E. Transitivity
Teachers’ scaffolding talks are formed from a string or words and those words are formed a certain clause. The clause is the basic unit in this activity. The clause is the
representation of the teachers’ scaffolding talks. The teachers’ talks have certain structure and it is called temporary structure since the function of it is to give support to the
students to understand the lesson. The clause as representation of this kind of talks is the focus on this talk.
In real word, the phenomena are presented as linguistic features and this refers to the semantic categories. There are three linguistic features namely:
1 circumstances 2 process
3 participants Those three categories are mentioned by Gerot and Wignel 1995:52. Moreover, they
explain in detail for each of category above: 1 Circumstances are divided into some elements namely
a. manner : tells how e.g. he goes by taxi b. cause : tells why e.g. the ship died of thirst
c. accompaniment : tells without who or what e.g. I left work without briefcase d. matter : tells about with reference to what e.g. This book is talking about functional
grammar e. role : tells what as e.g. he lived a quiet life as a bookkeeper
2 Processes are the centre of transitivity and there are seven different process types identified by Halliday Gerot and Wignel, 1995:54 as follows:
Table 2.8 Seven different process type Halliday
Material Behavioral
Mental Verbal
Relational Existential
Meteorological Doing
behaving sensing
saying being
existing weathering
Bodily, physically, materially Physiologically and
psychologically Emotionally, intellectually,
sensorily Linguially, signaling
Equal to, or some attribute of There exists
3 Participant or relational processes: processes of being and having,
The figure below will show the relational processes: Attributive:
Carrier, attribute
Identifying: Token,
value
Relational processes
Intensive Possessive
Circumstantial
Fig. 2.2 The relational processes Gerrot and Wignel, 1995:68
The teachers’ scaffolding talks will be analyzed based on the transitivity because the teachers’ scaffolding talks also have linguistic features which are characterized the
talks. The way in analyzing the teachers’ scaffolding talk is based upon the clause and then from the clause they will be categorized based on the linguistic features which
characterize the teachers’ scaffolding talks.
In teaching and learning process usually the linguistic features which are used quite often is the process because the talks carry a lot the verbs for different purposes.
These verbs form the focus of the teachers’ scaffolding talks in scaffolding the reading lesson. The other elements in linguistic features are not seen as many as the processes
because the teaching and learning is also a process so that the circumstances and participants give few contributions in the transitivity. The scaffolding talks made by
teachers are useful to help the students understand the lesson and this is realized by the process in terms of transitivity.
F. Mood