Public Discourse: Systemic Functional Analysis of VP Sara Duterte’s Speeches

This study aimed to explore and unveil the linguistic features, persuasive strategies and political ideologies used in Vice President Sara Duterte’s Speeches. The categories of linguistic features were referred to Finegan’s Linguistic Features of Structure and Use (2008). Using a discourse analysis approach, the researcher focused on two dimensions: morphology and syntax. Twenty public speeches were gathered from YouTube. Within the domain of morphology, the study revealed that out of the twenty videos that were analyzed three (3) of them used compounding, five (5) used reduplication and four (4) used initialism. In the realm of syntax, the analysis uncovered three types of sentences: simple, compound and complex sentence. It was revealed that three of the public speeches used simple sentences, four used compound and three used complex sentences. On the other hand, persuasive strategies were referred to as Aristotle Persuasive Strategies (1983). The results of the persuasive strategies revealed that three of the videos used ethical appeal, three used logical and three used emotional appeal. Lastly, political ideologies were referred to Van Dijk Ideological Interaction Theory. It was revealed that two of the public speeches used acquired, two used expressed and two used propagated as political ideology.