41
reality in one‘s consciousness, which is encoded in the transitivity systems of language, is interpreted as a what-is-going-on process, which is related to material actions, events, states
and relations. In other word, the system of transitivity in language is concerned with representing patterns of experience, ―of goings on‖ and ―happenings‖ in the world. It
construes the world into a manageable set of process types and of participants. Halliday, https: transitivity system of halliday.net
Further, Halliday purported that the experiential metafunction was one of the three main metafunctions. He later includes it within the ideational metafunction. Alongside the
logical metafunction of relationships between clauses and clause-complexing. It also called clause as representation, the clause represents the
‗content‘ of our experiences, answering the question ‗Who does what to whom‘. This metafunction uses the grammatical system of
transitivity.
In Hallidays conception in his Introduction to Functional Grammar 1985:22, he states that whether a verb takes or does not take a direct object is not a prime consideration.
There are three components of what he calls a ―transitivity process‖, namely, the process
itself, participants in the process; and circumstances associated with the process.
2.4.1 Process Type
We use term process and participant in analyzing what is represented through the use of language. Processes are central to transitivity. The center on the part of the clause which
are realized by the verbal group. They are also regarded as what ―going-on‖ and suggest many different kinds of goings-on which necessarily involve different kinds of participants in
Universitas Sumatera Utara
42
varying circumstances, while participants and circumstances are incumbent upon the doings, happenings, feelings and beings. Halliday divides the system of transitivity or process types
into six processes.
1. Material doing
bodily, physically, materially 2. Mental
sensing emotionally, intellectually, sensorily
3. Relational being
equal to, or some attribute of 4. Verbal
saying lingually, signaling
5. Behavioral behaving
physiologically and psychologically 6. Existential
existing there exist
2.4.2 Participants
The basic principle is that participants are realized by nominal groups and circumstances are realized by prepositional phrases of adverbial groups. For instance, we had
breakfast with Tiffany in the afternoon, the participants are we Actor, breakfast Range; and the circumstances are with Tiffany Accompaniment, in the afternoon Locative-time.
However, the basic principle may be departed from under certain conditions: a. Participants that are marked theme or late news in the clause are marked by a
preposition: Agent in a receptive [passive] clause: by sometimes with, mediumin a receptive clause: by, recipient: to, client : for, range: at, up, over. For instance: jumped the
fence: jumped clumsily over the fence; baked her cake: baked cake for her; She gave him the book: gave the book to him; She played tennis with him: and She played him at tennis.
b. Participants in relational clauses may be adverbial groups as well as prepositional phrases: identifying on the twelfth
Universitas Sumatera Utara
43
c. Participants can serve as subject, but circumstances cannot. For instance: She drove there by car, He was driven there by car; but not car was driven there by, there was driven by
car. Departures from this principle include the attribute of a relational clause cannot serve as subject it is not a prototypical participant in any case, certain circumstances can serve as
subject in middle clauses in particular; for instance: this hall has always been danced in on Saturday.
d. Participants are interrogated by means of who, what, which; circumstances by means of when, where, why, how plus prepositional phrases such as with whom who ...
with, since when since ... when, and for whom who ... for.
2.4.3. Circumstance
