| Functional linguists believe that there are three meta-functions of languages,which are ideational function,interpersonal function and textual function,and each function is realized by its corresponding grammatical system.Among the systems that realize the ideational function,the transitivity system is the most important one.The transitivity system involving the whole clause construes the world of experience into a manageable set of PROCESS TYPES.From the perspective of transitivity,the ideational meaning implied in the lexical level and grammatical level can be revealed.For now,the transitivity system has been applied to study various genres of discourses,such as,literary works,advertisement,speeches,and news report,etc.Mrs.Gaskell,was a well-known English novelist and short story writer in the Victorian era.North and South is one of her best-known novels.The female image of the heroine is outstanding,and studying the female image of the heroine will promote the readers’ understanding of the social environment of the Victorian era.Former studies on North and South are mainly assessments on its artistic improvement,comments on class issues,the theme,characterization,ideology,etc.Although,there are some studies on the female image revealed in the novel,no studies applied the transitivity system to analyze this theme.Studying the female image of the heroine in this novel can further testify the effectiveness and practicality of the transitivity system in the analysis of literature works.At the same time,this study will extend the application of the transitivity system to a larger scale.This thesis selected five plots which are between the heroine Margaret and otherfour main characters as the research data,and three questions are to be answered: First,what is the distribution of transitivity processes,where the heroine is one of the participants,in each selected excerpt? Second,how do the transitivity systems of the selected excerpts reveal the heroine’s female image? Third,is the transitivity theory applicable in analyzing the female image of the heroine in North and South? And a mix of qualitative and quantitative method is employed.The first step of the research is to calculate the proportion of each process type in each selected excerpt.And the second step is to analyze how the processes and their distribution features reveal the female image of the heroine.In the detailed analysis,the background information of each plot is taken into consideration.It is found that material process,mental process and relational process are in the first three places in three of the five selected excerpts.From these processes and their distribution,we can see that the heroine has the following characteristics: kind-hearted,independent,decisive,strong,brave,righteous,rational,perseverant,and filial.And her kind nature,rational personality and independent and strong character,which make her stand out from the other female characters in the novel,are shown in more than one excerpts.Hopefully,this study can bring some insights to the future studies on literary works under the framework of transitivity.And taking a linguistic approach to study the heroine’s female image in North and South helps the readers to have a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the novel. |
