Combating Islamophobia: A Transitivity Analysis of Selected Muslim Leaders’ UNGA Speeches

This study focuses on the transitivity patterns employed by Imran Khan (the ex. prime minister of Pakistan), Mahathir Mohammad (The ex. prime minister of Malaysia), and Recip Tayyip Erdogan (the president of Turkiye) in their United Nation General Assembly speeches to combat Islamophobia. Using Fred Halliday’s model of transitivity patterns, besides looking at the similarities and differences found in the selected speeches, the study also investigates the role that transitivity patterns play in the meaning-making process. The researchers, for this purpose, opt for a qualitative analysis that identifies and studies these patterns while drawing conclusions regarding their effect. After classifying the transcripts of the speeches into clauses, specific data tables and charts were used to label and analyze the data acquired. The analysis of the data shows that, in the eighty-five (85) clauses in khan’s speech, thirty-one (31) in Mohammad’s speech, and twenty-one (21) clauses in Erdogan’s speech, different numbers of types of transitivity processes have been used. Khan and Muhammad use five and Erdogan does four (out of the six process types proposed by Halliday). The study, therefore, concludes that the more prominent process types in all three speeches are material and relational processes. All other processes have a different distribution in the selected speeches. The basic idea that these speeches convey is that Islam is a peaceful religion that respects humanity irrespective of a person’s race, religion, and color. The themes highlighted in these speeches are misrepresentation, suppression, and exclusion of Muslims in the world, and the speakers try to present the true picture of Islam contrary to what is presented by the West.