The empire strikes back: a genre and register analysis of an interview with a nine-year-old child

The aim of this article is to analyze an interview with a nine-year-old child through the lens of the Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) framework, as outlined in Suzanne Eggins’ An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics (2004). The interview focuses on a movie the interviewee had just watched, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. While SFG encompasses a wide range of concepts, this article will concentrate on the analysis of Genre, Register, Transitivity, Mood, and Modality. Through this examination, it is possible to perceive choices and meaning the participants conveyed, which are shaped by the context of their interaction and the genre of movie review. This article offers insight into how social relations are constructed within such interactions.