Institutional Repository | Satya Wacana Christian University: Transitivity Analysis of Online News Football Match Report: How The Writers Write Differently

TRANSITIVITY ANALYSIS OF ONLINE NEWS FOOTBALL
MATCH REPORT: HOW THE WRITERS WRITE DIFFERENTLY
Agustinus Dias Suparto
Abstract
Football news is the way to let the public know what have just happened in
football world. However, the report presented in football news may be biased by
the writer’s view which makes some different perspectives towards a fact which is
raised to the public. To analyze some certain perspectives that might be used by
the writers, transitivity of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) can
be used. This metafunction looks at the participants, processes and circumstances
in the texts. This paper showed how transitivity can reveal the perspectives used
by the writers. This paper examined three match reports of the match between
Manchester City FC and Chelsea FC on September 21st, 2014 from three different
websites. This paper revealed which match report was taking a side or neutral
related with the participants, processes and circumstances involved. This paper
also related the using of transitivity components with the purpose of the texts. By
analyzing the actors involved, the point of view of the writers could be
recognized. In the end, this paper showed that two of three texts took sides while
one was neutral. Finally, this paper showed that transitivity analysis in SFL can be
a tool to measure whether a text is biased by its writer’s opinions or not.
Key words: transitivity analysis, systemic functional linguistics, football match

reports