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

Behavioural Processes

Relational Processes

Existencial Processes

Dominguez Sala M., Barrau N., García Giménez A., Martins S., González Pascal M.

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 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.

Dominguez Sala M., Barrau N., García Giménez A., Martins S., González Pascal M.

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 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

Dominguez Sala M., Barrau N., García Giménez A., Martins S., González Pascal M.

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 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?”).

Dominguez Sala M., Barrau N., García Giménez A., Martins S., González Pascal M.

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 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”. The transitivity analysis is a useful way into exploring the meanings.

Dominguez Sala M., Barrau N., García Giménez A., Martins S., González Pascal M.