Analysis of the Queen’s Speech on COVID-19 from the Perspective of Transitivity - read online free

Oct 15, 2026

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Queen Elizabeth II delivered her fifth public speech on COVID-19 since taking office, and the article examines the speech text using systemic functional linguistics. The analysis focuses on function and identifies four process types: material, mental, relational, and verbal. It further discusses the UK’s political, economic, and cultural characteristics in response to COVID-19, comparing approaches taken by China and the UK and the cultural background behind them. Findings show the speech primarily expresses gratitude to front-line workers and encourages a positive public response.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages5

Reading Time13 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Data Collection

Analysis Framework: Transitivity System

Findings and Discussion

Comparison of China and the UK

Conclusion

Advances in Language and Literary Studies ISSN: 2203-4714 [www.alls.aiac.org.au](www.alls.aiac.org.au) | Analysis of the Queen’s Speech on COVID-19 from the Perspective of Transitivity
Luo Yu*
Xinyuan Student Apartment, China Three Gorges University, Xiling District, Yichang City, Hubei Province Corresponding Author: Luo Yu, E-mail: [1756209173@qq.com](1756209173@qq.com) | | | --- | --- | | ARTICLE INFO | ABSTRACT
The Queen Elizabeth II recently made her fifth public speech on coVID-19 since taking office. | | Article history | | | Received: September 08, 2020 | Through the use of systemic functional linguistics to analyze her speech text, this article mainly | | Accepted: November 16, 2020 | analyzes the text from the perspective of the concept of function and finds this speech text | | Published: December 31, 2020
Volume: 11 Issue: 6 | involves only four processes: material process, metal process, relational process and verbal process. This article discusses the political, economic and cultural characteristics of the UK’s | | Advance access: December 2020 | response to coVID-19 . In addition, this paper compares China and the UK, and discusses the different measures taken in the face of the epidemic and the underlying cultural background. This study found out that the Queen’s speech is mainly aimed at expressing gratitude to those | | | | | Conflicts of interest: None | working on the front lines ofthe fight against the epidemic and encouraging people to respond to | | Funding: None | the call of the British government and face the epidemic positively. The analysis of speech with | | | the transitivity can enrich and update the study contents of transitivity. | | Key words: | | | Systemic-functional Stylistics, Transitivity, | | | Queen’s Speech, coVID-19, | | | Implicature of Queen’s Speech | | INTRODUCTION Functional stylistics has been prevailing in linguistic field after M. A. K. Halliday reported one of his papers, Linguistic Functions and Literary Style in 1970s. The core of functional stylistics is Halliday’s thought about the “functions” of language. He put forward three metafunctions of language, that is, ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function. Ideational function means to convey new information, to communicate a content that is unknown to the hearer. It mainly refers to the six processes of transitivity. Interpersonal function means the speaker uses specific language structures as the means of social communication to involve the speech event: the expressions of his comments, his attitudes, his evaluations, and also the relationship he sets up between himself and the listener, which are decided by different communication roles he adopts, like informing, questioning, persuading(Halliday, 2000); Textual function means that the speaker, as an organizer, to connect linguistic segments into a complete and meaningful text in terms of the context of situation. In recent years, the research offunctional stylistics is growing vigorously in Chinese academic society. It mainly refers to analysis of literary texts, practical text analysis (such as reports, advertisements, speech, tec.), and the guiding function of functional stylistics towards translation and English teaching (He Xiao-yuan, 2010) . For example, Guan Shu-hong (2005) analyzed Churchill’s speech with functional stylistic analysis, Shen Dan (2006) analyzed the literary work On the Road, and Zhang Jie and Zhang Lin (2013) analyzed the novel Old Underwood from the perspective of transience. Since the coVID-19 outbreak in late 2019, the epidemic has affected countries around the world. In order to encourage and boost public sentiment, the Queen, Elizabeth II, gave her speech about the epidemic on April 5. It is only the fifth the monarch has given such a speech in her 68-year reign. Shen Dan (2006) points out that stylistic analysis refers to the effects produced by specific linguistic features, and thus has

FAQs

What method does the article use to analyze the Queen’s COVID-19 speech?

It applies systemic functional linguistics, analyzing the speech text from the perspective of transitivity and function.

Which four process types are identified in the speech text?

The study finds only four processes: material, mental (metal process), relational, and verbal processes.

What is the main purpose of the Queen’s speech according to the findings?

The speech mainly aims to express gratitude to front-line workers and encourage people to respond to the British government’s call positively and proactively.

Oct 15, 2026

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