Transitivity Analysis Of Lawrence's Daughters Of The Vicar

Following Halliday's influential analysis of the thematic function of transitivity patterns in William Golding's The Inheritors(1971),many stylisticians have adopted transitivity model to investigate various types of discourse and proved it to be applicable and powerful to reveal the thematic and aesthetic significance of the texts.Now,transitivity system has become one of the most popular analytic models.As for the investigations of literary texts,at home and abroad,however, most are mainly concerned with comparing different process types to uncover power relations between conflicting parties,and for those that probe into a character's inner life,what is revealed is usually a certain mental style of the character,yet hardly any effort has been made to investigate the relation between the transitivity patterning and a character's mental transformation.Daughters of the Vicar,which has a very simple plot but deep symbolic meaning and social meaning,was hailed as the most excellent novella of Lawrence by Leavis(1955) with its profound thoughts and remarkable artistry.Lawrence is best known for his novels and the studies on him both at home and abroad have been mainly focusing on his novels.His short stories and novellas,like Daughters of the Vicar,however,are less frequently analyzed.What's more,the existing studies of Daughters of the Vicar are almost all from literary angle and mainly discussing the class theme,with little consideration to the author's underlying viewpoint of gender role.This thesis,based on Halliday's transitivity system,attempts to explore the thematic and stylistic significance of Daughters of the Vicar from the following two aspects:power relations and psychological transformation.The analysis demonstrates that the model of transitivity can function as a useful tool not only in disclosing the power relations of conflicting parties but also in revealing the process of a character's mental transformation,and furthermore,that a transitivity analysis may shed fresh light on the interpretation and evaluation of the text.