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ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH TRANSITIVITY PROCESS

WITH REFERENCE TO THE WITCH OF PORTOBELLO

BY PAULO COELHO

By:

KADEK LILIS SURYATINI

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF LETTERS AND CULTURES, UDAYANA UNIVERSITY

Abstrak

Skripsi dengan judul Analisis Proses Transitivitas Bahasa Inggris yang mengacu pada novel The Witch of Portobello oleh Paulo Coelho bertujuan untuk menganalisis proses transitivitas yang dibangun dalam clausa serta guna mengetahui jenis proses yang paling sering ditemukan dalam teks narasi dari narrator utama di dalam novel.

Penelitian ini menggunakan studi kepustakaan, metode analisis data yang digunakan adalah deskriptif kualitatif serta kuantitatif. Ada dua permasalahan yang dipecahkan dengan menerapkan teori dari MAK Halliday dalam beberapa edisi bukunya, An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Ada tiga komponen yang Ia sebut sebagai "Proses Transitivitas" yaitu proses itu sendiri, peserta dalam proses, dan keadaan yang terkait dengan proses. Halliday membagi sistem transitivitas atau proses jenis menjadi enam proses, yaitu: Material, Mental, Relasional, yang berhubungan dengan perilaku (behavioral), verbal, dan proses eksistensial.

Novel berjudul The Witch of Portobello merupakan teks narasi yang bersifat magis-realis dimana fakta dan fiksi tidak diperlakukan terpisah. Jenis proses yang paling sering ditemukan dalam teks narasi ini adalah proses Material. Proses Material mencapai 46,2 % dari total jumlah keseluruhan proses dalam teks, sedangkan proses non - material mewakili 53,8 %. Narator utama (pacar Athena) adalah yang paling berperan sebagai Aktor dalam proses Material ini karena ia mengendalikan sebagian besar tindakan atau melakukan proses. Dia menggambarkan citra Athena (tokoh utama) seperti yang ada dalam kesadarannya sendiri. Dengan kata lain semua proses yang terjadi di dalam teks adalah berdasarkan pada sudut pandang sang narrator.

Kata kunci: proses transitivitas, teks narasi magis-realis, narator utama

  • 1.    Background

Transitivitytraditionally is defined as the grammatical feature, which indicates if the verb takes a direct object, then it is described as transitive, and It is called intransitive if it does not. An extension of this concept is the ditransitiveverb, which takes both a direct and an indirect object. However,

Halliday in his An Introduction to Functional Grammar states whether a verb takes or does not take a direct object is not a prime consideration in Transitivity.According to Halliday (1994: 107),there are three components of Transitivity Process. They are the Process itself, Participants in the process, andCircumstances associated with the process. The system of transitivity consists of various types of process together with the structures that realize these processes. The six types of processes are Material Process, Mental Process, Relational Process, Behavioral Process, Verbal Process and Existential Process.

The concept of transitivity in Halliday’s theory is grammatical system which is a powerful tool for analyzing the meanings expressed in clauses. In this research, all the clauses were taken from the novel entitled The Witch of Portobello . As one of literary works, this text conveys messages and meaning to their readers. The transitivity of a text is simply the most important of a number of types of experiential meaning that are found in the clause. The readers can also understand exactly all the processes in a language .

  • 2.    Problem of the Study

  • 1.    How thetransitivity processes were constructed in the clause?

  • 2.    What is the most frequent process type found in the text?

  • 3.    Aim of The Study

The aims of this study are to apply and enrich the linguistic theory, especially in the field of micro-linguistics. Furthermore, the specific purposes of this study are to analyze transitivity process in clause and to find out the most frequent process type found in novel entitled The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho.

  • 4.    Research Method

The research methods cover where the data were obtained, how the data were collected and how the data were analyzed which can give some guidance to achieve the objective.

  • 4.1    Data Source

As a source of data, the novel entitled The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho was utilized. It was published in 2007 by Harper publisher and consists of 268 pages.

  • 4.2    Method and Technique of Collecting Data

The method applied was library research since there was no respondent when collecting data. The study involved several steps. The first step was finding the data source. Second, all the data in the form of sentence/clause were collected by reading the novel especially the narration of the grant-narrator (Athena’s boyfriend) thoroughly. The last was numbering all the sentences found in the narration to be analyzed then in term of Transitivity process.

  • 4.3    Method and Technique of Analyzing Data

The method that was used in this study is qualitative and quantitative method. Here are the steps which were carried out regarding to the process of analyzing the qualitative data. Firstly, was the novel text was presented. Then, stating and analyzing clauses based on arrangement of transitivity system proposed by Halliday. Afterwards, the text was split into sentences and clauses. Each of these sentences was expressed in table and was examined to determine the process type (whether it is material, mental, relational, bahavioural, verbal, or existential processes), the participants in the processes, and also the circumstantial elements of the processes. Furthermore, the steps of the process of analyzing quantitative data were first collecting all clauses classified into the six process types. Then, counting the number of the clauses that belong to Material Process and other process types. Afterwards, summing the presence of each type of process already divided for the total number of the clauses, assumed to be equal to 100%. Finally, by comparing the percentage of all process types, we continued to determine the most frequent process type emerging in the text. This transitivity pattern of process types reflects the nature of the text.

  • 5.    Discussion

Haliday used the term process to refer to an activity that the arguments do. He proposed three main process types, that are Material process (process of doing and happening), Mental process (process of sensing,) and Relational process (process of being and having). There are another processes which is located at each boundary, Behavioural process, Verbal process and Existential process. Behavioural process between Material and Mental which shows the process of physiological and psychological behavior. The process which occurs between Mental and Relation process is Verbal process which shows process of saying. Existential process is the process that represents something that exists or happens. This process comes between Relational and Material process.

  • 5.1    The Analysis of Transitivity Process

Analysis 1:

…..the story of the murderer’s sui-cide, mentioning only the country, not the town.I said that no motive had been found for the crime, but that we had completely discounted any idea that it was a revenge killing or that there had been some religious motive…..(after all, the police can make mistakes too), the victim had been raped.

I

said

that

no motive

had been found

for the crime,

Participant

Process

Participant

Process

Circumstance

Sayer

Verbal

Goal

Material

Cause: Purpose

but

that

we

had

completely

discounted

any idea

Participant

Process

Circumstance

Process

Participant

Senser

Mental

Manner: Degree

Mental

Phenomenon

that

it

was

a revenge killing

Participant

Process

Participant

Carrier

Relational: Attributive

Attribute

or

that

there

had been

some religious motive

Process

Participant

Existential

Existent

(Coelho, 2007: 266)

The first clause in the bold type shows the reported speech of Verbal process. Hear, the Sayer is participant I. What is said by the SayerI is shown in the form of that clause. The that clause indicates material process in the passive form because there is no Actor who does something (found) to the Goal (motive). There also circumstantial element Cause: purpose occurs in the clause. The circumstantial element of Cause construes the reason why the process is actualized.Purpose in the sense of intended conditions for which the process is actualized (what has been called ‘final cause’) (Halliday, 2004: 269). Thus, for the crime indicates the Cause purpose.

The second that clause is Mental process that construes a quantum of change in the flow of events taking place in our own consciousness. This clause is included into the Desiderative class. In clause structure, a ‘mental’ clause typically has (and always can have) both Senser and Phenomenon. The participant who has role as Senser is We, and what is being sensed here is any idea called Phenomenon. There is a circumstantial element completely between the Process had…discounted. The type of this circumstantial element is Manner: degree. The circumstantial element of Manner construes the way in which the process is actualized. Degree is typically expressed by an adverbial group with a general indication of degree such as much, a good deal, a lot, or with a collocationally more restricted adverb of degree such as deeply, profoundly, completely, heavily (Halliday, 2004: 268).

The third that clause above indicates Relational process. A revenge killing in Relational process plays role as Attributive. The central meaning of this type is that something is. The last clause of this sentence is considered as Existential process. Halliday, 2004: 257 states that the word there in such clauses is neither a participant nor a circumstance — it has no representational function in the transitivity structure of the clause; but it serves to indicate the feature of existence, and it is needed interpersonally as a Subject. However, it is not real subject that we call it dummy subject. The real subject in existential process has semantic function of Existent. Some religious motive is labeled the existent because it is the only obligatory participant in the Existential process.

Analysis 2:

…...After we’d been out together a few times, she invited me to go and dance at her landlord’s apartment, but I never did—it’s not really my style…. she said that she respected my decision.

she

invited

me

to go

Participant

Process

Participant

Process

Actor

Material

Goal

Material

and

dance

at her landlord’s apartment,

Process

Circumstance

Behavioral

Location: Place

but

I

never

did

Participant

Process

Actor

Material

it

‘s not

really

my style

Participant

Process

Participant

Token

Relational: Identifying

Value

(Coelho, 2004: 267)

The first clause above indicates Material process. It has two Material processes in it. The first process is realized by verb invite and who is being invited by the Actor she is the Goal me. Here the second participant occurs indicating that this Material process represents of doing or we classify it as Transitive. The second material process in this clause realized by go. It is intransitive one representing happening.

There also occurs another process that realized by verb dance. This is one of the example of verbs serving as Process in Behavioural clauses. Halliday, 2004: 251 classifies dance near Material process which is bodily postures and pastimes. Kind of verb that realizes behavioural process is said as intransitive verb and it does not take an object. Thus, there is only one participant involving this process called Behaver. As we know, Behavioural process is in part about the action but it is action that has to be experienced by a conscious being. However, in this clause, there is no clear participant mentioned as Behaver. But, we implicitly assume that the conscious being me is invited by she to dance. Here, me playsrole as the

Behaver. The Relational process occurs again in the last clause. This clause is an identifying clause. In this mode, the meaning is “it serves to define the identity of my style”.

  • 5.2    Transitivity in Narrative Text

The table below summarizes the processes identified previously according to their frequency and percentage distributions.

Table of Process Types

• V*

’S C S

C .S

⅛

.S

PQ

>

Frequency

168

70

72

4

35

14

363

Percentage

46,2%

19,3%

19,8%

1,1%

9,6%

3,9%

100%

As shown in the table, Material processes account for 46,2% of the total number of processes in the text while non-material processes represent 53,8%. It becomes the most frequent type of process in this text. This observation presupposes that the majority of the processes in the text are processes of doing, happening or action. The prevalence of/high proportion of Relational Attributive Intensive processes can be explained by, and reflects, the descriptivecharacter of the text as this also serves to describe the main character of this novel. The proportion of Mental processes (19,3%) in the text indicates that Cognition is concerned more than the other kind of Mental process. The presence of verbal process (9,6%) in this text shows in direct and direct speeches. In this case, we can see some different Sayer in this Verbal process. The proportion of Existential process, even though they do not occur so many (3,9%), indicates that actions as framed as taking place within settings which are asserted simply as existing. The less frequent process is Behavioural process. It occurs only 1,1,% of all the process types.

  • 6.    Conclusion

There are six process types of Halliday’s theory found in grand narrator’s narration in the novel. They are Material Process; process of doing and happening, Mental Process; process of sensing, Relational Process; process of being and having, Behavioral Process; process of physiological and psychological behavior, Verbal Process; process of saying and Existential Process; process of existing.

This transitivity pattern of process types reflects the nature of text. This text in the novel entitled The Witch of Portobello belongs to narrative text considered as magical realist text. The grand narrator (Athena’s boyfriend) is the one that mostly involves in Material process.The finding shows that all process types found in narrative text. Material process becomes the most frequent process. It is 46,2% of the total number of processes while non-material processes represent 53,8% in the text. By examining the Transitivity process in the text, we can explain how the field of the situation is being constructed, and have clear idea how transitivity patterns reflect the nature of the text.

  • 7.    Bibliography

Coelho, Paulo. 2007. The Witch of Portobello. New York: HarperCollins Publisher.

Halliday, M.A.K. 1994 Introduction to Functional Grammar, 2nd Edition. London: Edward Arnold.

Halliday, M. A. K. and M. I. M. Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. 2004.AnIntroduction to Functional Grammar, 3rd Edition. London: Edward Arnold.