A TRANSITIVITY ANALYSIS OF SHORT STORY THE PIECE OF STRING

Abstract

This​‍​‌‍​‍‌​‍​‌‍​‍‌ study examined the experiential meanings in Guy de Maupassant’s “The Piece of String” using a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) perspective, with an emphasis on the transitivity system. Literary narratives are influenced by the linguistic choices of the authors, and analysis of these choices reveals the way characters, actions, and themes are formed. This research explored how Maupassant’s use of grammar contributes to the creation of the story’s meaning.  Firstly, the study intended to locate and categorize the different transitivity processes depicted in the narrative. Secondly, it aimed to find out the processes that are mostly used and what the predominance of these processes about the narrative style. The research employed a mixed-method approach combining the quantitative analysis by the UAM Corpus Tool and qualitative interpretation based on Halliday’s SFL model. The results showed that material processes are the most common in the story, the narrative is mainly about physical actions and events. The dominance of these processes reflected Maupassant’s focus on the characters visible behavior and communication with others, which not only drive the development of the plot but are also the major themes of the work. The study infused new idea into the field of stylistics by demonstrating the transitivity patterns with real examples that these patterns influence narrative meaning. Along with that, it is a source of a replicable linguistic method for analyzing literary works and has pedagogical implications in teaching SFL-based literary ​‍​‌‍​‍‌​‍​‌‍​‍‌interpretation.