systemic functional grammar

1. Exploring Transitivity
Lala Bumela
The Department of English Education
The University of Kuningan

2. Crucial Reminders
before going too far
 Halliday (1985; 1994; 2004), from the very outset,
sees grammar as the theory of experience, which
means that we can experience, perceive,
interpret, and reconstruct our world of experience
with the help of grammar (as part of language)
 Grammar is a resource for making meanings
(semogenesis), meaning that every single
communicative act is aimed to generate
meanings

3. The reminders again
 Grammar (and meanings) are the systems of
choice, meaning that our worldview is
grammaticalised in certain fashion
 Clause is the highest grammatical unit
 Clause is the vehicle of meanings, which means
that the gate of every single analysis of any kinds
of text must start from the clause.
 Therefore, we have these terms in SFG: clause
as representation, clause as exchange, and
clause as message

4. One last crucial reminder again
 A clause is a grammatical combination between a



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Subject and a Verb
In terms of dependency, there are two types of
clauses in English: independent and dependent
(main versus sub-clause)
In terms of syntactical arrangement a clause is
categorised into noun clause, adjective clause,
adverbial clause
Pay attention also to finite and non finite clause
Gimme some examples before you take off!

5. Extra Homewrok
 Please enrich your grammatical reportoire before
you take off into the island called TRANSITIVITY.
 Things you must probably understand well
include:
 parts of speech,
 types of verbs,
 types of sentences,
 types of clauses,
 finiteness

6. Let us now take off, mates!
 Transitivity the grammatical resource for
ideational metafunctions (experiential and
logical),
 Or it is seen as the resources for construing
human experience of the world around us and
inside us as meaning
 It represents language as ideation: we turn
experience into meanings.
 Gimme some examples, puhhlease!

7. Clausal configuration in Transitivity
Participants: the resources for sorting out
animate or inanimate being taking part in an
event
2. Process Types: the resource for sorting out our
experience of all kinds of events into a smaller
number of types
3. Circumstances: the resources for sorting out
space, time, manner (location, extent, cause,
manner, accompaniment, role, angle, and
matter)
1.

8. Process types = verbs
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Material (happening-doing/event/action)
Mental (perception, cognition, and affection)
Relational (attributive and identifying)
Behavioral
Verbal
Existential

9. Process types and nuclear
participants
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Material = actor, goal
Mental = senser, phenomenon
Relational attribute (carrier, attribute)
identifying (Token, value)
Behavioral = behaver (+range)
Verbal = sayer +verbiage/recipient
Existential = existent

10. Samples (too simple?)
 Chacha built the house for the kids
 Chacha moved the table.
 Chacha climbed.
 I want you to stay.
 Chacha is energetic.
 Elbi stands for Lala Bumela.
 Elbi serves as Kudeso Headcoach.

11. How „about this one?
 I start to like you
 She began asking me questions
 The kids practiced singing
 She seems to have enough money

12. The explanation is
 In all the above clauses there is a SINGLE
clause, with a single Process element, but this
element is realised by a complex of verbal
groups.
 The Process “will start to enjoy” is realised by a
complex of the two verbal groups “will start” and
“to enjoy”
 In a Transitivity analysis, the second (non-finite)
verbal group is the relevant one for PROCESS
TYPE

13. THUS,
 “I start to like you” is a mental process
 “She began asking me questions” is a verbal
process

14. Some other typical questions
 How to distinguish material and non-material
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


clause?
Is material or relational clause?
Can we have material clauses with Attribute?
What is the difference between Goal and Range?
Is it phenomenon or projected idea?