Experiential Function In Fortress Besieged

Ch'ien Chung-shu's Fortress Besieged is one of the greatest twentieth-century Chinese novels. So far some Chinese scholars have applied the theories of Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics and Rhetoric respectively to a new interpretation of this classic work. This paper tries to analyze the book from the perspective of M. A. K. Halliday's Functional Grammar in terms of one of the metafunctions: experiential function. Experiential function means that language can be a way of representing patterns of experience. It is realized by transitivity. The transitivity system manages to construe the world experience through different types of process. According to Halliday, there are six types of process: material, mental, relational, behavioral, verbal and existential processes. Based on the selected examples that can show the experiences and psychological changes in the main character in Fortress Besieged, this paper analyzes the different types of processes and the way by which they are realized. By doing this, the paper concludes that in a Chinese text the participants or the verbs realizing the processes may be omitted in different process types and some circumstances may function as the participants or as the verbs realizing the process.