Eulogising the Dead: A Systemic Functional Exploration of Tributes Delivered by Ghanaian Presidents

Presidents are considered as caring and sensitive fathers of their nations whose words of condolences are usually needed in times of grief. One medium through which they express their condolences is through the delivery of tributes to eulogize the dead and sympathize with bereaved families. There is therefore the need to examine how presidents employ the faculties of language to eulogize the dead in their tributes. Premised on the transitivity framework postulated by Halliday and Matthiessen, the present study investigates the use of transitivity patterns in Ghanaian presidential tributes to unearth various experiences and also unveil the implicit relationships that exist between politicians and traditional rulers. The sample for the study is composed of four tributes delivered by Akuffo Addo, Mahama, Kufour and Rawlings to the late Queen Mother of the Ashanti Kingdom, Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Apem II. The data were manually coded using the consensual coding strategy. The results indicate a preponderant use of relational processes to identify the unique qualities possessed by the late Queen Mother which further unveil the varied relationships between her and the presidents. Other process types such as material, mental, verbal and behavioural processes are used to construe the positive actions carried out by the late Queen Mother during her lifetime, activate the minds and emotions of mourners and sympathizers regarding the loss, posthumously project the late Queen Mother as a legend who needs to be modelled after and present a collective purgation of emotions of pain and agony. The study concludes that, despite the apolitical status of traditional rulers, they still have a latent but cordial relationship with politicians.


Introduction
The Akans, the largest ethnic group in Ghana 'believe that when death occurs, mourning is seen as an inevitable and universal human reaction to explain how grievous they are to the loss of someone who is loved and very much appreciated' (Yeboah, 2017). The death of a sitting Queen Mother is one of the greatest losses and an avenue for people to purge their emotions through mourning. The late Queen Mother of the Ashanti Kingdom, Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Apem II (the deceased), the fifteenth Queen Mother of the kingdom, passed on, on the 14th of November, 2016 at a ripe age of hundred and eleven (111). As Queen Mother of the largest kingdom and one of the most influential ethnic groups in Ghana, individuals as well as institutions expressed their grief and sorrow regarding her demise through the delivery of tributes to eulogize her and also sympathize with the bereaved family and the Ashanti kingdom at large. The sitting president and past living presidents of the country were not left out in the delivery of tributes given the intricate relationship that exists between politicians and traditional rulers. The delivery of tributes can therefore reveal the kind of relationship that exists between eulogists and the deceased.
Notwithstanding, there is a deficit in linguistic research on how the delivery of tributes reveals this relationship. In order not to present traditional rulers as politically aligned, politicians usually try to conceal the cordial relationships they have with these traditional rulers. Nonetheless, when death occurs, one cannot but let out their perception and the relationship they had with the deceased. This makes tributes delivered by politicians to traditional rulers a potent linguistic resource for unearthing the latent relationships between politicians and traditional rulers. It is based on this premise that the present study seeks to explore the process types used by Ghanaian presidents to encode various experiences, relationships and thoughts in their tributes delivered to the late Queen Mother of the Ashanti Kingdom. It seeks to identify the dominant transitivity patterns used in funeral tributes delivered by Ghanaian presidents to the late Queen Mother of the Ashanti Kingdom and explore the communicative functions encoded in the identified transitivity patterns.

Literature review
The literature on studies that focus on forms of funeral text types such as death announcement in newspapers (Al-Ali, 2005;Khatib and Salem, 2011;Afful, 2012;Al-Zubaidi, 2012) and condolence messages (Dilevko & Gottlib, 2004;Yahya, 2010;Samavarchi and Allami, 2012;Tareq, 2013;Kuang, 2015;Kongo and Gyasi, 2015;Kuang, 2017) are replete. Relative to the copious number of studies on forms of funeral discourse such as death announcement in newspapers and condolence messages is the scanty literature on the linguistic analysis of funeral tributes. The few existing studies on funeral tributes have mainly focused on appraisal resources (Yeboah, 2017;Mohammed and Khudher, 2018), social linguistic resources (Akinyode, 2019), critical discourse analytical resources (Warambo, Odero and Suleh, 2015) and transitivity patterns (Malima, 2015). From the above categorization, it is revealed that little attention has been paid to examining transitivity patterns in funeral tributes. The cardinal aim of this review is therefore to examine works that have analysed the use of linguistic items in funeral tributes to indicate the place of the present study in literature. The empirical review will help draw methodological and theoretical divergence and convergence as well as enable the present study to confirm or contest findings of earlier studies on funeral tributes.
To start with, Malima (2015) conducted a stylistic exploration of funeral speeches delivered by three heads of states during Nelson Mandela's burial ceremony. The study, framed by the transitivity theory by Halliday (1985), sought to comparatively analyse the use of transitivity patterns and to search for linguistic and extra-linguistic evidence to back the use of such patterns. The findings indicated a preponderant use of material processes to present the positive activities carried out by Nelson Mandela during his lifetime. The other process types such as mental and relational processes were used to unveil good qualities possessed by the deceased.
Secondly, Warambo, Odero and Suleh (2015) critically investigated political undertones and the socioeconomic allusions in the funeral speeches in Kenya using a speech delivered by Junior Odinga during the requiem mass for Fidel Odinga as a case study. This study was underpinned by the Critical Discourse Analytical theory by Fairclough (1995). The study arrived at some important findings. It, first of all, found out that, Fidel, as eulogized, lived in a very harsh socio-political environment, yet he hailed from an economically able family. Again, the study revealed that the deceased had two phases of life contrary to popular beliefs of the political elites in Kenya.
Moreover, Yeboah (2017) studied the appraisal devices employed in published tributes of institutions in some selected Ghanaian newspapers following the demise of the President of the Republic of Ghana, Professor John Evans Atta Mills to show how shocked, and depressed these institutions were on hearing the news of his death.
His study was theoretically underpinned by the appraisal strand of the Systemic Functional Linguistics framework.
The study examined thirty (30) tributes, fifteen (15) each from both private and public institutions that were published in two Ghanaian Newspapers-Daily Graphic and Ghanaian Times. The information on these tributes was put under three overarching topics which include the acknowledgement of sorrow, sadness and grief. The study showed that the sentiments raised were predominantly revealed in linguistic patterns that showed a negative effect of sadness directed to the wife and the son of the late president, the vice president as well as to the people of Ghana.
Furthermore, Mohammed and Khudher (2018) investigated the discourse of two American tributes by George Bush and Rosalyn Carter using Martin and White's appraisal framework to identify and analyse the resources of attitude that eulogists use to express feelings, judgments and appreciation. Their study revealed that modern eulogies celebrate the deceased's life, unlike early eulogies which focus more on the subject of religion and negative attitudes in a fairly little amount compared with positive attitudinal meanings. The study concluded that eulogists pay more attention to the deceased's character where they tend to use more explicit and positive attributes.
Last but not least, Akinyode (2019) explored the linguistic features employed by Yoruba-English bilinguals to convey emotion for their dead relatives through tributes delivery underpinned by certain sociolinguistic theories such as ethnography, socio-pragmatic and Systemic Functional Grammar theories. The primary source of data comprised 30 audio-visual recorded funeral tribute deliveries by Yoruba-English bilinguals. These 30 funeral tributes consisted of 15 tributes delivered during funeral services of Christian faithful and 15 tributes delivered during funeral services of Muslim faithful. The results showed that the main communicative purpose of funeral tributes among the Yoruba was to praise the dead. It also discovered that certain linguistic features at various levels of description; lexical, syntactic, and so on played important roles in fulfilling the communicative purpose of tributes.
From the empirical review above, it can be established that previous studies on the linguistic analysis of funeral tributes have been carried out in countries such as America, South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana. In relation to geographical location, it can be established that the study by Yeboah (2017) is similar to the present study since they both employ Ghanaian funeral tributes as their source of data. But while Yeboah (2017) used institutional tributes, the present study is based on tributes delivered by presidents. In terms of the use of a theoretical framework, both the present study and Malima (2015) employed the transitivity framework. The other studies used different theoretical frameworks such as the appraisal theory, critical discourse analytical theory and other sociolinguistic theories. One other distinguishing feature between the studies reviewed and the present study is that the present study employs funeral tributes delivered by politicians to a traditional leader while previous studies analysed funeral tributes delivered by institutions and politicians to other politicians. All the studies reviewed have unanimously established that the delivery of tributes is not just to eulogise the deceased but also directed at assuaging the pain of the bereaved family. The findings of this study will therefore be very useful in that, it will seek to affirm or contest earlier findings in order to contribute significantly to the scanty literature on the linguistic analysis of funeral tributes especially in Ghana and also unveil the kind of relationship that exists between politicians and traditional rulers. The present study is distinct from previous studies in this area as it aims at exploring the transitivity patterns used in funeral tributes delivered by Ghanaian presidents to the late Queen Mother of the Ashanti Kingdom underpinned by the transitivity framework by Halliday and Matthiessen (2014).

Theoretical framework
The Systemic Functional Grammar theory (henceforth SFG) by Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) is a grammatical approach to the study of language that claims that language is a system of choices. It postulates that, for language users to achieve their goals, they make conscious and unconscious use of linguistic forms. This indicates that choosing or neglecting the use of a particular linguistic form has semantic implications. Awuku (2018) further establishes that the factors underpinning the linguistic choices made by language users may include 'their experience of the world in and around them, the topic of discussion and who they may be having the discussion with'. Unlike other structurally oriented grammatical theories, the SFG focuses on how language is used to construe meaning (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004). SFG theory is sub-categorised into three strands, which are referred to as the three metafunctions. These are the ideational, textual and interpersonal metafunctions. The term Metafunction refers to the ways in which language functions. Textual metafunction provides a correlation between the arrangement of text and the features of the situation in which it is used, the ideational metafunction encodes the expression of the speaker's internal and external experiences while the interpersonal metafunction establishes social relations among interlocutors. The transitivity framework which underpins the present study falls under the ideational metafunction.

Transitivity patterns
The transitivity framework is a grammatical framework that seeks to detail how speakers encode their experiences in the grammatical choices they make. The framework is made up of various patterns called the transivity patterns or process types which represent different aspects of human experiences. Transitivity patterns (process types) refer to the grammatical and semantic configurations that are used to represent varied forms of human experiences and thoughts in the clause. Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) identify six types of transitivity patterns: material, mental, relational, verbal, behavioural and existential process types. Among these process types, the material, mental and relational process types are considered as the main patterns because they preponderate in texts while verbal, behavioural and existential processes are considered as minor process types. The first transitivity pattern is the material process. It is 'the largest and most diverse category in transitivity' (Thompson, 2014). It is defined by action-driven verbs that describe actions or events. It expresses the notion that some entity does something to some other entity. The actor and the goal are the two important participants in the material process. In some cases, the actor even though may be known but may not be explicitly mentioned in the clause. Anafo (2017) postulates that 'The actor is the entity that performs an action in the clause while the goal is the entity the action performed by an actor affects'. The actor, therefore, initiates the action in the clause while the goal is the participant that receives or is affected by the actions of the actor. Both the actor and goal could be animate or inanimate entities.
Ewusi-Mensah (2015) posits that, in the material process, an actor is construed as powerful when its actions affect another entity but as less powerful when its actions do not affect any entity. On the other hand, the affected or goal participants are presented as passive and powerless entities. In essence, the material process may be presented in either the active or passive form to highlight some participants in the clause. Other participants as related to the material processes are the initiator, scope, client, recipient, and attribute (Halliday, 1994).
Another main process type in the transitivity framework is the relational process. This process type construes the varied ways in which a state of being or possession can be expressed through the clause. The relationships expressed in relational processes can be classified into two forms namely, the attributive process and identifying process. Basically, the identifying process determines or unveils an identity while the attributive process assigns a quality to an entity. The attributive relational process consists of two participant roles namely the carrier which refers to the topic of the clause preceding the verb, and attribute, a description of the verb or comment about the topic which usually is adjectival or nominal. On the hand, the identifying relational process encodes the participants; token and value. The token refers to the entity that is identified while the value represents the identifier of the token. Awuku (2018) establishes that a feature that 'differentiates an identifying relational clause from an attributive relational clause is that the former is reversible whereas the latter is not'.
The mental process is also the third main process type in the transitivity system. It refers to the processes of sensing, feeling, thinking and perceiving the things that go on in the internal world of the mind. Mental processes rely on thoughts, observations and sentiments to sense a particular phenomenon. Unlike material processes which encode action-driven outer experiences, mental processes represent a person's inner world or thoughts. The inner thought patterns of speakers are therefore unveiled in the use of verbs that denote processes of thinking or feeling.
The mental process is made up of two participants which are the sensor and phenomenon. The sensor is not only confined to human beings but can be any object, animate or not, that can be treated as conscious while the phenomenon refers to the entity that is being sensed, felt, or perceived by the sensor. Mental processes can be subcategorized into four main forms namely emotional, cognition, perception and desideration (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014).
The verbal process as the name suggests refers to the verbalization of the inner thoughts or the manifestation of thoughts in the mind through speech (Mwinwelle, Amoakohene and Agyekum, 2020). In simple terms, the verbal process can be construed as the processes of saying. It has a close relationship with the material and mental processes. The thoughts (mental) which are expected to be carried out through action (material) are rather said or spoken. It aids in the attribution of information to sources. Verbs such as articulate, tell, say, state, communicate, express, etc. are used in verbal processes. The four main participants in the verbal process are the sayer, receiver, target and verbiage. The sayer refers generally to an entity mostly a human entity that exchanges information and meaning through speech or verbal expression. The verbiage refers to the content of the clause or what is said in the clause.
The receiver represents the entity to whom the saying is directed or addressed while the target is the entity expected to respond to what is said. In some cases, the target may be the same as the receiver but in other cases, they may differ.
Ewusi-Mensah (2015) explains that 'Behavioural processes represent outer manifestations of inner workings, the acting out of processes of consciousness and physiological states'. They are revealed through physiological and psychological acts in the use of verbs such as breathe, worry, smile, dream, laugh, look, taste, listen etc. The verbs in the behavioural process are usually intransitive. These physiological and psychological behaviours in behavioural processes are usually involuntary (Downing and Locke, 2006). Relative to the six process types, the behavioural process is one of the least or minor process types that is partly material and partly mental. It has one principal or obligatory participant called the behaver. The behaver is a conscious entity involved in carrying out a particular behaviour. Two other rare or optional participants in the behavioural process are the behaviour and the phenomenon.
The behaviour is a restatement of the behavioural process (Eggins, 2004) while the phenomenon refers to an entity based on whose presence the behaver elicits a particular behaviour.
The last process type in the transitivity system is called the existential process. It represents the processes of existing and happening. It indicates the existence of an entity and sometimes also unveils the location of the existence. It lies between the relational process and the material process. Aside the verb exist, other verbs indicate this process, such as flourish, arise, happen etc. The existential process has a recognizable clausal pattern which normally starts with 'there' or with the verb 'exist' (Halliday, 1994). This process entails only one obligatory participant labelled as Existent. The existent refers to the entity or event which is being said to exist. An Existent can be any kind of phenomenon, such as a thing, person, object, institution or abstraction, action, or event. Another optional participant that rarely occurs in the existential process is the circumstance. The circumstance mainly indicates the location of the existent.

Methodology
This study is qualitatively descriptive. The data for the study is purposively sampled, which constitutes tributes delivered by sitting and past presidents of Ghana to the late Queen Mother of the Ashanti Kingdom, Nana Afia Kobi Serwaa Apem II (sourced from Pages 27, 37, 38 and 39 of the funeral brochure). These tributes were delivered by Nana Akuffo Addo, Jerry John Rawlings, John Agyekum Kufuor and John Dramani Mahama. The choice of tributes delivered by politicians to the late traditional ruler was considered as data for the study because they would help unravel the latent intricate relationships that exist between traditional rulers and politicians. Halliday and Mathiessien (2014) posit that the meaning of experiences and happenings are expressed through the use of the clause. In this sense, the clauses used in the tributes encode various experiences and thoughts of the speakers which can best be unearthed through the exploration of the transitivity patterns used. The consensual coding strategy was used where each of the researchers independently coded the process types in the tributes and compared them to arrive at the final coded process types which were used in the analysis. Each tribute was coded where Akuffo Addo's tribute was given the code AA, Agyekum Kufuor's tribute JK, John Mahama's as JD and Jerry John Rawlings' tribute as JJ. Scanned copies of the tributes are attached as an appendix at the end of the study. The analysis of the data was carried out in four phases according to Cohen's (2007) textual analytical model which presents the four stages as: (1). 'Generating natural unit of meaning', (2). 'Classifying, categorizing and ordering these units of meaning', (3). 'Structuring narratives to describe the contents of the text or speech', and (4).
'Interpreting the data'. In the generation of natural units of meaning, each of the tributes was parsed into clauses.
Akuffo Addo's tribute contained twenty (20) clauses, Agyekum Kufuor's thirteen (13), John Mahama's twenty-two (22) and Jerry John Rawlings' tribute was made up of thirteen (13) clauses. Secondly, the parsed clauses were further classified and categorised under the various process types in the transitivity system. The identified process types were descriptively structured to advance the discussion of the analysis. Finally, the coded clauses were used as illustrations to back the analysis and based on which, findings, implications, recommendations and conclusions were drawn.

Results and discussions
The first part of the analysis identifies the predominant process types used, followed by the discussion of the communicative functions encoded in the identified process types. The table below presents the process types used by each of the presidents in their tributes with their corresponding frequencies and percentages.  (22) relational processes are identified representing 32.4% of the total number of clauses identified. The second frequent process type is the material process which records a frequency of nineteen (19), representing 28.0%.
Mental processes follow with a frequency of twelve (12) representing 17.6%. Verbal processes record a frequency of nine (9) representing 13.2% while behavioural processes also record a frequency of six (6) representing 8.8%.
The high occurrence of relational processes in the tributes signal that the tributes are more descriptive; describing the life of the late Queen Mother which further reveal the latent relationship between her and the presidents. The predominant use of relational processes to describe positive qualities of the late Queen Mother corroborates the finding from an earlier study on funeral tributes by Mohammed and Khudher (2018) who establish that eulogists pay more attention to the deceased's character where they tend to use more explicit and positive attributes.

Analysis of material processes
To begin with, material processes are used in the tributes to construe the personal actions carried out by the late assertion that politicians often use biblical allusions at the beginning and end of their speeches to acknowledge that there is an almighty being more powerful than themselves and therefore call upon him for guidance, blessings and protection. The material clauses presented below were used to evidentially support and detail the discussion above.

Analysis of relational processes
The analysis of relational processes is based on only attributive relational processes because instances of the use of identifying relational processes are non-existent in the tributes. The singular past and present forms of the verb be such as was and is are dominantly used in the attributive relational processes to capture the qualities exuded by the

Analysis of mental processes
Mental processes are generally used in the tributes to activate the minds and emotions of the mourners and Mother and the cognitive mother-son relationship he had with her which he and her son, the Asantehene were going to miss. The mental clauses below were used to substantiate the discussion above.

Analysis of behavioral processes
Behavioural processes are used to encode collective purgation of emotions of pain and agony in the tributes.
Clause [JM, BEH. CL. 1] is a behavioural clause made up of three clausal roles; the behaver, behavioural process and a circumstance (accompaniment). The clause is made up of the behaver we and the behavioural processes sobbing and mourning and circumstance the loss of our beloved mother, our treasured guardian of ancient wisdom. Mahama uses this behavioural process to reveal his close relationship with Otumfuo which extends to his ( even a year or more' (p. 59). The use of the process celebrating, also presents the joy that accompanies the demise in that, the late Queen Mother died at an advanced age. She lived over a century dying at the age of one hundred and one (111) years. It is actually very rare to find people live beyond a hundred years and it is, therefore, worth celebrating her since she lived even beyond a hundred years. The discussion of behavioural processes used in the tributes is backed by the behavioural clauses presented below.
• Today, here we Behaver are sobbing and mourning Behavioural the loss of our beloved mother, our treasured guardian of ancient wisdom Circumstance Phenomenon [JM, BEH. CL. 1].
• On this occasion while grieving and celebrating Behavioural her precious and royal life Phenomenon, [JM, BEH.

Summary of findings and conclusion
Conclusively, relational, material, verbal, mental and behavioural processes were identified as the process types used in the tributes. The results indicate that among the process types used, relational processes were preponderantly used to identify unique qualities possessed by the late Queen Mother. The attribution of various positive qualities to the deceased through the use of relational processes further established and revealed the latent relationships that existed between her and the presidents who delivered the tributes. In terms of these relationships, Rawlings established a neutral relationship with the late Queen Mother, Kufuor established kinship ties with her, Mahama established a foster mother-son relationship with her while Akuffo Addo established a political relationship with her. Material processes on the other hand were used in the tributes to construe the impact of the positive actions carried out by the deceased during her lifetime. Mental processes such as miss, love, remember, believe, know etc. were dominantly used in the tributes to activate the minds and emotions of mourners and sympathizers. Verbal processes were also employed to posthumously appreciate and project the deceased as a legend who needs to be modelled after while the use of behavioural processes construed a continuous collective purgation of emotions of pain and agony. The study concludes that, despite the apolitical status of traditional rulers, they still have varied latent but cordial relationships with politicians.

Implications for theory, research and practice
The findings of the study have implications for theory, research and practice. In relation to theory, the study makes extensive use of the transitivity theory by Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) to analyse the use of language in funeral discourse. The analytical framework was found very useful as it aided in the identification of various process types in the data. The study confirms the main assumption of the transitivity theory which establishes that material, mental and relational processes are the main process types dominantly used in discourse. Notwithstanding, the findings of the present study regarding the predominant transitivity process types used in funeral tributes contest earlier findings. While Malima (2015) identified the material process as the predominant process type used in funeral tributes, the present study, on the other hand, identifies the relational process type as the dominant process type in the funeral tributes analysed. The predominance of relational processes in the data could be grounded on the premise that the speakers in the tributes used for the present study, dedicated a greater portion of their tributes to outlining the good qualities possessed by the deceased instead of recounting the actions she carried out while alive. This disparity in the finding regarding which process type predominates in funeral tributes could therefore propel future studies to be conducted to synchronize these contrasting findings. Another implication of the study on research is that the study serves as a modest contribution to scholarship on the use of transitivity patterns in Ghanaian funeral tributes since most of the studies on funeral discourse in Ghana have been directed to the analysis of obituaries. Regarding practice, the study has implications for pedagogy and political speechwriters and speakers. For pedagogy, the study like earlier studies has convincingly demonstrated that the clause in the transitivity framework encodes human experiences and actions. The transitivity framework must therefore be considered as a part of the basic grammar at the tertiary level to help students decode various forms of discourse. To politicians in general and presidents in particular, the study establishes that, the choice of linguistic items in communication must consciously represent what the speaker seeks to present and conceal what the speaker wishes to withhold.

Recommendations for future research
The scarcity of linguistic studies on transitivity analysis of funeral tributes underscores the need for further research. The present study, therefore, establishes a solid foundation based on which future studies could appropriate the transitivity framework or other linguistic theories to analyse funeral discourse in general.
Future studies could employ the transitivity framework or other linguistic theories with a similar or different methodological approach to analyse other forms of funeral discourse such as obituaries, biographical sketches, condolence letters and messages to unearth various communicative implications. To ascertain the influence of cultural backgrounds in the composition of funeral tributes, a contrastive study could be carried out between tributes delivered in different countries or continents. Future research could also focus on the analysis of epistemic modality in funeral tributes to determine the level of doubt or certainty with which tributes are delivered.