A Comparative Study Of Transitivity Systems In English And Myanmar

In transitivity studies,the current existing problem of adopting different upward approaches to the description of the experiential metafunction has resulted in the abortive discourse analysis of texts.This study,therefore,attempts to observe English and Myanmar transitivity systems from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics(SFL),adopting a downward approach as its theoretical basis.In this aspect,this study aims to achieve the following three objectives:to discover the similarities and differences in English and Myanmar transitivity systems and configurations;to investigate the similarities and differences in English and Myanmar realization sources of processes,participant roles and circumstances;and to explore the motivations for similarities and differences between English and Myanmar transitivity systems,configurations and their realizations,by employing He's downward approach to the description of transitivity system.The study of the transitivity systems of English and Myanmar helps to deepen the understanding of the nature of the two languages.The transitivity system in this study includes three major process types:action,mental and relational processes that construe three domains of experience pertaining to the physical and social,mental,and abstract world,respectively.These three processes are categorized into subcategories based on the semantic features of verbs and their associative PRs.Action processes are divided into four subtypes:happening,doing,creating and behaving;mental processes into five subtypes:emotive,desiderative,perceptive,cognitive and communicative processes;and relational processes into attributive,identifying,locational,directional,possessive,correlational and existential processes.These sixteen processes can further be categorized into autonomous-or influential mode.Taking SFL as the research perspective,this study describes,exemplifies and compares English and Myanmar transitivity systems,configurations and their realizations in terms of delicacy,which presents the following major findings:English and Myanmar transitivity systems share five common features,namely richness,hierarchicalness,flexibleness,metaphoricalness and abstractness.With respect to the feature of richness,the two transitivity systems can construe the experience of the physical,social,mental and abstract world by a variety of different process types and participant roles.In terms of the feature of hierarchicalness,all the different processes of the two languages are categorized into superordinate,basic and subordinate level processes.With respect to the feature of flexibleness,in English and Myanmar transitivity configurations,process types can change from one type to another depending on context,background knowledge,life experience,etc.even though they construe the same domain of world experience.With respect to the feature of metaphoricalness,when the congruent form is reworded into metaphorical form,the process,participant roles and circumstances may change in English and Myanmar transitivity configurations.Regarding the feature of abstractness,each level of process differs from one another in terms of the degree of abstractness.English and Myanmar transitivity systems are relatively similar in the identification of superordinate and basic level processes;however,transitivity configurations which are subordinate to basic level processes vary greatly between the two languages.English and Myanmar transitivity configurations show similarities in that both consist of three main elements:process,participant roles and circumstantial elements;and their level of process and participant integration is relatively low.They also demonstrate differences in the sequence of transitivity elements,their ellipsis and salience.English transitivity configurations have the following three features:(a)processes generally appear after the first or second participant role,or both;when there is the empty Subject It/There in the configuration,the process immediately follows it;the positional relations of process and participant roles are larger in number;(b)circumstantial elements are conventionally placed at the beginning of a clause,or between the first participant role and process,or between the process and second participant role,or at the end of a clause;(c)the ellipsis of participant roles may occur occasionally.Myanmar transitivity configurations have the following three features:(a)participant roles appear in the front of a clause,while the process typically appears in the final position of the clause;the positional relations of process and participant roles are fewer in number;(b)circumstantial elements are conventionally placed at the beginning of a clause,between participant roles,or before the process;(c)the ellipsis of process may occur but quite rarely;the ellipsis of participant roles occurs at a larger proportion.English and Myanmar processes,participant roles and circumstantial elements show differences in their realization sources.For English,its realization sources of all the processes,participant roles and circumstantial elements are as follows:(a)processes are typically realized by a verbal group,or copula;(b)the first participant role is typically realized by a nominal group,or nominalization,while the second participant role is realized by a nominal group,nominalization,adverbial group,prepositional phrase,embedded clause,or adjective/adjective group;(c)circumstantial elements are realized by a nominal group,adverbial group,or prepositional phrase.For Myanmar,its realization sources of all the processes,participant roles and circumstantial elements are as follows:(a)processes are typically realized by a verbal group,compound verb,reduplicated verb,or attributive verb;(b)the first participant role is realized by a nominal group,nominalization,or prepositional phrase,while the second participant role is realized by a nominal group,nominalization,adverbial group,prepositional phrase,or embedded clause;(c)circumstantial elements are realized by a nominal group,adverbial group,prepositional phrase,qualifying reduplicated adverb,or embedded clause.Differences between English and Myanmar transitivity systems,configurations and their realizations result directly from different cognitive,thinking and cultural factors.For English,its distinctive features are rooted in Christian and business cultures,and result directly from the analytic thinking of the English speakers from the mode-of-thinking dimension,and the subject salience principle of iconic cognition and figure-to-background type of cognition from the cognitive dimension.For Myanmar,its distinctive features are rooted in Buddhist and farming cultures,and result directly from the holistic and spatial thinking of the Myanmar speakers from the mode-of-thinking dimension,and the natural sequence of iconic cognition and backgroundto-figure type of cognition from the cognitive dimension.In conclusion,this study is of great significance to investigate the similarities and differences in English and Myanmar transitivity systems,configurations and their realizations;and to explain the motivations for similarities and differences from the dimensions of cognition,thinking and culture.The present study,on the one hand,provides a new view in terms of the research of transitivity system for SFL,and on the other,addresses the problem existing in the previous transitivity studies.It also makes an important contribution to further studies on comparing the transitivity system of Myanmar with that of other languages.