A Functional Analysis of Passive Clauses in Selected Independence Speeches of Nigerian Heads of Government

Abstract

Scholarly works on political discourse have been from different perspectives but there is a dearth of work on the functional analysis of passive clauses in political speeches. Even though fragments of the general functions of the passive clause can be gleaned in some grammar books, its deployment in connected discourse has not been adequately explored. This is a gap which the current paper fills. The paper which adopts Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), examined six purposively selected Independence Anniversary speeches of Nigerian Heads of Government from 1967 to 2016, sourced from the internet and the national dailies like “The Punch”, “The Guardian” and “The Tribune”. The paper has revealed that there are different kinds of passive clause but the short be passive is most the commonly used. Passive clauses perform six main functions in connected discourse and they are used for the purpose of foregrounding information or achieving information focus.