The Experiential Metafunction: Transitivity System

From the experiential perspective, we focus on the field, the topic of the message rather than the purposes the speakers have regarding the interaction. It refers to how the world is represented by the participants of a conversation through language, involving actions (verbs), things (nouns) and attributes of those things (adjectives), as well as details of background details of place, manner, time, etc (adverbials). From the experiential dimension, the processes, which are the main elements of the clause, are typically realized by the verbal group of it, involving participants in certain circumstances. This perspective is interested in analyzing the process, i.e the main verb, ignoring other interpersonal elements such as the Finite, Predicator, among others. Concerning the participant as an element, every clause includes at least one participant (or more), expressed by a nominal group. From an Interpersonal perspective, the participants can be represented as Subjects or Complements. In some occasions it may not be explicitly present like in the imperative clauses. Circumstances are expressed by adverbial groups or prepositional phrases; and in Interpersonal dimensions are represented as circumstancial adjuncts. The transitivity system, which focuses on the experiential metafunction, deals with the description of the whole clause, but mainly focuses on the verbal group, since from the different kind of processes, the participants and other elements are labeled differently. There are six kinds of processes within which the verbs can be classified: Material Processes Mental Processes Verbal Processes

Dominguez Sala M., Barrau N., Garca Gimnez A., Martins S., Gonzlez Pascal M.

Behavioural Processes Relational Processes Existencial Processes

Material Process
One of the largest and most diverse processes is the material one. The verb that is classified as a material process is the one that represents a concrete tangible action. Any material process has an Actor, even though sometimes it is not mentioned in the clause, and involves the participant/s which performs the action. The one that is affected by the action is called the Goal. From the Interpersonal Metafunction, the Actor would be the Subject and the Goal would be the direct object, even though sometimes, the Goal can be the Subject as in the case of Passive Voice. Another kind of Goal is the Range which functions as an extension of the verb, as a derivation of the verb or forming a semantic unit with it. Another participant in this kind of process is the Beneficiary that is equivalent to the Indirect Object, and is the one that is benefited from the performance of the process.

Mental Process
These processes form a viable semantic category, where the differences between the external and internal world of the mind are showed. The mental process is part of the internal world where the most common verbs deal with the meanings of thinking, imagining, linking, wanting, seeing, etc. This process can also project. The participants also need to be named differently. The Actor turns out to be the Senser and the Goal becomes the Phenomenon. Halliday adds that, at least, one participant is needed, the owner of the mind where the process

Dominguez Sala M., Barrau N., Garca Gimnez A., Martins S., Gonzlez Pascal M.

occurs; if the participant is inanimated, it needs to have a degree of humanness. The Phenomenon occupies the role of the other participant. It can be a person, a concrete object, an abstraction or a fact, which can be sensed, perceived or felt, but they cannot do anything or have anything done to them. Setting differences between material and mental processes, it is possible to say that present continuous is most natural for material processes and present simple for mental. There are four sub-categories of mental processes: emotion (feelings), cognition (deciding, knowing), perception (seeing, hearing) and desideration (wanting). Those sub-categories can be reversible, i.e. in passive clauses the Subject can become the Phenomenon or vise versa.

Verbal process
Verbal processes involve all the verbs connected with saying. These processes are intermediate between mental and material processes because saying something is a physical action that reflects mental operations. In a way, a verbal process can be represented as fitting easily into series of material processes or can be also represented as being formulated entirely in the mind. The central verbal processes are easily to recognize because they transfer a message through language. To do so, it is necessary in these processes to have participants. There is one of them that it is always involved in any verbal process and this is called the sayer, which is human. The sayer could not be mentioned but implied in a clause. Another participant who may be involved in the process is the receiver, that is the one who is nearly always mentioned and the saying is addressed. It often appears in prepositional phrases and they are oblique. A message instead of being addressed, it can be directed at another participant, and this participant is called the target. As regard differences, we can distinguish the receiver from the target because the latter it is not human for example. Apart from the people talking in a verbal process, another participant is the message itself. The message can be summarized in the form of nominal
Dominguez Sala M., Barrau N., Garca Gimnez A., Martins S., Gonzlez Pascal M.

group functioning as a participant in the process and it is called verbiage. The verbiage may consist of a label for the language itself. Closely related to the verbiage is a category of Circumstance which is called matter and it is used to label a summary of the message when it is given in a prepositional phrase. For example: He thanked her for the tea.

Behavioural Process
Behavioural process is halfway between mental and material processes. Typically this type of process has only one participant: the human behaver. In some clauses there may be another apparent participant: the behaviour, which is not a real participant but merely adds specification to the process. Behavioural processes serve as a reminder that transitivity categories are inherently fuzzy and overlapping.

Relational Processes
In this process we need the verb to be or others with equative meaning such as include, constitute, represent, match, etc. in order to existentially relate two concepts: an object and a quality. In this process, the Actor becomes the Carrier (the entities which carries the attribute) or the Token (specific embodiment) or the Token and the Goal becomes the Attribute or the Value (reveals what values the writer).

Existential Process
The existential process is normally recognizable because the Subject is There and there is only one participant in those clauses, which is called the Existent. Despite the fact that There is the subject, it has no experiential meaning in the sentence. In this process the speaker renounces the opportunity to represent the participant (the Existent). It is clearly related to relational and material

Dominguez Sala M., Barrau N., Garca Gimnez A., Martins S., Gonzlez Pascal M.

processes. The verb exist is analyzed as material process, while the verb to be is analyzed as existential; however, both have the same meaning in the clause.

Circumstances
Circumstances are realized by circumstantial adjuncts, essentially encode the background against which the process takes place. There are a few well-established categories of circumstance that correspond to our intuitions about the kinds of background conditions that recur: time, place and manner. Circumstances frequent seem to combine two different types of meaning. One way into the possible categories is by looking at the different questions to which the circumstances provide answers. The most familiar categories of circumstance are place and time. These can in fact both be seen in terms of either points or lines: location in time (When?) and space (Where?) and extent in time (duration How long/ often) and space (distance How far?). Another familiar category is manner (How?). The most frequent type is quality, usually expressed by ly adverbs (In what way?) but the category also includes means (Whit what? / By what means?) and comparison (What...like?). The category of cause is fairly complex one. It includes reason (Why/ As a resul of what?), purpose (What for?)and behalf (Who for?). Closely related to couse is the category of contingency: condition relates to the circumstances in which a process occurs and concession is a kind of negated cause. Reason and purpose circumstantial are closely related to clauses with because and to infinitive clauses of purpose. Accompaniment circumstantial answer the question Who/ what with?. Role circumstantial basically answer the question What as?, although they include a small sub-category of product circumstantial answering the question What into?. There are two final groups, both of which have particular links with verbal and mental processes. The first, matter (What about?) can appear with

Dominguez Sala M., Barrau N., Garca Gimnez A., Martins S., Gonzlez Pascal M.

mental processes. The other group is angle (From what point of view?), realized especially by according to or just to. Many circumstantial, in particular those realized by prepositional groups, can be seen as clauses that did not quite make it to full clausehood and have been sucked into a minor supporting role in another clause. Halliday describes a preposition as a minor process, a kind of mini-verb.

Transitivity in text
A transitivity analysis in terms set out above can tell us about how texts work. If we want to explore the experiential meanings in a text, however, we may well need to include an analysis of all the clauses, even if they are embedded. Transitivity is blind to certain elements which have an interpersonal and/or textual function only. The transitivity reflects a switch from done to and doer. meanings. The transitivity analysis is a useful way into exploring the

Dominguez Sala M., Barrau N., Garca Gimnez A., Martins S., Gonzlez Pascal M.