TRANSITIVITY SYSTEM IN ROBERT FROST’S POEMS
A Thesis
Submitted to English Applied Linguistics Study Program in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Magister Humaniora
By
WIWIT NUR RAHMI Registration Number : 8146111068
ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS STUDY PROGRAM POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL
ABSTRAK
Wiwit Nur Rahmi. Sistem Transitiviti di puisi Robert Frost. Tesis: Program Studi Linguistik Terapan Bahasa Inggris. Pascasarjana, Universitas Negeri Medan 2016.
Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk menemukan jenis-jenis proses yang digunakan di puisi Robert Frost, untuk menggambarkan keberadaan partisipan yang digunakan di puisi Robert Frost, dan untuk menemukan alasan dari proses dan keberadaan partisipan yang direalisasikan dengan cara seperti itu. Penelitian ini dilakukan dengan pendekatan kualitatif. Sumber data penelitian adalah puisi Robert Frost yang diambil dari Classic Poetry Series of Robert Frost’s Poems yang diterbitkan oleh Poemhunter.com-The World Poetry Archive. Data diperoleh dengan menggunakan analisis. Analisis penelitian tersebut dilaksanakan dengan menerapkan metode pendekatan interaktif model oleh Miles dan Huberman (2013). Penemuan dari penelitian menunjukkan bahwa ada tujuh proses yang digunakan di puisi Robert Frost. Itu adalah material (32%), relational (20%), mental (16%), verbal (14%), behavioral (12%), existential (4%), dan proses meteorology (2%). Keberadaan partisipan yang digunakan di puisi Robert Frost terdiri dari partisipan yang tidak terlibat secara langsung di dalam proses dan partisipan yang terlibat secara langsung di dalam proses. Alasan dari keberadaan partisipan direalisasikan adalah untuk membuat sense pengalamannya melalui puisi dengan menggunakan alam sebagai inspirasinya dan untuk membangun gambaran mental kenyataan dengan menggunakan human participant. Itu digunakan untuk menghadirkan puisinya secara langsung.
ABSTRACT
Wiwit Nur Rahmi. Transitivity System in Robert Frost’s Poems. A Thesis: English Applied Linguistics Study Program. Postgraduate School, State University of Medan 2016.
The objective of this study were to find out the kinds of process are used in Robert Frost’s poems, to describe the inherent participants are used in Robert Frost’s poems, and to find out the reason of the processes and inherent participants are realized in the way they are. The research was designed with a qualitative research. The source of the data was Robert Frost’s poems taken from Classic Poetry Series of Robert Frost’s poems published by Poemhunter.com- The World Poetry Archive. The data were obtained by implementing analysis. The analysis of this research was conducted by using Interactive Model by Miles and Huberman (2014). The research finding showed that there are seven kinds of process used in Robert Frost’s poems. They are material (32%), relational (20%), mental (16%), verbal (14%), behavioral (12%), existential (4%), and the meteorological process (2%). The inherent participants used in Robert Frost’s poem consist of the participants that did not directly involve in the process and the participants that directly involved in the process. The reason of the processes and inherent participants is realized to make sense of his experience through the poems by using nature as his inspiration and to build his mental picture of reality by using the human participant. It is used to represent his poem directly.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRAK ... i
ABSTRACT ... ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS...v
LIST OF TABLE ... vii
LIST OF APPENDICES ... viii
CHAPTER I...1
INTRODUCTION ... 1
1.1.The Background of the Study ... 1
1.2.The Problem of the Study ... 9
1.3.The Objectives of the Study ... 9
1.4.The Scope of the Study ... 9
1.5.The Significance of the study ... 10
CHAPTER II...11
REVIEW OF LITERATURE ... 11
2.1.Grammar and Language ... 11
2.2.Metafunction of language ... 12
2.3.Transitivity System ... 14
2.4.Kinds of Process ... 16
2.4.1. Material Process ... 17
2.4.2. Mental Process ... 18
2.4.3. Relational Process ... 19
2.4.4. Behavioral Process ... 20
2.4.5. Verbal Process ... 21
2.4.6. Existential Process ... 21
2.6.Reasons for the Processes and Inherent Participants...25
2.7.Circumstantial Elements ... 26
2.8.Poetry ... 30
2.9.Relevant Studies...30
2.10.Conceptual Framework ... 33
CHAPTER III...36
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ... 36
3.1. Research Design ... 36
3.2. The Instrument of Data Collection ... 36
3.3. Data and Data Source ... 37
3.4. The Technique of Data Collection ... 37
3.5. The Technique of Data Analysis ... .38
3.6.Trustworthiness of the Study ... 39
CHAPTER IV ... 41
DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS, AND DISCUSSIONS ... 41
4.1. The Data Analysis ... 41
4.2. Findings ... 58
4.3. Discussions ... 59
CHAPTER V ... 64
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS ... 64
5.1. Conclusions ... 64
5.2. Suggestions ... 65
REFERENCES ... 66
LIST OF TABLE
[image:9.612.75.543.76.628.2]Table 4.1.1. The Kinds of Process are Used in Robert Frost’s Poems 42
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix 1 : Robert Frost’s Poems 68
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1.The Background of the Study
Language is central to the ways of thinking, feeling, and interacting with
others. It is the main medium to form and maintain relationship with one another
and the medium through experiences are shaped and exchanged. The investigation
of languages always come to the conclusion that the function of language is to
combine human ideas into verbal expression so that they can convey meaning to
another and can create ‘communication’. As a device for communication,
language is an effective means of expressing ideas and feelings in both of spoken
and written form. When people speak or write, they produce text, the term ‘text’
refers to any instance of language (Halliday and Mathiessen 2004:3).
When the people produce a text, language is a means of representing and
defining real and imaginary events. Transitivity as a fundamental property of
language that it enables human beings to build a mental picture of reality, to make
sense of their experience of what goes on around them and inside them (Halliday,
1985:101). It is a means of interpreting all the “goings-on” – happening, doing,
sensing, meaning and being and becoming around us.
Literature introduces us to new world of experience. Furthermore,
literature represents “life” and “life” is in large measure of social reality.
According to Marsh (1995: 11), literature is about ordinary life. In literature there
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is one of creative form in literature. It is expression of heart voice and strong
feeling that written in beautiful stanza form and expressed with style and motion
suitable with the contain, so that it is performed and listened beautifully. Poetry is
the imaginative expression of strong feeling, usually rhythmical and the
spontaneous over flow of powerful feelings. Poetry usually represents about
condition of author’s soul expressed through writing. The poem that usually poet
use to communicate his or her experiences of life, emotions, imaginations, and
senses.
One of the popular American poets who is capable of communicating his
sense through poem is Robert Frost. Frederik (1988: 164) stated that Robert Frost
is one of the most popular poets of all time. Frost’s image was of the celebrator of
American virtues, the man who builds poems as well wrought and solid as a New
England farmhouse. He has created many literary works especially poems. As a
poet, Robert Frost used words compiled into beautiful sentences. He always used
nature as his inspiration to represent his emotions and intentions through the
poems. Frost was in his poems intensely preoccupied with man, his problems, his
potentials, and his basic achievements. There are some reasons why the taken
object of research is Robert Frost’s poems. First, his works contain of beauty. The
beauty represents emotions. Emotions themselves represent the essential part of
literary works and they are written in an artistic way. His works are also said to be
a genre of literature which reveals mystery, beauty, and loveliness of human life
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Halliday (1994: 106) stated that the transitivity refers to a system that
construes the world of experience into a manageable set of process types. It means
that it is possible to analyze text in order to find out the process types representing
the experiences. Transitivity is defined as the manner in which a verb is related to
the noun phrases in the clause structure. Traditional grammarians adopt purely
syntactic description, in that whether the subject takes one or more objects. Within
Systemic Functional Linguistics, the notion of transitivity has been greatly
extended and generalized. Here, the terms is understood as denoting the kind of
activity or process expressed by a sentence, the number of participants involved
and the manner in which they are involved.
Angela (2006) stated that most processes are accompanied by one or more
inherent participants; the nature of the process determines how many and what
kind of participants are involved. Human participants occupy a prime place
among the semantic roles, but the term participant does not refer exclusively to
persons or animal, but includes things and abstractions. A participant can be the
one who carries out the action or the one who is affected by it; it can be the one
who experiences something by seeing or feeling; it can be a person or thing that
simply exists. These processes and inherent participants is categorized in the form
of transitivity.
By putting transitivity into action, one can encode her/his experience of
processing as being important in the transmission of information (ideational). The
importance of the analysis of sentence meanings lies in the fact that agency, state,
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present the world to themselves through language (Flowler 1996: 74). Therefore
language as the representation of experiences which can be poured into a text. It is
the same as the written form text as well is as an alternative means of expressing
ideas.
A genre of literature, poem constructed in lines and stanzas as well is a
medium of expressing ideas. Moreover, sometimes poets try to hide the intended
meaning and monopolize the words in order to build up a nice structure of a
poem. According to Arp (2005) poem contains ideas unifying thought and feeling,
it shapes how people perceive the world and excites people with image of beauty.
Thus, poets as the composer try to convey the real world by occupying the words.
Poetry, as a literary genre, encompasses various language rules. As a
result, the linguistic approach, particularly the SFL, is applicable to poetry
especially in Robert Frost’s poem. The writer will use the SFL theory because the
focus is on the linguistic features of the poems. The linguistic approach can go
beyond the sentence level where many choices as the clause rank are manifested.
The SFL can display the relationship of the participant character or persona in the
poem. For the purpose of this research, the experiential metafunction of the
ideational metafunction, realized through the system of transitivity will be
employed as it construes experience known as the on-going (events) which
include these modes: happening, doing, sensing, meaning and being and
becoming. Halliday’s transitivity can expose the basic linguistic characteristics of
texts, especially literary materials such as poems because of their rich linguistic
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A study about transitivity system used in poetry has been conducted by
Khalid and Mushatq (2015) on Transitivity as a means of communication, a
stylistic study of Langston Hughes’s selected early poems. This paper examined
the functions of different processes of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics
theory in creating the poetic voice in Langston Hughes’s poems. Transitivity
analysis gives more detailed information to the readers while analyzing Hughes’s
poems. It also provides linguistic evidence to support the interpretation of the
poems through showing what/who does what to whom/ what in the main
character’s world to decide on their meanings. The finding of this research
conclude that material and mental process was higher than the other processes.
The example below is taken to give a clear idea:
- Transitivity System in Langston Hughes’s poems
I bathed in the Euphrates
when dawns were young
Actor Process: material Circumstance
I built my hut near the Congo
Actor Process: material Goal Circumstance
I raised the pyramids above it
Actor Process: material Goal Circumstance
They “ll see how beautiful i am
Senser Process: mental Phenomenon
These data used material process, “bathed” “built”, and” raised”. This
material processes can be categorized as the process of action that involve
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process of sensing and the senser “they” also showed that it is the participant who
involved in the process. From this clauses, it was found that the transitivity system
in Langston Hughes poems interpreted as a system to organize the outer and inner
experiences.
The same research has been conducted by Afrianto (2014) “transitivity
analysis on Shakespeare’s Sonnets”. It discussed the poetry based on the linguistic
point of view; thus this research did occupying linguistics on analyzing poetry,
especially systemic functional grammar i.e. transitivity system. This research
focused on which types of process usually appearing in the poetry. This research
finally is able to posit that there are four process types of six types appearing; they
are material process, mental process, relational process and existential process.
This research found that material process appeared more often than others. The
example below is taken to give a clear idea:
- Transitivity System in Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Black wires grow on her had
Participant Process: material Circumstance
I never saw a goddess go
Participant Circumstance Process: mental Participant Process: material
My mistress treads on the ground
Participant Process: material Circumstance
These data used material process, “grow” “go”, and” treads” showed the
process of doing or action. The participants in this data are “back wires“, “i”,”a
goddess” and “My mistress”. Then, “saw” as the mental process is indicated by
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by the material process. This material process appeared in his poetry because he
want to represent the word by using the action verb.
Based on the prior observations, some studies have reported significant
differences in the opposite direction. There was a gap between fact and the theory.
Based on the observation in the media of internet
(poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pdf/robert_frost_2004_9.pdf), it was found that the
transitivity system is different. Halliday and Mathiessen (2004: 176) stated that
the process is the most central element in the configuration. Participants are close
to the centre; they are directly involved in the process, bringing about its
occurrence or being affected by it in some way. However, in Robert Frost’s
poems, some of the clauses is indicated that the inherent participants did not
involve directly in the process. Some of the lines in Robert Frost’s poems titled
“A servant to Servant”, “Design”, and “Devotion”, can be seen below:
͞A Servant to Servant͟
There in the upper chamber in the ell, A sort of catch-all full of attic clutter.
I often think of the smooth hickory bars.
͞Design͟
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth.
͞Devotion͟
The hearth can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to ocean.
- Transitivity System in Robert Frost’s poems
I often think of the smooth hickory
bars.
Senser Process: mental: cognition Phenomenon
8
Actor Process: material Goal
The heart can think of no devotion
Senser Process: mental: cognition Phenomenon
These data used mental process, “often think” showed the process of
sensing and it is done by senser. In this data, “I” as the human participant can be
categorized as the participant who involve in the process and the object “of the
smooth hickory bars” is called phenomenon is impacted of the process of sensing.
Meanwhile, in the material process, “drop” showed the abstract doing or action.
But, the actor “a snow “ is categorized as the non-human participant that did not
involve in the process of doing. Then, in mental process, “can think” showed the
process of sensing which is cognition. But, the senser “the heart “ also did not
involve in the process of sensing because “the heart” as non-human participant
does not have the ability to think.
In Robert Frost’s poems, it was found that it is not all of the inherent
participants are the participants that involve in the process. He also used the
non-human participant to represent his experience. Leech (1998: 4) said that poetry is
about the choice of words that will be used and the arrangement of words which
can catch the reader’s and the listener’s attention. The language in poetry showed
the image of beauty. Therefore, the researcher wants to analyze the transitivity
system in Robert Frost’s poems. The writer can give the different interpretation
beyond the poetry and it can enrich the study of SFL especially for the transitivity
system. Because the language of poetry showed the sense of beauty in the form of
transitivity system itself. So, it is important to study the transitivity system in the
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Frost’s poem to deeper the language understanding on SFL from the poetry point
of view.
1.2.The Problem of the Study
Based on the background that has been mentioned before, there are three
questions to be responded in this research:
1. What kinds of process are used in Robert Frost’s poems?
2. How the inherent participants are used in Robert Frost’s poems?
3. Why the processes and inherent participants are realized in the way they
are?
1.3.The Objectives of the Study
The objectives of this study in this research as in the following:
1. To find out the kinds of process that are used in Robert Frost’s poems.
2. To describe the inherent participants that are used in Robert Frost’s poems.
3. To find out the reason of the processes and inherent participants that are
realized in the way they are.
1.4. The Scope of the Study
The scope of this study is limited into the transitivity system in Robert
Frosts’ poems. The poems is taken from Classic Poetry Series of Robert Frost
Poems published by Poemhunter.com- The World Poetry Archive which
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1.5. The Significance of the Study
The finding of this study hoped will be useful for those who are interested
in analyzing the poetry based on the transitivity system. There are two kinds of
significance in this study namely theoretically and practically. It can be seen
below:
1. Theoretically:
- The findings of the study will increase the development of linguistic
especially to the transitivity system based on poetry point of view.
- This research can enrich the literature as well linguistics, and become
the inspiration for other researcher who is interested in cultivating
literary works by applying linguistic approach.
2. Practically:
- It will be a frame of literary study to the people who study and use a
language in poetry. They can make meaning build up and be
understood through choice of words in the poetry
- This study can help the reader to construct the meaning of poetry based
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
5.1. Conclusions
The study concerned on the process and inherent participant of transitivity
system used in Robert Frost’s poems. Based on the analysis, the researcher was
drawn the conclusions as follows:
There are seven kinds of process are used in Robert Frost’s poems. They
are material process with 67 clauses (32%), the second is relational process with
42 clauses (20%), mental process with 34 clauses (16%), verbal process with 28
clauses (14%), behavioral process with 24 clauses (12%), existential process with
8 clauses (4%), and the meteorological process with 4 clauses (2%). The
meteorological process is the part of relational process that showed the several
weather of phenomena and occurred in his poems. Thus, the writer has found all
the kinds of process proposed by Halliday and Mathiessen (2004).
The inherent participants used in Robert Frost’s poem consisted of the
participants that did not directly involve in the process and the participant that
directly involve in the process. The participants that did not directly involve in the
process is indicated by the non-human paricipant. Meanwhile, the participants that
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The reasons of the processes and inherent participants realized in the way
they are involved:
- To make sense of his experience through the poems by using nature as his
inspiration. It is the reflection on life and nature to present his experience.
- To build his mental picture of reality by using the human participant. It is used to
represent his poem directly.
5.2. Suggestions
In relation to the conclusions, suggestions are presented as follows:
This research has involved all the kinds of process in transitivity system.
But, Since this research deals with literary work, it has not involved all aspects of
literary work such as novel, short story, and drama. So, it is expected that the
other researchers can develop this research.
The research of transitivity system in the form of literary work has just
begun and there is much room for us to complete. The research involves many
disciplines and many related aspects need to explore and further research. So, it is
also suggested to the other students of English Applied Linguistic Study Program
can explore and investigate some other phenomena of transitivity system to enrich
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