* Point of view

Transitivity patterns

Khrystyna Malysh
Catholic university in Ružomberok
Philosophical Faculty
Teaching English Language and Literature and Italian Language and
Literature
1. Mgr
*Presentation
content:
 Point of view
 Markers of point of view
 Transitivity patterns
 Models of transitivity
 Bibliography
*Point of view refers to
who is telling or
narrating a story. A
story can be told from
the first person,
second person or third
person point of view
(POV).

*What is the point of

view?
*To determine point
of view, ask, 'Who is
doing the talking?'
* If the narrator refers to * If the narrator refers to
him or herself as I or me, all characters in the
you'll know the story is story as 'he' or 'she' and
being told from a first knows their thoughts
person point of view. and sees their actions
First person narrators are even when they're
characters inside the alone, the story is in
story, and will provide the third person point
most of the narrative.  of view.

*What is the difference?

*Homodiegetic vs Heterodiegetic
*homodiegetic *heterodiegetic
(literature | cinema) (literature | cinema)
refers to the refers to the
narrator of a narrator who does
dramatic work who is not participate in
also the main the work 
character or other
character in the
work
 *Homodiegetic or
Heterodiegetic?

I rested my arms on the top of the wall [. . .] I

waited a moment [. . .] I smiled,
took a deep breath [. . .] and went back to pick
up my bags .
*Stylistics involves the study of
individual literary texts or extracts in
order to link specific linguistic choices
to potential meanings and effects.
*Examined from a stylistics point of
view, markers of point of view can be
located in certain linguistic indicators
of the narrative.

*NARRATIVE
STYLISTICS: MARKERS
* A description of these markers include, amongst others,
categories such as:

- ‘deixis’: pointing words (these versus those) whose function

is to attach a narrator to a particular context (Short, 1996),

- ‘verba sentiendi’: words which represent feelings,

perceptions and thoughts of narrators and characters alike
(Uspensky, 1973),

- ‘locative expressions’(also called adjuncts): phrases which

refer to locations and directions indicating the spatial position
of the fiction’s reflector (Fowler, 1986).
* The term attenuated focalisation refers to a
situation where point of view is limited, even
if temporarily, to a distanced visual
perspective. Lexical items which signal such a
restricted viewing are nouns with generalised
or unspecific reference like ‘thing’, ‘shape’ or
‘stuff’:

A grey shape flitted silently across the view . . .

 * Transitivity patterns
When language is used to represent the goings
on of the physical or abstract world in this
way, to represent patterns of experience in
spoken and written texts, it fulfils the
experiential function. The experiential
function is an important marker of style,
especially so of the style of narrative
discourse, because it emphasises the concept
of style as choice.
*Transitivity refers to the way meanings are encoded
in the clause and to the way different types of
process are represented in language. Transitivity
normally picks out three key components of
processes:
*The first is the process itself, which is typically
realised in grammar by the verb phrase.
*The second is the participant(s) associated with the
process, typically realised by noun phrases.
*This third element is typically expressed by
prepositional and adverb phrases which fill up the
Adjunct element in clause structure.

*TRANSITIVITY
*Material processes are simply processes of doing.
Associated with material processes are two inherent
participant roles which are the Actor, an obligatory
role in the process, and a Goal, a role which may or
may not be involved in the process:
* Mental processes constitute the second key process of
the transitivity system and are essentially processes of
sensing. The two participant roles associated with
mental processes are the Sensor (the conscious being
that is doing the sensing) and the Phenomenon (the
entity which is sensed, felt, thought or seen):
There is a type of process which to some extent sits at the interface between
material and mental processes, a process which represents both the activities
of ‘sensing’ and ‘doing’. Behavioural processes embody physiological actions
like ‘breathe’ or ‘cough’, although they sometimes portray these processes as
states of consciousness as in ‘sigh’, ‘cry’ or ‘laugh’.

Close in sense to mental processes, insofar as they articulate conscious

thought, are processes of verbalisation. These are processes of ‘saying’ and
the participant roles associated with verbalisation are the Sayer (the producer
of the speech), the Receiver (the entity to which the speech is addressed) and
the Verbiage (that which gets said).
*An intensive relational process posits a relationship of
equivalence, an ‘x is y’ connection, between two entities, as in:
‘Paula’s presentation was lively’ or ‘Joyce is the best Irish writer’.

*A possessive relational process plots an ‘x has y’ type of

connection between two entities, as in ‘Peter has a piano’.

*Thirdly, circumstantial relational processes are where the

circumstantial element becomes upgraded, so that it fulfils the
role of a full participant in the process. The relationship
engendered is a broad ‘x is at/is in/is on/is with/ y’ configuration,
realised in constructions like ‘The fête is on all day’, ‘The maid
was in the parlour’ or ‘The forces of darkness are against you’.

*Relational processes
three main types
 Existential processes
typically include the
word ‘there’ as a
*Existential processes dummy subject, as in
constitute the sixth and ‘There was an assault’
last category of the or ‘Has there been a
transitivity model. phone call?’, and they
normally only contain
one participant role,
the ‘Existent’.
Thank you for your
attention!
 Bibliography:
1. https://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/writing/style/po
int-of-view
2. https://study.com/academy/lesson/point-of-view-defi
nition-examples-quiz.html
3. https://wikidiff.com/homodiegetic/heterodiegetic
4. Al-Alami, S. 2019. Point of View in Narrative. Al
Ghurair University, Dubai, UAE. Theory and Practice in
Language Studies, Vol. 9, No. 8, pp. 911-916.
5. Simpson, P. 2004. Stylistics. A resource book for
students. Taylor & Francis e-Library. ISBN 0-203-49658-
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