Transitivity Process in Jose Garcia Villa’s Footnote to Youth

Introduction

Stylistic analysis of clause types in terms of actions, mental processes, and

relations, as well as their constituent functions and relationships in terms of processes,

participants, and circumstances have always been ascribed to M.A.K. Halliday’s

Systemic Functional Grammar (Castro, 1999).

This paper focuses on the analysis of process types in transitivity system, one of

the highlights of Halliday’s systemic grammar. This theory centers around the belief that

language can be regarded as human representation of the world or reality (Caili, 2005).

From the analysis, I hope that readers can gain knowledge of how linguistic features

can represent the world inside human beings and of the world around them.

Theoretical Framework

The main theoretical framework used in analyzing Jose Garcia Villa’s Footnote to

Youth is transitivity. This theory generally refers to how meaning is represented in the

clause. In terms of function, transitivity shows how speakers encode in language their

mental picture of reality and how they account for their experience of the world around

them. Further, it falls within the realm of the ideational function of language since it is

concerned with the transmission of ideas (Matu, 2008). The ideational function of

language expresses the content element of the speaker’s utterance. It is concerned with

cognitive meaning, with components which include all kinds of processes, qualities,

participating entities and circumstances (Halliday, 1994; Kennedy, n.d.). Such

relationship between processes and participants is expressed through the transitivity

network (Morley, 1985 in Castro, 1999).

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In the process of representing, as Caili (2005) noted, clause plays a central role,

because it embodies a general principle for modelling experience- namely, the principle

that reality is made up of processes. According to Halliday (1994), transitivity system is

a set of grammatical system that construes the world of experience into a manageable

set of process types. Transitivity, therefore, matches one’s experience of a real life

event and exists in clauses of language.

Generally, there are three types of processes in Halliday’s transitivity system:

material (action as termed by Kennedy (n.d.), mental, and relational (Caili, 2005).

Material processes are processes of ‘doing’. They express the notion that some

entity does something, and the doing usually can be extended to some other entity.

Besides the action process itself, material process has two other elements: the Actor

(doer of the action), and the Goal (patient at which the action is directed). In the

sentence, “The dog bit the boy”, the actor is the dog, the process is bit, and the goal is

the boy.

Mental processes involve three sub-types: (1) Perception (the process of seeing,

hearing, feeling, etc.), (2) reaction/affection (the process of liking, loving, hating,

appreciating, enjoying, detesting, etc.), (3) cognition (the process of thinking, knowing,

believing, expecting, finding, realizing, understanding, etc.). From these sub-types, it

can be said that mental processes generally involve seeing, feeling, and thinking. In this

category, therefore, there are two types of participants involved: the Senser (the

conscious being that can see, feel, and think), and the Phenomenon (which is seen, felt,

and thought). Given the example, “She felt embarrassed”, the senser is she, the

process is felt, and the phenomenon is embarrassed.

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The relational process could be said to be those of being, referring to the relation

being set up between two separate entities. It has two categories: Attributive (implying

that a is attributed to x) and Identification (implying that a is the identity of x). Relational

processes are usually applied to describe the relation between human beings and

things (both concrete and abstract). Given the sentence, “ She is smart”, the relation

between elements is one of attributive.

Additionally, these three categories of processes cover most of human

experiences, both outer experience (the processes of the external world) and inner

experience (the processes of consciousness). They present three distinct kinds of

structural configuration, and they account for the majority of all clauses in a text

(Halliday, 1994 in Caili, 2005).

However, there are also three ancillary types of processes, namely: Behavioral

(‘behaving’; sharing characteristics of material and mental), Verbal (‘saying’; sharing

characteristics of mental and relational), and Existential (‘existing’; sharing

characteristics of relational and material).

All these six process types in transitivity system consist of three components,

namely: the process itself which is typically realized by the verb/verbal group, the

participant typically realized by nominal group, and circumstance typically realized by

adverbial group or prepositional phrase. These concepts encompassing the process,

participant, and circumstance are semantic categories which explain, in the most

general way, how phenomena in the real world are represented as linguistic structures.

In an attempt to analyze the transitivity process in the text, Footnote to Youth, the

analyst divided the text into three parts: Part I, revolving around Dodong’s experience of
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asking his father’s consent for his early marriage (marrying at a young age, that is,

when someone is aged 19 and below; teenage); Part II, Dodong’s experience as a

married young man; and Part III, Dodong’s experience as a father being asked for his

consent for the early marriage of his son, Blas. Such partition made in the text helped

illustrate the shift of experience of Dodong from his view of himself to his view of the

world around him, and eventually helped in drawing out the theme linguistically realized

in the text. The unit of analysis used was the independent clause in every sentence. In

the sentence, “He walked faster, prodded by the thought of his virility”, the material

process considered for analysis is walked. In case of compound and compound-

complex sentences where there are more than one independent clauses, only the

process words in the independent clauses were accounted for, e.g. Dodong gave it a

slight push and the animal walked alongside him to its shed. The material processes

gave and walked were considered for analysis. In case of a direct speech, the spoken

line, as long as it is an independent clause, is a separate entity from that of the reporting

clause. An example would be, “I am going to marry Teang,” Dodong said. The material

process am going to marry is distinct from the verbal process said. Clause, then,

operationally refers to one independent clause found in either simple, compound, or

compound-complex sentences, direct speech, or reporting clause. For ease of

reference, the indentations made in the text, whether it be a narration, direct speech,

multiple lines or single line, signify a paragraph.

Participants, on the other hand, were identified using Halliday’s (1994)

categorization of directly involved participants, summarized as follows:

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Table 1. Halliday’s (1994) categorization of directly involved participant functions

PROCESS TYPE PARTICIPANT (Directly involved)

Material Actor, (Goal)

Mental Senser, Phenomenon

Relational Carrier, Attribute

Identified, Identifier

Behavioral Behaver, Behavior

Existential Existent

Verbal Sayer, Recipient

However, only the first participants, that is, the actor, the senser, carrier,

identified, behaver, existent, and sayer were included in the analysis of participant roles

or functions. These participants were then coded cross-sectionally as Animate (human

and non-human) and Inanimate (nature and objects, abstract entities, and parts of

human body). Circumstantial features were also ruled out due to time constraints.

Hence, this paper attempted to answer the following questions:

1. What types of transitivity processes does the text contain?

2. What participant roles are predominant in the process types?

3. How do these transitivity processes and participant roles suggest the theme or

real life experience that is reflected in the text?

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Analysis of Data

Jose Garcia Villa’s short story, “Footnote to Youth” tells of Dodong’s intense

desire to tell his father about his plan to marry Teang. One late afternoon, Dodong, who

was only seventeen and innocent, yet thought of himself as a grown man, insisted to

marry Teang despite his father’s weak opposition of his plan. But Dodong and Teang’s

married life became miserable, making them regretful and feel humiliated by

themselves. Teang gave birth every year, never complained, yet wished she had not

married Dodong whom life had made ugly. When Blas, their eldest son, turned

eighteen, he came home one night and asked permission from his father, Dodong, for

him to marry Tona. Dodong felt extremely sad and sorry for Blas.

Data in Table 2 show the physical structure of the text analyzed, and the total

number of clauses each section has.

Table 2. Frequency of processes in the text

PART NO. OF TEXT NO. OF PERCENTAGE

PARAGRAPHS LOCATION PROCESSES (%)

I 31 1-31 125 44.64

II 32 32-63 109 38.93

III 21 64-84 46 16.43

Total 84 280 100

It can be gleaned from the table that the first section of the text contains the most

number of clause types (125 or 44.64 %), although it had almost the same number of

paragraphs with that of Part II. This reveals that the use of independent clauses
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decreases as the story progresses. The transitivity system encodes the ideational

content of the text, that is the content and ideas expressed by the text. This content is

typically expressed by patterns of processes, participants and circumstances.

In terms of the types of processes found in the text, all of the six processes in

Halliday’s approach to transitivity were accounted for. These are the material, mental,

relational, behavioural, existential, and verbal processes. The summary of data is

presented in Table 3.
Table 3. Types of processes in clauses

PART PROCESS TYPE

Material % Mental % Relationa % Behavioral % Existential % Verbal % Total

I 34 46.57 33 41.25 27 45.76 11 50.00 4 36.3 16 45.71 125

II 27 36.99 33 41.25 22 37.29 9 40.91 6 54.5 12 34.29 109

III 12 16.44 14 17.50 10 16.95 2 9.09 1 9.09 7 20.00 46

Total 73 80 59 22 11 35 280

Based on the data in Table 3, there are a total of 280 processes in the text, 80 of which are mental, followed by

material processes (73), and relational (59), respectively. Of the mental processes, Parts I and II of the text contain the

same number of entries (41.25%), while Part I abounds in material processes with nearly 50 percent of the total. Clauses

in Part I were found to be predominantly of material and mental type which signifies that the writer seemed to have

established the narrative meaning of the text. This is perhaps intentionally done by the writer from the point of view of the

experiential function where narrative meanings are linguistically realized by material processes, that is, of ‘doings’, and of
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‘happenings’. About 97 percent of all the material processes across sections, 95 % of which can be found in Part I, were

given in active construction. This clearly illustrates what Dodong had actively done prior to telling his father about his plan

of marrying Teang. Clauses (16), (18), (20), (23), (34), (47), and (83) contain such events as illustrated below:
 (16) Dodong unhitched the carabao leisurely…

(18) Dodong gave it a slight push…

(20) He placed bundles of grass before it…

(23) Dodong started homeward…

(34) He walked faster…

(48)Dodong stripped himself…

(84)” I am going to marry Teang”…

It can be inferred from the foregoing events that Dodong, unmindful of his

present stature, young as he is, unaware of so many things around him, makes his way

for him to realize his plan, that is to tell his father that he wants to marry Teang. The

action clauses have mostly Dodong (with 19 instances in Part I alone) as the participant,

who is the Actor. However, mental processes were also found predominant across

sections of the text. This reflects Dodong’s feelings towards Teang (clauses (6: Dodong

finally decided to tell it…), (38: He thought wild young dreams…), (43: Dodong tensed

with desire…), (67: He wished as he looked at her…), (125: He confined his mind to

dreaming of Teang…) and his desire to marry her (97: I want your permission…), his

innocence as a young father (137: He did not want her to scream like that…), and his

feeling towards Blas’s proposal of marrying at a young age (280: He felt extremely sad

and sorry for him).

In other words, the unfolding of events or happenings in which Dodong himself

and other human participants are directly involved, are realized through the

predominance of material, mental, and relational processes. This further realizes the
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author’s view of early marriage, an impulsive decision that a young, unstable man or

woman can be regretful of.

Table 4. Participant roles/functions in each of the process types, Part I

Participant Material Mental Relational Behavioral Existential Verbal

I. Animate
a)Human 24 32 21 11 0 16
(Dodong,
Father,
Mother)
b) Non-
human 5 0 0 0 0 0
(carabao,
beast,
worm)

II.
Inanimate
a) Nature 3 0 3 0 2 0
& Objects
(moon,
stone,
petroleum
lamp,table 1 0 2 0 0 0
)
b)
Abstract
( field 1 1 1 0 2 0
work,
bath)
c) part of
human
body
(knuckles,
tooth)
TOTAL 34 33 27 11 4 16
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Table 5. Participant roles/functions in each of the process types, Part II

Participant Material Mental Relational Behavioral Existential Verbal

I. Animate
a)Human 24 30 18 9 6 12
(Dodong,
Father,
Mother,Lucio,
Teang, hilot)
b) Non- 0 0 0 0 0 0
human
(carabao,
beast, worm)

II. Inanimate
a) Nature & 0 0 0 0 0 0
Objects
(moon,
stone,
petroleum
lamp,table)
0 1 0 0 0 0
b) Abstract (
field work,
bath) 3 2 4 0 0 0
c) part of
human body
(knuckles,
tooth)
TOTAL 27 33 22 9 6 12

Table 6. Participant roles/functions in each of the process types, Part III

Participant Material Mental Relational Behavioral Existential Verbal

I. Animate
a)Human 8 14 6 2 1 7
(Dodong,
Blas)
b) Non- 0 0 0 0 0 0
human
(carabao,
beast,
worm)

II.
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Inanimate
a) Nature 0 0 1 0 0 0
& Objects
(moon,
stone,
petroleum
lamp,table
) 3 0 3 0 0 0
b)
Abstract
( field
work, 1 0 0 0 0 0
bath)
c) part of
human
body
(knuckles,
tooth)
TOTAL 12 14 10 2 1 7

It can be deduced from the data in Tables 4, 5, and 6 that almost all of the

participant roles are ascribed to humans as actors, sensers, attributed, identified,

existent, and behavers (Dodong, Father, Mother, Blas, Teang). This brings into the

surface that the focus of the action or movements, cognition, existence, perception, and

behaviour is that of human participants. Hence, it may imply that Jose Garcia Villa

intentionally focused on them to let the readers know, especially the youth (226: Youth

must be dreamfully sweet.), that marriage is not a hurried decision (92: I asked her last

night to marry me and she said…yes); it is something that is done at a right age (105:

I’m seventeen), (106: That’s very young to get married at). This finding opposes

Halliday’s (1996) syntactic counterpoint found in Golding’s The Inheritors, in which the

preference of non-human subjects and the lack of transitive independent clauses with

human subjects were predominant, thereby giving in full detail the experience of Lok,

the lead character, as a helpless and innocent human being. In the text analyzed, Jose
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Garcia Villa consistently used human beings as actors with 97 percent of them having a

goal, through the use of transitive clauses. Such clauses strengthen the realization of

human experience, which is the life characteristic of early marriage, that the author

aimed to illustrate from the beginning up to the end part of the story.

Conclusion

Systemic theory, as Halliday (1994) claims, is a theory of meaning as choice, by

which a language is interpreted as network of interlocking options. All linguistic choices

are meaningful, and the linguistic pattern of choices realizes a primitive pattern of

experience or cognition. In the text, Footnote to Youth, transitivity processes embedded

in it could be one of the possible ways in arriving at a closer look at the human

experience, both of Dodong’s internal world (impulsive decision of marrying at an early

age) and his outside world (realizing the ill-effects of his early marriage and his feelings

towards his son’s proposal to marry at an early age). Through transitivity analysis, the

pattern of experience has been partly realized.

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CELEA Journal, 28(1).

Carter, 1982 in Castro, M. C. The use of systemic grammr in character analysis in

Epistola, N. (Ed.) (1999). Approaches to English Teaching Strategies, Journal of
Asian English Studies, 2(1 & 2): 218-226.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1994). An introduction to functional grammar (2nd ed.) London:

Edward Arnold.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1996). An inquiry into the language of W. Golding’s The Inheritors,

Weber, J.J. (Ed.) The Stylistic Reader. From Roman Jakobson to the present.
London: Edward Arnold.

Kennedy, C. (n.d.) Systemic grammar and its use in literary analysis. pp83-99.

Matu, P. M. (2008). Transitivity as a tool for ideological analysis, Retrieved on 19

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