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“It is not only text what people mean but also the semantic system what they can mean that embodies the ambiguity, antagonism, imperfection, inequality
and change that characterize the social system and the social structure”
Since language is a process of making meanings, the meanings are needed to be described further. There are three types of meaning or metafunctions made by
language at a time Gerot and Wignell, 1994:12-14. First is ideational meanings. Ideational meanings are meanings about phenomena, about things living and non-
living, abstract and concrete, about goings on what the things are and do and the circumstances surrounding these happenings and doings. These meanings are realised
in wordings through Participants, Processes and Circumstances. Meanings of this kind are most centrally influenced by the field of discourse.
Second is interpersonal meanings. Interpersonal meanings are meanings which express a speaker’s attitudes and judgments. These are meanings for acting upon and
with others. Meanings are realised in wordings through what is called mood and modality. Meanings of this kind are most centrally influenced by tenor of discourse.
Third is textual meanings. Textual meanings express the relation of language to its environment including both the verbal environment, what has been said or written
before co-text and the non-verbal, situational environment context. These meanings are realised through patterns of theme and cohesion. Textual meanings are
most centrally influenced by mode of discourse. These three simultaneous meanings or metafunctions of language are realized in
three more systems at the clause level. Ideational meanings are realized in the system
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of Transitivity, Interpersonal meanings are realized in the system of Mood and Modality, and Textual meanings are realized in the system of Theme. In this thesis,
there will be no further description about the system of Mood and Theme since the research focuses on the system of transitivity.
2.4 Transitivity
Transitivity is a system which realizes the ideational meanings. Here, the clause as representation is talked about. There are three semantic categories which explain in
a general way how phenomena of the real world are represented as linguistic structures. They are ‘processes’ which are verbs, ‘participants’ which are nouns and
‘circumstances’ which are prepositional phrase. According to Mayr 2008:18-20, the reason in conducting the analysis of Transitivity is to explore what social, cultural,
ideological and political factors determine what Process type verb is chosen in a particular type of discourse. Relations of power may be implicitly inscribed by the
relationship between Actor and Goal. Processes can be active, for example: ‘Police Actor shot demonstrators Goal’, or passive, for example: ‘Demonstrators Goal
were shot by police Actor. From the examples above, in media reports, agency and responsibility can be
made clear or left vague. Such as, in news report of riot, if the agency is omitted, it means that responsibility of police may be systematically omitted. Thus makes news
not a mere reflection of reality, but a product shaped by political, economic and cultural forces.
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In this system of transitivity identified by Halliday, there are seven types of process, which are divided into Non-Relational processes and Relational processes.
Non-Relational processes are ones of doing. They are Material, Mental, Behavioural, and Verbal processes. Whereas Relational processes are ones of being and having.
They are Relational, Existential, and Meteorological processes. The definition of each process is derived from Gerot and Wignell’s Making Sense of Functional Grammar.
2.4.1 Non-Relational Processes
Non-Relational Processes are Material, Mental, Behavioural, and Verbal Processes Gerot and Wignell, 1994:55-63. Each of them will be explained as
follows.
2.4.1.1 Material Processes
Material processes are processes of material doing. They express the notion that some entity physically does something, which may be done to some other entity.
Thus, the participant roles in material processes are Actor and Goal. Actor is the entity who or which does something, while Goal is an entity which may be done to.
For example: Spiderman punched Dr. Octopus
Actor Material
Goal
2.4.1.2 Mental Processes
Mental processes are processes of sensing: feeling, thinking, perceiving. There are four types: affective or reactive feeling, cognitive thinking, inclination,
and perceptive perceiving through the five senses. They are mental, covert kinds of
