Transitivity System in One Selected Jakarta Post Article Entitled “Indonesian state responsible for 1965 killings, IPT concludes”

Transitivity System in One Selected Jakarta Post Article Entitled “Indonesian state responsible for 1965 killings, IPT concludes”

Denny Nugraha

English Language Teaching Department

(TBI – B – 5)

denny.nugraha9@gmail.com

Introduction

This paper is aimed to present the analysis of the experiential meaning of one selected newspaper article. The analysis presented in this paper is centered around the notion of the ideational metafunction that is realized by the transitivity system in the perspective of Systemic Functional Grammar. This study of analysis tries to reveal how the experiential meaning is realized through the transitivity system in one selected article from “The Jakarta Post” entitled “Indonesian State Responsible for 1965 Killings, IPT concludes” (see Appendix 1). The article was downloaded from thejakartapost.com on November 15^Th 2015 at 10.32 AM. The main reason why this newspaper article is chosen is because it exposed the controversy of Indonesian political and historical issue of human rights abusement in 1965, but recently rising up both in Indonesia and the world. Moreover, it is supported by the statement from Lehtonen (2006) as quoted by Bumela (2012) that “newspaper descriptions of reality are always produced from a certain perspective”. The analysis shows that the experiential meaning of the text in any discourse is complex and complicated to be revealed by the reader. The reader of discourse is considered to be the consument of discourse which does not only deal with the deep understanding of the text but also of its context.

The Text and The Transitivity System

The sample text chosen for analysis in this paper is “Indonesian State Responsible for 1965 Killings, IPT concludes” published by The Jakarta Post at thejakartapost.com (Saturday, November 14^Th 2015, 4:43 PM). The field of this article is journalism reporting the result of International People’s Tribunal (IPT) about the event of September 30^Th 1965 in Indonesia (see appendix 1). Then the tenor aspect of this text involves the reader and the writer of the text. There is a delayed contact between addresser (writer) and addressee (reader) even though this is in an online form. And in the mode aspect, the text is originally an online newspaper article. Furthermore, the transitivity system is to do with the grammatical choices in terms of the experiential functions of a text. Therefore, this system of grammar realizes the clause as the representation of experiences and ideas (ideational metafunction). The full text and the transitivity system analysis used in this paper can be seen in details of Appendix 1 and 2.

The Experiential Meaning

In analyzing a discourse for its experiential meaning, it is possible to breakdown each clause of the text into three functional elements, namely Participant, Process and Circumstance. The Participant element, usually the subject of the clause, can be termed as the Actor, Goal, Carrier, Behaver, Existent, Token, or Sayer of the clause. The Process constitutes the central verb of the clause, that can also be broken down into three separate elements and described as Material, Relational and Projecting process (verbal, mental, behavioral, and existential process). The Circumstance element can be referred to as the where, when, how, why, with whom or as what the process of the clause occurred in a discourse.

Process Types Analysis

The result of the analysis of process types is summarized in the table 1 below. As it can be portrayed by the table that the most frequent process types of the text is material process (42,31%) followed by the relational process (26,92%) which is the combination of relational attributive process (19,23%) and relational identifying process (7,69%). The rest of the other process types are such as verbal process (19,23%), existential process (7,69%), and behavioral process (3,85%). This may indicate that the text construes the world more in terms of actions and happenings of the incidents on Sept. 30, 1965 (see Table 1). For the details of process types analysis of the text, see Appendix 2.

Table 1

No.	Process Types	Quantity	Percentage (%)
1	Material	11	42,31
2	Verbal	5	19,23
3	Mental	0	0
4	Behavioral	1	3,85
5	Existential	2	7,69
6	Relational Process -          Relational: Attributive -          Relational: Identifying	7 5 2	26,92 19,23 7,69
	Total	26	100

Participants Analysis

Participant types and their frequencies in the text are shown in Table 2. From the table below, it shows that the most frequent participant is Actor (22,5%) followed by Carrier, Attribute, and Goal (12,5%). In the third place, there is participant as Sayer with the percentage (10%). Then, in the fourth place, there is participant as Range (7,5%) followed by Token, Value, Existent and Target (5%). And in the last place, the rest of other participant is as Behaver (2,5%). For the clear details of participant types analysis of the text, see Appendix 2.

Table 2

No.	Participant Types	Quantity	Percentage (%)
1	Actor	9	22,5
2	Goal	5	12,5
3	Carrier	5	12,5
4	Attribute	5	12,5
5	Token	2	5
6	Value	2	5
7	Sayer	4	10
8	Senser	0	0
9	Behaver	1	2,5
10	Existent	2	5
11	Range*	3	7,5
12	Target	2	5
13	Assigner	0	0
Total		40	100

Note: *Range includes Verbiage.

The Result of Analysis

This analysis focuses on the process types and participant types used in the selected article. Transitivity system sees the process types as the heartbeat of a clause in revealing the experiential meaning potentials. Because it belongs to the experiential metafunction in the realization of the clause as representation (Ideational metafunction). The analysis shows that the process types are the primary influencing factor in realizing the experiential meaning. In line with this, the participant types are significantly influenced by the existence of process types. Furthermore, the experiential meaning revealed by the transitivity system is thus as portrayed by process types and participant types used by the author of the text. The material process that dominates in this text shows that the author wants to depict the experience of the field by using the action verbs which play an important part in reconstructing the sequence of events or incidents that may be unusual or problematic in certain respect.

Conclusion

In conclusion, based on the analysis of process types and participant types above, it can be concluded that the genre of the text is affirmatively about the report text. It can be seen from the most frequent process type is material process. As it is stated by Emilia (2014) that material processes are used to reveal what happens in the world. Experientially, the transitivity system analysis established that the text is predominantly material-oriented with the participants prominently represented as Actor. Finally, the transitivity system analysis is useful when we read a news item as in a newspaper article, we can note how the journalist represents events or happenings in terms of material process.

References:

The Jakarta Post, Indonesian state responsible for 1965 killings, IPT concludes, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/11/14/indonesian-state-responsible-1965-killings-ipt-concludes.html (downloaded on November 15^Th 2015 at 10.32 AM.)

Bumela, Lala. (2012). The Metafunctions Revealed: EFL Learners’ Experience in Making Sense of The Text. CONAPLIN Journal, Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, Vol. 1 No. 2 (January 2012).

Emilia, Emi. (2014). Introducing Functional Grammar. Bandung: Pustaka Jaya.

Halliday, M.A.K. and Matthiessen, C.M.I.M.(ed). (2004). An Introduction to Functional Grammar (3rd edition). London: Hodder Education.

Gerot, L. & Wignell, P. (1994). Making Sense of Functional Grammar. Cammeray: Gerd Stabler.