Transitivity in Greta Thunberg’s Speech in the United Nations Climate Action Summit: A Functional Grammar Approach

Abstract

The study aims to analyze and describe the transitivity and the meaning of Gretha Thunberg’s
speech in The United Nations Climate Session. The method used in this study is the descriptive
qualitative method as opposed by Moleong (2007) by watching the video, transcribing the speech,
classifying the transitivity and the meaning in the data, analyzing the transitivity and the
meaning within the data. Data sources are collected from the speech of Greta Thunberg in a
YouTube video entitled Greta Thunberg to world leaders: 'How dare you? You have stolen my
dreams and my childhood' uploaded by a YouTube channel named Guardian News. The theories
used in analyzing the transitivity of the speech are from Halliday (1985), whereas in analyzing
the meaning is by using the theory from Downing (2006). The results show there are (6) six
transitivity processes used: Material (19%), Mental (19%), Existential (8%), Behavioral (7%),
Relational (43%), and Verbal (4%). The most dominant process that is used in Greta Thunberg’s
speech is the Relational process. The writers find three types of meanings that are used: Literal
(69%), Semi-idiomatic (8%), and Idiomatic (23%) meaning. In her speech, Greta Thunberg
tends to explain the current condition of the earth, hence the relational process and literal
meaning occurred frequently. She conveyed her message by providing statistics about global
temperature rise and she wanted the listener to understand her message clearly.