Process Types of Transitivity System in the National Geographic’s Articles Marbun, Lidia April Yanti [email protected] Abstract This study deals with the process types of transitivity found in the National Geographic’s Articles. The objectives of this study is conducted to identify the process types and to find out the dominant process. This study is conducted by applying descriptive qualitative research design. All the process types of transitivity system are found in the National Geographic, they are material, mental, relational, behavioral, verbal and existential process. There are 1415 processes of five articles in the National Geographic. The occurrences of material process is 791 i.e. 56.0%, mental process is 84 i.e. 6.0%, relational process is 347 i.e. 24.5%, behavioural process is 49 i.e. 3.4%, verbal process is 118 i.e. 8.3%, and existential process is 26 i.e. 1.8%.The most dominant process of five articles in the National Geographic is material process with 791 i.e. 56.0% occurrences. The highest proportion usage of material process implies that articles in the National Geographic mostly tells about the experience of human’s of physical action, about the external world, things, events, qualities, etc and concern with the question of what did human do and what happened in the world. Thus, it is suggested to English Department students, to get the understanding that the six process types of transitivity has different meaning in representing the clause in English, they suggested to learn more about process types of transitivity in order to be able to analyze by using the transitivity system in text or discourse written in English. To the readers, to know that material proces is mostly found in the National Geographic articles so that they get easily understand the meaning representated by the dominant process in relation that material process is process of doing. And to the further researchers, as the contribution concerning process types of transitivity system, they can enhance by conducting the similar topic viewed from other points of view to get more accurate analysis. Keywords : process types of transitivity, National Geographic’s Articles 1. The Background of Study Language is a tool of communication used by human being. It helps human to interact with other people to establish and maintain appropriate social links. It is also interpreted as a system of making meaning. It enables human being to build a mental picture of reality, to make sense of what goes around them and inside them. As well as using language to interact with people, it is clearly used to talk about the world, either the external world, things, events, qualities, etc., or internal world, thoughts, beliefs, feelings, etc in written or spoken language. Language is studied in linguistics. Linguistics is the scientific study of language. It has three broadly aspects to the study which include language form, language meaning, and language in context. The study of language meaning is concerned with how languages employ logic and real world references to convey, process and assign meaning. The branch of linguistics which study about language meaning is called semantics. Nowadays, the language meaning is not only studied in semantics. There are many studies of language meaning, one is functional grammar. Functional grammar is a study of sense and meaning in context of grammar. It is primarily concern with the function of structures and their constituents and with their 1 meaning in context, how the meaning of a text are realized. It is also called as a study of wording, but one that interprets the wording by reference to what it means. The functional grammar itself consist of three main kinds of meaning, where all languages are considered to be shaped and organized in relation to these three main kinds of meaning, they are the ideational, interpersonal and textual meaning. These three generalized meaning are termed ‘metafunctions’. The ideational meaning reflects the contextual value of field (what’s going on), where language is used to talk about the experience in the world, including the worlds in the minds, to describe events and states and entities involved in them. It construes human experience. It means by which human make sense of “reality” (meaning about the inner and the outer worlds). It is further divided into the logical meaning and the experiential meaning. The experiential meaning refers to the grammatical resources involved in construing the flux of experience through the unit of the clause. It also refers to the grammatical choices that enable speaker to make meaning about the world inside and around (how the words are associated with evens in the world) . An analysis of a text from the perspective of the experiential function involves inquiring into the choices in the grammatical systems of “transitivity”. Transitivity is a proper of verb that relates to whether a verb can take direct object and how many such objects a verb can take. It also refers to a system for describing the whole clause, rather than just the verb and its object. There are three basic elements to all process structures of transitivity; the process it self, the participant in the process, and the circumstances associated with the process. The process itself is the central to transitivity. It is realized by verb and consists of the various types processes together with the structures that realize these processes. Thus, the writer interested in conducting this study because the process is the main element of a clause in transitivity and there are six process types of transitivity, each of them has different meaning in representation of clauses in English. Halliday (1994:138) stated “...there are three principal types of process in the English clause: material, mental, relational....We can then go on to recognize three subsidiary process types, located at each of the boundaries: behavioural sharing characteristics of material and mental verbal - mental and relational existential - relational and material” Based on the explanations above, the writer would like to conduct a study titled “Process types of transitivity system in the national geographic articles”. The objectives of this study are: to identify the process types of transitivity system used in the national georaphic articles, to find out the most dominant process types of transitivity system used in the national georaphic articles. The transitivity system has three basic element, they are participants, processes, and circumstances. Based on the background of study which has been discussed above, the writer would like to limit this study focus on analyzing the process types proposed by Halliday, three principal types of process: material, mental, relational and the three subsidiary process types: behavioural, verbal, existential. The data that were analyzed in 2 this study is the articles in the National geographic magazine on September 2014 edition. Thus, the writer takes 5 articles in that edition. The finding of this study hopefully be useful and helpful to: the English Department students to improve their understanding and knowledge about the language representation in the text or discourse written in English viewed from process types of transitivity and how to analyze text or discourse by using the transitivity syste, and to the English lecturers or readers, to enrich and enlarge their knowledge about process type of transitivity. Theoretical Framework A theoritical framework is the structure that can hold and support a theory of a research study. In this chapter, the writer presents and reviews the theories that is related and relevant to the topic of this study. The references including the terms are explained clearly in order to avoid misunderstanding and misperception. The conceptual framework of this study is presented as follows. Table 1 The conceptual framework Functional Grammar Interpersonal Function Ideational Function Textual Function Logical Function Experiential Function Transitivity Participant Process Circumstance Material Mental Relational Behavioural Verbal Existential Articles in the National Geographic Magazine 3 Functional Grammar The functional grammar is primary concern with the function of structures and their constituents and with their meaning in context. The focus of this kind of grammar is usually on the appropriateness of a form for a particular communicative purpose in a particular context. In the other hand, it is concerned with the way in which grammar is organized to make meaning. David et. al ( 1995 :23) stated whenever human speak or write, they make selections from entire lexical and grammatical system of English to choose appropriate meanings for the field, tenor, and mode of a context of situation, they introduce the notion that language simultaneously perform three functions ( Ideational: Experiential and Logical, Interpersonal, and Textual). Halliday in David et. al(1996:13) calls these main functions metafuctions. Also, Gerot and Wignell (1995:6) state that “functional grammar views language as a resource for making meaning”. These grammars attempt to describe language in actual use and so focus on text and their contexts. They are concerned not only with the structures but also how those structures construct meaning. Functional grammar explains language viewed from the relationship between context, meaning, and wording. It starts with the question, ‘How are the meaning of a text realized?’ However, Halliday (1994:17) assert that “functional grammar is a study of wording, but one that interprets the wording by reference to what it means and the meaning is encoded in the wording as an integrated whole”. It is essentially a ‘natural’ grammar", in the sense that everything in it can be explained ultimately, by reference to how language is used. This can be concluded that functional grammar is a study of context, meaning and structure of language, the meaning which constructed by the wording or structure of a language. In functional grammar there are three distinct although closely related sense: in its interpretation (1) of text: in the sense that it is designed to account for how language is used, everything that is said or written.