Critical discourse analysis of PM Imran Khan's Twitter messages on covid-19 using

SFL( ideational function)

Chapter 1. Introduction

1.1 Background

From the last two decades, technological development is playing a crucial role in every field of
life. Social networking or social media tools such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube etc playing
their academic or non-academic role. One of the social media tools or micro-blogging, Twitter,
since from its arrival is playing a great role. It has influenced media, news, politics,
entertainment, sports etc. They are using it in providing information worldwide. People tweets
and interact with others by words and conversation using hashtag (#) to highlight their topics.
This tool is enormously used by the leaders in this critical period of time where social distancing
is banned. This is the heart-rending time of pandemic covid-19 (corona virus disease-2019)
which has affected millions of people's life in all over the world and millions have kicked their
bucket with this fatal or deadly disease because of this novel Corona virus that it has no
previous history and no vaccine. In this critical period, this virus has incited a great panic on the
globe and every single person wants to seek help and guidance from their leaders' words to
fight this disease.
Language is the key element to communicate with other, shows emotions, understand
the attitudes, and to express the ideas. The systematic functional language (SFL) is an
approach described by Michael Halliday for discourse analysis. Systemic Functional Linguistics
(SFL), the theory of language used in the study. SFL is a social semiotic theory that investigates
discourse in context. In SFL, language has its three meta-function at semantic level. Ideational,
Interpersonal and textual function.

Purpose of the study:

The sole purpose of this study is to highlight the trend of using micro-blogging channel,
Twitter, to address or influence the biggest audience by the language and ideology on pandemic
issue Covid-19

Significance of the study:

The study shows that how the present leadership of the country, Pakistan, mentally
preparing the mass of the country to battle against the pandemic disease covid-19.

Objective of the study:

● to highlight the ideology of PM Imran khan in this critical period of time.
● To examine the choice of words to give guidance and show consolidation towards public
to win against this disease.
Research questions:

 How social media tool is presenting the ideology of the leader to persuade the mass to
fight against the covid-19?
 To what extent this tool is useful for authentic information from the leader to convince n
themselves to stay home and stay safe.

Terminology:

Here are some terms used in this paper

 Twitter:
Twitter is an American microblogging and social networking service on which users
post and interact with messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and
retweet the tweets 

 Twitter’s Hashtag:
Hash tag (#) used in the tweet describes the topic or the theme. According to
Zappavigna, it is a meta data, means it is the subject of the main body of the tweet.

 Corona virus disease-2019 (covid-19):

The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an
ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory
syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)
 Chapter 3. Methodology

In this chapter, we will discuss the design of the research study, how data is collected and which
method or analytical framework will be used for analysis.

3.1 Research design

In this paper, emotions or attitudes through language using microblogging service or posts of
political leader will discuss. In addition, this study is descriptive or qualitative in its nature. To
analyze the twitter discourse SFL is used as analytical framework. This theory or model is
developed by M.A.K Halliday in 1960’s in U.K and then in Australia. Systematic Functional
Language (SFL) model is applied to find out the semantic meanings of the text. This theory
concerns the function of the language instead of its structure.

Systematic Functional language analyzes the text in four ways

1. Context
 Context of culture
 Context of situation
2. Semantics
Three meta-functions
Ideational
Interpersonal
Textual
3. Lexicon-grammar
Grammar
Vocabulary
4. Phonology
Sound system.

3.2 Delimitation:
Halliday’s model semantics part is consisted of three meta-functions;
 Ideational
It is concerned with the existing reality of the world with the participants, process and
circumstances
 interpersonal
It is the interaction between the participants in spoken or written text.
 textual function
It is related to the construction of text i.e. how it is held together (cohesion)

but the present study is delimited to Ideational function, which follows transitivity and its
process types
3.3 Data Collection and sampling
The research paper is based on twitter messages(tweets) of political leader, PM Imran khan, on
Corona virus disease-2019 (Covid-19). Only tweets are collected for the analysis, the replies of
these tweets will not be included in the study.
 Chapter 4. Findings and Discussion

4.1 Analysis and findings:

Corona virus outbreak effects the lives of millions. Many people have to lose their jobs and
families are struggling to keep themselves away from poverty. In this critical period, when our
motherland also hit by its stroke, PM Imran khan is trying to keep away the countrymen from the
panic condition while tweeting his post and making the positive relation between people of
Pakistan by giving pieces of advice and also trying to giving relief.

Ideational meta-function:
The main component of ideational function of language is transitivity. Transitivity belongs
to the experiential and logical modes. It represents these number of aspects.

Transitivity
 Participant (human/non-human) who are participating in the process
 Process (verb or action)
 Circumstances (process occur / when, where and how it takes place)

the following example is showing the transitivity components

(circumstance)In the open glade the(participant) wild rabbits(process) danced with their
shadows(circumstance)

Transitivity process is further divided into six types with the participants

1. Material process actor, goal, scope, attributive, client, recipient

2. Mental process sender, phenomenon
3. Verbal process sayer, receiver, verbiage
4. Relational process carrier/attributive, token/value
5. Behavioral process behaver
6. Existential process existent

The following figure (fig.1) describing the six types of process in detail
Here are a few tweets of PM Imran Khan on the pandemic disease Covid-19
 1. I am saddened by the news of the death of countless Pakistanis
living & working abroad who have fallen victim to the
COVID19. Many died while serving in the frontline of the
global war against COVID19. My condolences & prayers go
their families
10:04 AM · Apr 17, 2020

Mental process:

I am Saddened By the news Living &

of the death working
of the abroad
countless
Pakistanis
Sensor Mental Phenomenon
process(cognition
)

Material process

Who Have To the

fallen covid-19
victim
Actor Material Goal
process
Many Died While serving Against
in the covid-
frontlin 19
e of the
global
war
Actor Material Goal Matter
process

My Condolences Go with their

& prays family
Actor Material Goal
process
2.My message for people is to stay home as much as possible during
this pandemic.

Verbal process

My Message for Is to stay

people home as
much as
possible
during this
pandemic
Sayer Receiver Verbiage

3. Pakistani health professionals are on the frontline in the fight

against #COVID19 across the world. They also want to help us
combat COVID19 in Pakistan.

Relational process

Pakistani Are On the In the fight

health frontline against
professionals #COVID19
across the
world
Carrier Process: Location Cause, meta
attribute data

Mental process or material process within a clause

They Also want to Help us Combat

COVID19 in
Pakistan
Senser Mental process Material Goal
process
 4. I want our nation to observe this Eid in a different
manner from the usual celebratory style. First, let us
think of & pray for all those families who have been
deprived of their loved ones by the plane crash tragedy
& all those who have lost their lives to COVID19.

Mental process

I Want Our To This eid in a

nation observe different
manner
from the
usual
celebratory
style.
Senser Mental Mental Phenomenon
Process: process:
cognitio perception
n

Mental and material process

First Let us Think of & pray For all

those
families
Temporal Senser Mental Material Goal
conjunction +actor process: process
cognitio
n

Who Have By the & all Have Their lives To

been plane those lost covid19
 deprived crashed who
of their tragedy
loved
ones
Actor Material Agent Actor Material Circumstance Beneficiary
process process s ( negative)

Discussion:

 First example of tweet

I am saddened by the news of the death of countless Pakistanis living &
working abroad who have fallen victim to the COVID19. Many died while
serving in the frontline of the global war against COVID19. My condolences
& prayers go their families

is consist of the clause which has two process types. One is mental and the other is
material. The mental process is further described by, the cognition, which means sender
in the clause is emotionally but cognitively affected. It is one of the mental process
components.

The 2nd tweet

 My message for people is to stay home as much as possible during this
pandemic.

This clause is verbal clause because the participant is sayer and he is saying or conveying
(process) the message to the mass (people). They are verbal beneficiary in this clause.

 Pakistani health professionals are on the frontline in the fight

against #COVID19 across the world. They also want to help us
combat COVID19 in Pakistan.

This tweet is consisting of two clauses but according to its function, it has three
types of process relational, mental and material. In relational process we have
carrier or attribute. So, the attributive clause we have Is
 Pakistani health professionals are on the frontline in the fight
against #COVID19 across the world.

Hash tag# words for an instance in the above attributive clause indicating the
topic or subject of the tweet.

The other clause according to its function is mental or material as well.

In mental clause, conscious processing is involved for example want. In the
following below mentioned clause we have transitivity process type material
clause. This process covers concrete or abstract process with the goal for
example

They also want to help us combat COVID19 in Pakistan.

 In the 4th tweet

I want our nation to observe this Eid in a different

manner from the usual celebratory style. First, let us think of & pray for all
those families who have been deprived of their loved ones by the plane
crash tragedy & all those who have lost their lives to COVID19.

This tweet has mental as well as material process. Mental process has
cognition ‘want’, ‘think’ and perception ‘to observe’. It has temporal
conjunction ‘first’ and the agent which is recognized with the ‘ by’ phrase
in the clause we have found.
References

 Halliday, M., Matthiessen, C. M., & Matthiessen, C. (2014). An introduction to

functional grammar. Routledge.

 Zappavigna, M. (2012). Discourse of Twitter and social media: How we use language to

create affiliation on the web (Vol. 6). A&C Black