A Study of Three Days to See from the Respective of Transitivity.docVIP

A Study of Three Days to See from the Respective of Transitivity 　　【Abstract】Through the analysis of the systems of transitivity， it forcibly shows the conceptual functions of language， and also shows how language is employed to describe characters and theme. This paper， using Helen Keller’s Three Days to See as a sample， explores the application value of transitivity in the literature. 　　【Key words】experiential metafunction； transitivity 　　1. Introduction 　　Three Days to See is Helen Keller’s most important and famous literature. Transitivity is an important part of the functional grammar. According to Geoff Thompson， he divided metafunctions into experiential， interpersonal and textual. In this paper， I analyze the starting part of Helen’s Three Days to See from Thompson’s experiential metafunction. The purpose is not only to make readers better understand how the author’s attitudes and desires in this literature， but also shows how important and necessary to apply the functional grammar into analyzing the literary works. 　　2. Transitivity 　　Transitivity is an important part of experiential matafunction. “We use language to talk about our experience of the world， including the worlds in our own minds， to describe events and states and the entities involved in them”（Thompson，2008：30）. Transitivity consists of five processes： material process， mental process， relational process， verbal process and behavioral process. Transitivity in this extract（Paragraph3， P2） is the following： 　　2.1 Mental Process 　　In this extract， the primary process is mental. These mental processes reflect the author’s perception， cognition and reaction of the real world. The large number using of mental process not only reveals the genre of the text， which is prose made to show the author’s motions， but also describe her inner world. The mental process is mainly realized by some sensory word， revealing how the author know the beautiful world and react to the nature. 　　2.2 Relatio