Role of Participants, Processes, and Circumstances in Meaning Representation, Appunti di Cultura Inglese I

TRANSITIVITY

How meaning is represented in the clause. It shows how speakers encode in language their mental picture of reality

and how they account for the experience of the world around them.

Transitivity is the foundation of representation, since it can analyse the same event in different ways.

The importance of the transitivity system lies in the evaluative slant that can be imposed on a story by juxtaposing

processes and participants. The reader is rarely consciously aware of this form of grammatical evaluation; the

veracity of the sentence is intact, the utterance is therefore unchallenged and as a result is reinforced.

SYSTEM : Participants Who / Whom

PREDICATOR -> Material (processes of doing): work, arrest, elect, explode

Relational (processes of being/possessing): be, have

Mental (processes of sensing): feel, think

Verbal (processes of saying): say, tell, report

Behavioural (processes of physiological and psychological behaviour): sleep, look, listen, breathe

Existential (processes that represent something that exists or happens): there is, there are

Actional vs relational processes

Actional processes (= material, mental, verbal, behavioural processes)

- subject presented as actor, therefore responsible for his/her actions

es: The young soldier tortured the prisoner

Views on immigration

Nothing to do with

Fear of

Concern about

Based on

To increase to

To warn against