Transitivity System

Explanation of Transitivity System for the Representation of a Clause



Explanation of Transitivity System for the Representation of a Clause

Introduction

Michael Alexander Kirkwood often known as M.A.K Halliday born on 13th April 1925 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, is a British linguist, and a teacher who sighted language as a social happening. He is well-known for developing an internationally significant model of language called the “Systematic Functional Linguistic” (SFL) also known as “Systematic Functional Grammar” model which covers that it is “a theory of language as Choice between two meanings” (Fawcett, 2008, Pp: 23). To make it simpler, we can say that an author/writer of a language opts for what he/she desires to apply in his/her expressions, but the words or phrases he/she choose might have poles apart function and meanings. Halliday considers his grammar concepts as systemic and functional in nature. The entire body of this paper will discuss the processes, according to M.A.K Halliday, that comes below the heading of “transitivity” that is the most commanding impression of experience which consists of goings- on - happening, doing, sensing, meaning, and being and becoming'' (Halliday, 1994:106). The process is then, further classified into 3 types, given below. More over few set of examples provides support to the transitivity process and its types, and to illustrate the grammatical structure of the English clause.

Aims

This Paper aims to:

1.Depict light on the model “Systematic Functional Linguistic” by M.A.K Halliday 2.Explain the concept of transitivity and its components in detail3.Illustrate the Grammatical structure of the English clause with examples.

Literature Review

The book, “From Language to Multimodality”, shares the recent debate on systematic functional linguistics and other linguistic forums. Its primary focal point is on how we use language to take out meaning of the world, and how the processes and structures of language stand for the experiences of the world. This book explores that what lie beneath the experiential and logical meaning through authentic analysis of different texts. The issues, covered in this book, are different meanings of text through transitivity system, and what kind of circumstances and participants associates with various processes, and how these differ across the languages (Jones & Ventola, 2008, Pp: 41). Another book that supports my topic is “Transitivity in translating” which states that the author found the halliday's work and concepts most suitable. This book encodes and decodes the pattern of reality and experiences with the help of transitivity. It covers all the transitivity related concepts that are participants and circumstances, and considered Halliday's theories and concept much valid and relevant for the linguistic matters (Perez, 2007, Pp: 71). Another source (Laskewicz, 1995, Pp: 23), supported my topic was, “PARADIGM SHIFT IN LANGUAGE” , which says, that all the grammar approaches described by the authors Halliday and Crombie outline a new paradigm in linguistics (Patrick, 2006, Pp: 34). The strongest theory found so far related to transitivity is by Halliday, which is also supported by the writer Crombie. Here, the stress is placed on the meaning and functions of the ...