Stylistic and Linguistic Analysis ofa Literary Text UsingSystemic ...

Stylistic and Linguistic Analysis of a Literary
+
Text Using Systemic Functional Grammar
Noriko Iwamoto
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M.A.K.Halliday
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transitivity
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Key words : functional grammar ; transitivity ; stylistics ; narrative ;
gender
+. Introduction
This article explores the relationship between linguistic structures
and
socially
constructed
meaning
in
a
narrative
text.
By
employing Halliday’s transitivity framework, the article attempts

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to reveal the ideology and power relations that underpin a
literary text from a semantico-grammatical point of view. This
study seeks common ground where systemic grammar and
narrative, which have long been considered separate disciplines,
can meet.
+. + Narrative as a linguistically constructed world
We humans beings often put our experiences and thoughts into
stories. Narrative refers to storytelling, both written and spoken,
including oral narrative. A narrative constructs a world using
various linguistic resources. A narrative is a microcosm of how
people act, feel, and think, and what they value as an individual
or as a member of a community or institution. There are various
methods
for,
and
theories
of,
narrative
analysis
and
its
presentation. One of the most widely adopted is that of Labov and
Waletsky
+301
, who presented structural stages for narrative
analysis that have been widely accepted. The stages are : +.
Abstract, ,. Orientation, -. Complicating Action, .. Evaluation, /.
Results / Resolution, /. Coda
Labov and Waletsky +301 . , It is
important to note the ways in which the structural stages of a
narrative can be ordered, controlled, and even manipulated in
order to encode ideological assumptions, and also to get across
some ideas. This is especially true of the evaluation stage
which
is a sort of representation
of narrative, where many linguistic
devices can be used. In this way, “the ability to narrate has to be
seen as a creative artifact and therefore not necessarily a

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Stylistic and Linguistic Analysis of a Literary Text Using Systemic Functional Grammar
representation…of actual events”
Davies ,**/ : 33 .
Critical
discourse
analysis
CDA ,
a
politicized
school
of
discourse analysis, attempts to uncover the underlying ideology
or worldview of the text under consideration. For example,
Fairclough
+323, +33/ , Fowler
+311, +320 , and Fowler, Hodge,
Kress,
and
Trew
+313
adopt
various
linguistic
analyses,
including
transitivity
and
modality,
to
uncover
ideas
and
evaluation in newspapers, advertisements, narratives, and other
texts and to reveal that they are not objective retellings of what
actually
happened
or
occurring
events,
but
socially
and
ideologically situated retellings. By extension, Bell
,***
makes
significant points about the ways that institutional structure
influences discourse type. As such, narrative research should be
interdisciplinary, blurring and crossing boundaries of linguistic
and social studies and literary pursuit.
One of the regrettable points about the critical discourse analysis
tradition is that they seem to have given the impression that their
approach
has
been
focused
on
foregrounding
examples
of
linguistic and stylistic deviance. An important point this article
hopes to make is that linguistic, stylistic, or interdisciplinary
analysis of a text should not always be oriented towards
uncovering examples of deviant linguistic patterns ; it can be used
beneficially for clarifying characteristics and meanings in any
any
text
whether
conventional
or
nonconventional
features
including literary and nonliterary ones.

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+. ,. Pioneering linguistic and stylistic analyses of literary texts
This section introduces some of the previous literature that
illustrates
how
power
relations
and
conventional
or
nonconventional attitudes towards life are reflected in language
patterns.
As
a
groundbreaking
example
of
nonstandard
usage
of
language
expressing
a
worldview,
Halliday’s
article
+31+
“Linguistic function and literary style: An inquiry into the
language of William Golding’s The Inheritors” is an influential one.
In this work Halliday discusses the patterns of transitivity,
including what processes, participants, and circumstances
these
terms are explained in section ,. +.
occur in the clause or
sentence. He proceeds to illustrate how they are used by Golding
to imply “cognitive limitation,” a decreased sense of causation and
an incomplete recognition of how human beings can control the
world, as experienced by the main character, Lok, a Neanderthal
man whose world is being taken control of by the people of a
more “advanced” world. Also, there is Kennedy’s
+32,
analysis
of a scene from Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent. Kennedy
analyzes the verbs used, examining why the sequential murder
scene in the story stylistically gives the impression of distance
and detachment, as if the murderer were not responsible for what
she was doing. In the same article Kennedy also analyzes Joyce’s
“Two Gallants” from the collection Dubliners, clarifying the power
relationship between the two men using some elements of

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Stylistic and Linguistic Analysis of a Literary Text Using Systemic Functional Grammar
systemic functional grammar. There is Burton’s
+32,
feminist
stylistic analysis of a sequence from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.
Burton
reveals
an
unequal
power
relationship
between
the
medical staff
the doctor and a nurse
and a female patient, and
thus demonstrates that the helpless patient could not influence
anything in regard to communication and other things going on
in the hospital, while the doctor and the nurse actively influenced
what was happening. Similar to this is Kies’s
+33,
“The uses of
passivity: Suppressing agency in Nineteen eighty-four,” which
analyzes
the
main
linguistic
features
of
George
Orwell’s
masterpiece. Kies’s analysis reveals how the actions and thoughts
of a man in a totalitarian state are rendered passive and helpless
by the power of the state. Robson and Stockwell
,**/
introduce
lexical
and
discoursal
patterns
and
other
linguistic
devices
employed in writings for women, including cooking recipes.
,. Transitivity theory
Halliday’s
transitivity
theory
provides
a
useful
linguistic
framework for uncovering the main linguistic features of a
certain literary discourse. The analysis of transitivity and its
application to literary discourse in this article basically follows
Halliday’s theoretical framework. This section introduces the
theory, and section . has to do with the application of transitivity
to its use in literary discourse.

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,. +. Transitivity as an ideational function of language-
In Halliday’s terms, transitivity is a part of the ideational function
of the clause.. The ideational function of the clause is concerned
with
the
“transmission
of
ideas.”
Its
function
is
that
of
“representing ‘processes’ or ‘experiences’: actions, events, processes
of consciousness and relations”
+32/ : /- . The term “process” is
used
in
an…extended
sense,
“to
cover
all
phenomena…and
anything that can be expressed by a verb : event, whether
physical or not, state, or relation”
Halliday +310 : +/3 . Halliday
further notes that the “processes” expressed through language are
the product of our conception of the world or point of view. He
notes :
Our most powerful conception of reality is that it consists
of “goings-on” : of doing, happening, feeling, being. These
goings-on are sorted out in the semantic system of the
language, and expressed through the grammar of the
clause…
T he clause evolved simultaneously in another
grammatical function expressing the reflective, experiential
aspect of meaning. This…is the system of TRANSITIVITY.
Transitivity specifies the different types of process that are
recognized in the language, and the structures by which
they are expressed
Halliday +32/ : +*+ .
The semantic processes expressed by clauses have potentially
three components, as follows :

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Stylistic and Linguistic Analysis of a Literary Text Using Systemic Functional Grammar
+
the process itself, which will be expressed by the verb
phrase in a clause.
,
the participants in the clause, which refer to the roles
of entities that are directly involved in the process :
the one that does, behaves or says, together with the
passive
one
that
is
done
to,
said
to,
etc.
The
participants
are
not
necessarily
humans
or
even
animate; the term “participant entities” would be more
accurate
Halliday +310 : +0* . The participant entities
are normally realized by noun phrases in the clause.
-
the circumstances associated with the process, which
are typically expressed by adverbial and prepositional
phrases.
Halliday +32/ : +*+ +*,
Transitivity is an important semantic concept in the analysis of
representation of reality, in that transitivity enables us to analyze
and represent the same event and situation in different ways. The
transitivity patterns can also indicate the certain mind-set or
worldview “framed by the authorial ideology”
Fowler +320 : +-2
in literary texts.
,. ,. The relevance of the transitivity framework to the analysis
of literary discourse
Transitivity has been a popular part of the analytic tool in the
school of critical discourse analysis. The transitivity model

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provides a means of discovering how certain linguistic structures
of a text encode the particular worldview or ideological stance of
a reader/speaker. As Fowler notes :
Linguistic codes do not reflect reality neutrally; they
interpret, organize, and classify the subjects of discourse.
They embody theories of how the world is arranged:
world-views or ideologies
+320 : ,1 .
Thus, selection from the transitivity system can suggest different
mind-sets or worldviews, including a traditional or an unusual
mind-set reflected in language.
The first principle of a transitivity analysis is to uncover the
principle “who or what does what to whom or what?” Put simply,
transitivity refers to the relationship between the action of an
Actor and its effect upon the Goal
the terms Actor and Goal are
explained in section ,. -. +. + ./
However, unlike traditional
grammar, and following Halliday’s tradition, the term transitivity
is used here more as a semantic concept than simply as a
syntactic
description.
In
traditional
grammar,
transitivity
is
purely a syntactic description; it is based on whether a verb takes
an Object or not. The former is called a transitive verb while the
latter is an intransitive verb. 0 Nevertheless, in any analysis of
transitivity based on the semantic description rather than a
purely syntactic one, as Halliday notes, one of the important

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Stylistic and Linguistic Analysis of a Literary Text Using Systemic Functional Grammar
questions is whether there is an implication of an animate
individual
Actor/Agent
intentionally
doing
the
action
to
another entity
Goal .
Transitivity patterns are also subject to social and cultural factors
as well as any individual mind-set. Different social structures and
value systems require different patterns of transitivity. In order to
get a picture of what is happening from the viewpoint of one’s
subjective reality involved in the story, the following process is
helpful.
+
Isolate
the
process
per
se,
and
determine
which
participant
who or what
is doing each process ;
,
Determine what sorts of process they are, and which
participant is engaged in which type of process ;
-
Determine who or what is affected or seems to be
affected by each of these processes.
cf. Burton +32, : ,*,
I shall now systematize the transitivity model to make it relevant
to my analysis. I first introduce major process types and their
subclassifications, then the participant roles that are directly
involved in the processes.

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,. -. Transitivity model
,. -. +. Types of processes
Transitivity processes can be classified into material, relational,
mental, verbal, behavioral, and existential processes, according to
whether they represent processes of doing, being, sensing, saying,
behaving, or existing, respectively. The following sections account
for these major processes realized in the transitivity system, and
the participant roles that are involved in the processes.
,. -. +. +. Material processes
Material processes are processes of doing in the physical world.
Material processes have two inherent participants involved in
them. The first of these is the Actor, which is an obligatory
element and expresses the doer of the process. The second is the
Goal, which is an optional element and expresses the person or
entity
whether animate or inanimate
affected by the process. In
addition to these two inherent participant roles, there is an extra
element
called
Circumstance,
which
provides
additional
information on the “when, where, how, and why” of the process.
The Circumstantial meaning is realized, not in nominal phrases,1
but as either adverbial phrases or prepositional phrases, and so is
subsidiary
in
status
to
the
process.
Circumtance
expresses
supplementary information, such as place, time, extent, matter,
manner, duration, condition, means, etc.
The following examples illustrate these constructions :

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