Unfolding The Political Ideology of P.M. Imran Khan: A Transitivity Analysis

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Abstract

A political ideology offers some political and cultural blueprint for a certain community by settings the goals and describing methods to achieve those goals. It is a basic factor in allocation of power in a society. The politicians and statesmen usually express their ideologies through public discourse/speeches at different platforms. UN general Assembly is such great platform where Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan delivered a memorable speech on September 27, 2019 in New York. Through this speech, P.M. pinpointed many problems and challenges faced by the world generally and the Muslim world particularly. The global warming, according to him, is a major challenge that the world faces today. Moreover, he expressed his concerns over Kashmir dispute, Islamophobia, money laundering, corruption and poverty in Pakistan and called upon the rest of the world to assist Pakistan in combating these challenges. Drawing upon transitivity model by Halliday, this research paper has analyzed the speech of P.M. in U.N. General Assembly. Explanatory sequential mixed method has been employed to identify role of six transitivity processes used. This study documents that material process (50.29%) highly dominated the speech, mental process is second highest occurring process (16.66%) and relational process (11.01%) ranked third. Existential process had the percentage of (7.73%) followed by verbal process (7.4%) and behavioral process (6.84%). These processes have highlighted the aims and objectives, fears and concerns of the P.M over the multifarious issues.  This analysis of the speech has provided an insight into Imran Khan’s political ideology and portrayed him as an ambassador of whole Muslim world not just Pakistan.  

Keywords: Prime Minister Imran Khan, speech, Process types, Systemic Functional Linguistics, Transitivity Analysis, UN General Assembly.