The Exploration Of Ideology In Pride And Prejudice:from The Perspective Of Transitivity

As an effective analytical tool for literary works, transitivity system in systemic-functional grammar (Halliday,1967) has been mainly applied into the explorations of personalities of characters, relationship between characters, and characters’ mental transformations. Few studies have been done to investigate the hidden ideology in literary works. This thesis attempts to do a transitivity study of Elizabeth’s discourse in Pride and Prejudice to explore the hidden ideology. To attain the goal, it focuses on three questions:1. What are the occurrences of the transitivity processes in the data?2. What are the functions of each process type of transitivity system in the data?3. What kind of ideology can be explored based on the analysis of occurrences and functions of transitivity processes in the data?The data of this study consists of 1053 main clauses, in which Elizabeth acts as the main participant. Transitivity system is separated into material processes, mental processes, relational processes, behavioural processes, and verbal processes. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of data are conducted in three stages:description, interpretation and exploration of transitivity system.It is found that mental process, material process, and verbal process are three principal process types under the transitivity system in Elizabeth’s discourse. Each process type of transitivity system can play important roles in exposing personalities of Elizabeth, relationship among characters, and development of the plots. What is more, both feminine ideology and ethical ideology are explored through analysis of occurrences and functions of transitivity processes in the data.This thesis demonstrates that transitivity system can be employed in literary study. This study of ideology through transitivity system can be treated as a supplement to other transitivity studies.