as „What is happening?‟, „Who or 

what is taking part?‟, and „What gives us more 

information about the activity? When? Where? 

How?‟  

 

The System of Transitivity 

“When we look at the ideational 

metafunction, we are looking at the grammar of 

the clause as representation. As with the clause 

as exchange, we find there is one major system 

of grammatical choice involved in this kind of 

meaning. This is the system of Transitivity, or 

Process type” (Eggins, 1994:228). 

 Transitivity is a tool by which we can 

achieve ideational meaning of discourse. 

Processes, Participants, and Circumstances are 

included in it. Each plays its own role in 

realizing the ideational meaning. Processes are 

the central one in Transitivity for it determines 

the order of meaning in a clause.  Different 

Processes make different order of meaning in the 

clause, for instance the words „She listens to a 

song‟, „She writes a song‟, and „She sings a 

song‟. The Processes in those three clauses 

determine different order of meaning. However, 

Participants and Circumstances also plays great 

role in creating a precise interpretation of 

ideational meaning. 

 

Processes 

A Process is realized in grammar by 

means of a verbal group. According to Halliday 

(2004:170-171), there are six types of Processes 

in the English Transitivity system. Those are 

Material, Mental, Relational, Behavioral, 

Verbal, and Existential Process. 

Butt et al. (1996:47) explain that Material 

Process is about doing.  It could answer the 

question „What did X do?‟ or „What happened 

to X?‟ The Participants of this Process could be 

Actor, Goal, Range or Beneficiary. Meanwhile, 

Mental Process provides answer to question 

„What do you think/ feel/ know about X?‟ 

Furthermore, there are four types of Mental 

Process; affective or perceptive (perceiving 

through the five senses), cognitive (thinking), 

desiderative, and emotive (feeling). The 

Participants in Mental Process are Senser and 

Phenomenon. Other Process type is Relational 

Process. It is often described as Process of being. 

There are two types of Relational Processes. 

Those are one that identifies which is called 

Identifying and one that describes something in 

clause which is named Attributive. As these two 

types are different since the beginning, the 

Participants in both types are also different from 

one another. Participants in Identifying are 

Token and Value, while in Attributive are 

Carrier and Attribute. 

In relation to Behavioral Process, 

Halliday (2004:248-249) explains that 



 

Ghea Kyat Priyanka / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

6 

 

“Behavioral Processes are Processes of (typically 

human) physiological and psychological 

behavior, like breathing, coughing, smiling, 

dreaming, and staring. The Participant who is 

„behaving‟ labeled Behaver. The Process is 

grammatically more like one of „doing‟.” 

Meanwhile, concerning Verbal Process contains 

of verbal action, saying and all its many 

synonyms, including symbolic exchanges of 

meaning. It contains three Participants: Sayer, 

Receiver, and Verbiage. The last type is 

Existential Process. It is Process of existence. 

Gerot and Wignell (1994:72) state that 

"Existential Processes are expressed by verbs of 

existing: „be‟, „exist‟, „arise‟, and the Existent can 

be a phenomenon of any kind.” 

 

Participants 

Butt et al. (1996:52) claim that “a 

Participant can be a person, a place, or an 

object, and in the grammar of a clause the 

Participant is realized by a nominal group, 

typically a noun or pronoun.” There are many 

different kinds of Process. Hence, there are also 

many different kinds of Participant, following 

the kinds of Process. 

 

Circumstances 

Derewianka (2011:66) states that “the 

Circumstances tell us about such matters as 

time, place, manner, accompaniment, matter, 

cause, contingency, role, and angle. These 

details are obviously important in 

comprehending and expressing aspects of their 

experience.” It functions to illuminate the 

clause. 

 

Speech Function 

“Making an utterance is an interactive 

event inherently involving a speaker or a writer 

and an addressee. A speaker, in uttering, selects 

a speech role (giving or demanding) for her or 

himself, and, simultaneously and thereby, 

allocates a speech role to the addressee” (Gerot 

and Wignell, 1994:22). 

Speech Role and Speech Function (Gerot 

and Wignell, 1994:23) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By analyzing the speech function (offer, 

statement, command, and question) in a text, 

every speech role produced by the speakers will 

be able to be revealed. Furthermore, the 

speakers‟ purposes will also be able to be 

described. Their purposes in uttering their 

sentences will help in completing the analysis of 

ideational meaning of the debate transcript. 

 

Descriptive Qualitative Approach 

Denzin and Lincoln (1994:2) contend 

that: 

Qualitative research is multimethod in 

focus, involving an interpretive, naturalistic 

approach to its subject matter. This means that 

qualitative researchers study things in their 

natural settings, attempting to make sense of, or 

interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings 

people bring to them. 

 

Combinations of options: 
Give: goods and services = offer 

Give: information = statement 
Demand: goods and services = command 
Demand: information = question 

 
Of course, the addressee has some discretion: 

  +   - 
Offer accept reject 

Statement acknowledge contradict 
Command undertake refuse 

Question answer disclaim 

 



 

Ghea Kyat Priyanka / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

7 

 

It can be inferred that a qualitative 

researcher is to interpret the meanings in the 

data which is carried out descriptively to draw a 

conclusion. In this research, the descriptions 

about the ideational meaning are elaborated 

through the knife of the analysis, the system of 

Transitivity. The research report is written 

descriptively in accordance with the research 

findings of the ideational meaning in the debate 

transcript of concerning China‟s threat. 

 

Findings on Process Types Analysis 

From the identification of the Process types found in each clause of the debate transcript, the 

result produced is presented in the table below. 

Text Process Types 
Sum of Analyzed 

Items 

Percentage 

(%) 

Transcript of the U.S. 

Presidential Debate 

between Barack Obama 

and Mitt Romney 

concerning China‟s 

Threat 

Material 170 36.6 

Mental 63 13.5 

Relational: Identifying 46 9.9 

Attributive 147 31.6 

Behavioral 14 3.0 

Verbal 21 4.5 

Existential 4 0.9 

TOTAL 465 100 

 

Both speakers, through Material Process, 

stated the actions of the past, present, and 

future. Their past actions were aimed at showing 

their success or disapproving other, while the 

actions of present and future showed their 

visions coping with the issue. Obama was 

describing his actions of setting up a trade task 

force to go after cheaters and determining the 

policy of auto industry and Tax Code. 

Meanwhile Romney explained unemployment 

condition experienced by the U.S. citizen. 

In other case, by using Mental Process, 

Obama certainly stated his wish of having a 

relationship with China, while Romney, with a 

high certainty, described his wants as making 

the U.S. as the most attractive place in the world 

to grow businesses. Compared to Relational and 

Material Process as the top-two most frequent 

Process, this one has a wide discrepancy in 

number and percentage with them by occupying 

only 13.5% of the whole clauses. It indicates that 

the speakers were indeed using personal feelings 

or inner experience in supporting their solutions, 

yet they put their focus more in the factual 

evidences than in personal feelings.  

Furthermore, from the result of Relational 

Process analysis, two points of conclusion could 

be drawn. Firstly, the speakers attempted to 

describe the U.S. trade and economic condition. 

Obama stated the U.S. condition in the past and 

present to show his success, while Romney 

aimed at showing Obama‟s failure in his 

leadership. Secondly, Obama and Romney 

stated and emphasized their internal and 

external solutions coping with the issue. Obama 

stated that his internal solution was making 

investments in education and research, and his 

external one was insisting China to play by the 

rules. Meanwhile, Romney stated that his 

internal and external solutions were making the 

U.S. as the most attractive place to grow 

businesses and labeling China as currency 

manipulator.  

 In addition, through Behavioral 

Process, Romney stated China‟s and someone 

reactions to the U.S. unfortunate condition. 

Romney dominated the usage of Behavioral 

Process. However, occupying 3.0% of 465 

clauses, it indicates that both speakers were 

rarely showed someone‟s reaction coping with 

the issue of the debate compared to showing 

relations, actions, inner experience, and also 

someone‟s saying. 



 

Ghea Kyat Priyanka / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

8 

 

 Both speakers, through Verbal Process, 

restated their interlocutor‟s and also their own 

statements. It is aimed at refusing other‟s 

disapproval. Verbal Process indeed has a quite 

wide discrepancy with top three most frequent 

Process types; however, it shows another side of 

delivering speaker‟s statements and solution 

towards the issue of the debate. 

 Existential Process represents Romney‟s 

descriptions regarding the U.S. trade condition 

related to China. Having the smallest 

percentage, it indicates that he did not put his 

top priority in giving information concerning it 

explicitly. He indeed stated the U.S.-China trade 

condition, yet he mostly inserted it within his 

statements. 

 

Findings on Speech Function Analysis 

From the identification of each clause in the debate transcript, the result of speech function 

analysis gained is presented in the table below. 

Text 
Initiating Speech 

Function 
Sum % 

Responding Speech 

Function 
Sum % 

Transcript of 

the U.S. 

Presidential 

Debate 

between 

Barack 

Obama and 

Mitt Romney 

concerning 

China‟s 

Threat 

Give 

Offer 5 2.4 

Accept 1 0.5 

Reject 1 0.5 

Statement 108 50.9 

Acknowledge 47 22.2 

Contradict 25 11.8 

Demand 

Command 13 6.1 

Undertake 0 0 

Refuse 0 0 

Question 6 2.8 

Answer 6 2.8 

Disclaim 0 0 

TOTAL 132 62.2  80 37.8 

 

Offer being in the sixth place indicates 

that the participants very rarely directed the 

topic of the debate. They tended to let it flowed 

flexibly according to the speakers‟ responses. 

The fact that the limitation of time to explore 

solutions existed more than the limitation of the 

topic indicates that the moderator put his 

priority in giving equal chance for the speakers 

to speak than to keep the topic of the debate 

focus. Furthermore, the percentage of only 0.5% 

of Accept and Reject proves that most of the 

Offer did not need any verbal responses. 

Through speech function of Statement, 

the participants gave information regarding the 

topic, the speakers‟ solution, the U.S. economic 

and trade condition, and the action that was 

taken by China in doing trade. Particularly, 

having the highest percentage, it indicates that 

the speakers were focusing their attention in 

letting the audiences realized their solutions. 

They were also letting the audiences aware of 

trading condition between the U.S. and China. 

Related to its responding speech function, the 

higher percentage of Acknowledge than 



 

Ghea Kyat Priyanka / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

9 

 

Contradict shows that the speakers tended to 

give positive responses to their statements more 

than to their interlocutor‟s, remembering the 

occasion is a debate. Hence, those positive 

responses were used for their own benefit. 

In relation to Command, its percentage of 

6.1% of all clauses indicates that the participants 

aimed to give limitation to the speaker who 

overtime exploring his solutions. This result 

shows that even though the speakers were given 

chances to maximally explore their solutions 

and opinions, there was still limitation of time to 

keep the debate flowing fairly and well. The 

responding speech function of Command, 

Undertake and Refuse, did not contribute any 

percentage in the transcript. This result proves 

that the commands did not need any verbal 

responses in responding the goods and services 

demanded by the initiator. 

Speech function of Question was only 

initiated by Romney and Schieffer. The 

questions which were answered were only those 

coming from Schieffer. Meanwhile, Romney‟s 

questions did not need any answer for it was 

stated for the purpose of emphasizing. Being in 

the fifth place, it indicates that the moderator 

rarely initiated questions to be discussed. He 

rather let the flow of the debate be filled with 

speakers‟ solutions. Meanwhile, Disclaim was 

not contributing at all in the debate transcript. 

This result shows that none of the Question was 

responded negatively. Even though not all of the 

questions were answered, none of them were 

contradicted by the addressees either. It indicates 

whether the questions were feasible to be 

answered or aimed at supporting the speakers‟ 

statements. 

 

Context of Situation Related to Ideational 

Meaning of the Debate Transcript 

Field influences the language use in the 

debate transcript. Some everyday terminologies 

in the area of economy and trade emerge in the 

debate process remembering the purpose of the 

debate is to give information concerning the 

speakers‟ solution towards the issue to all of the 

U.S. citizens. Those terminologies make the 

conversation focuses on the subject matter being 

analyzed, that is China as a threat to the U.S. 

Concerning tenor of the text, the 

participants in the U.S. presidential debate have 

equal power, infrequent contact, and low 

affective involvement. It leads the language use 

to the using of vocatives. However, there exists 

politeness formula among all participants in this 

debate. 

Furthermore, mode of the debate 

transcript related to its ideational meaning 

shows that the channel of communication of the 

text is spoken. This fact influences the language 

use in the debate in the case that the speakers 

used complicated grammar and spontaneous 

phenomena in delivering their statements. 

Moreover, their conversation is also context 

dependent which caused them to use pronoun to 

refer to something which supported their 

opinions. 

 

CONCLUSION 

 

First, the writer concludes that Obama, 

through Material Process, was describing his 

actions of setting up a trade task force to go after 

cheaters and determining the policy of auto 

industry and Tax Code, and through 41.5% of 

Relational Processes, was showing recent U.S. 

condition as his success in which jobs were 

saved and exports have doubled. Furthermore, 

through Mental Process, in a high certainty, he 

stated his hopes of having a relationship with 

China. In doing so, he prepared the U.S. by 

making investment in education and research so 

they would not lose the lead in things. While 

through Verbal Process, he disapproved 

Romney‟s idea in the liquidity of auto industry. 

Meanwhile, through Material, Relational, and 

Existential Processes, Romney, by using high 

modality, certainly stated the unfortunate 

conditions during Obama‟s leadership such as 

unemployment, companies‟ bankruptcy, and the 

increase of debt. Furthermore, through 3.0% of 

Behavioral Process, he described China‟s doubt 

in having relation with the U.S. as their reaction 

to U.S. condition. For that reason, through 

13.5% of Mental Process, he stated his wish of 



 

Ghea Kyat Priyanka / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (2) (2013) 

10 

 

making the U.S. as the most attractive place in 

the world to grow businesses. Meanwhile, in 

refusing Obama‟s disapproval of auto industry‟s 

liquidation, Romney used Verbal Process. As 

50.9% of the whole clauses of speech function 

belong to Statement, it shows that both speakers 

were inviting the audiences to accept that 

information.  

Second, context of situation influences the 

debate transcript in its language use. Some 

terminologies in the area of economy and trade 

emerge as the influences of Field. Those 

terminologies make the conversation focuses on 

the subject matter being analyzed, that is China 

as a threat to the U.S. 

 

REFERENCES 

 

Branham, J.R. 1991. Debate and Critical Analysis: 

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2013. 

Butt, David. et al. 1996. Using Functional Grammar: An 

Explorer’s Guide. Sydney: Macquarie 

University 

Denzin, N.K and Yvonna S. Lincoln. 1994. 

Introduction: Entering the Field of Qualitative 

Research. California: SAGE Publications, 

Inc. 

Derewianka, Beverly. 2011. A New Grammar 

Companion. Sydney: Primary English 

Teaching Association 

Eggins, Suzzane. 1994. An Introduction to Systemic 

Functional Linguistics. London: Pinter 

Publishers 

Gerot, L. and P. Wignell. 1994. Making Sense of 

Functional Grammar. Sydney: Gerd Stabler 

Halliday, M.A.K. and Christian M.I.M Matthiessen 

(ed). 2004. An Introduction to Functional 

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Halliday, M.A.K. and Ruqaiya Hasan. 1985. 

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Melbourne: Deakin University Press 

Hammond, Jenny. et al. 1992. English for Social 

Purposes. Sydney: Macquarie University 

Parla. Kristen. 2010. Democratic versus Republican 

Perspectives. Retrieved from 

http://usa5.org/d/democratic-versus-

republican-perspectives-by-kristen-parla-

e3777 on February 20, 2013. 

 

Ramelan. 1999. English Phonetics. Semarang: IKIP 

Semarang Press 

Wattles, Isidora and B. Radic-Bojanic. 2007. The 

Analysis of an Online Debate. FACTA 

UNIVERSITATIS Series: Linguistics and 

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