Transitivity Analysis of the English Version of Hikayat Deli

Nurlela

, Rohani Ganie

and Rudy Sofyan

Linguistics Department, University of Sumatera Utara, Jalan Abdul Hakim Kompleks USU, Medan, Indonesia

Keywords: Hikayat Deli, Deli Malay, Narrative, Transitivity System.

Abstract: This article is aimed at exploring the transitivity system of “Hikayat Deli” as one of traditional narrative

texts from Deli Malay. This text has been translated into bahasa Indonesia and English, and this article is

particularly trying to finding out the uses of transitivity elements in the English version of “Hikayat Deli”

text. A content analysis was used as the research method employing systemic functional linguistics as the

approach. All of the clauses in the English version of “Hikayat Deli” text was taken as the data. The

findings of this study were: (i) material, relational and verbal processes were the three most frequent types

of processes used in the text, among which material process was the most dominant one; (ii) different parts

of the text used certain types of processes dominantly; and (iii) circumstance of place was the type of

circumstances most frequently used in the text. It is concluded that “Hikayat Deli” is a narrative text that

entertains its readers through the action and noble characteristics of the characters realized in the frequent

use of material and relational processes.

1 INTRODUCTION

Language and culture are two terms influencing one

another as the language people use culturally

influences the way they live and behave, and the

culture people have linguistically influenced the way

they communicate (Rosa, 2013) and the way they

see the world (Spindler & Spindler, 1990). One of

the products of the language-culture combination is

a text. A number of studies have been conducted to

reveal typical characteristics of a text produced in

different language to see whether a culture

influences its generic structure or lexicogrammatical

features. (Sofyan and Tarigan, 2018) argue that

Indonesian news item texts were characterized by

the frequent use of marked themes. Their findings

are derived from the translation work done by

student translators from English into bahasa

Indonesia. As a comparison, English as the source

language of the texts uses more unmarked themes

than marked themes in its news item texts. Such

characteristics obviously have something to do with

the different culture between English and

Indonesian. In addition, (Nurlela, 2017) found that

the typical theme characteristics of Indonesian

narrative text include the frequent use of marked

theme clauses, the frequent use of process and

circumstance as the clause theme elements, the

dominant use of multiple theme clauses, and the

dominant use of constant continuous theme. Their

findings also imply that there is a cultural influence

leading to the formulation of typical characteristics

of Indonesian narrative text.

The two studies mentioned above used a

systemic functional linguistics (SFL) theory as the

approach in analyzing the texts, focusing on textual

metafunction analysis realized in theme and rheme.

Textual metafunction is one the so-called three

language metafunction – ideational, interpersonal

and textual metafunction – in the SFL theory

(Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004). By such notion, it

is always possible to analyze the characteristics of

text in a certain language from different language

metafunction. This article studies the characteristics

of the text from its ideational metafunction, whose

meaning represents what the clause is about (clause

as representation). The ideational meaning is

realized in transitivity that “specifies the different

types of processes that are recognized in the

language and the structures by which they are

expressed” (Halliday, 1985). He adds that

transitivity system is realized by a configuration of

process, participants involved and attendant

circumstances.

Process refers to a semantic verb (doing,

happening, feeling, sensing, saying, behaving, and

Nurlela, ., Ganie, R. and Sofyan, R.

Transitivity Analysis of the English Version of Hikayat Deli.

DOI: 10.5220/0010073513351341

In Proceedings of the International Conference of Science, Technology, Engineering, Environmental and Ramiﬁcation Researches (ICOSTEERR 2018) - Research in Industry 4.0, pages

1335-1341

ISBN: 978-989-758-449-7

1335

existing) and anything that it expresses like event,

relation, physical, mental or emotional state

(Halliday, 1976). When sorted in the semantic

system of the clause, processes are classified into

material, relational, mental, verbal, behavioral, and

existential processes (Gerot and Wignell, 1994),

(Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004). A material

process is composed of the processes of ‘doing’ and

‘happening’. It expresses the notion that some entity

physically does something. It usually takes two

participants: Actor and Goal. In addition to the two

main participants, it may also use the third

participant called either Recipient (the one that

something is given to) or Client (the one that

services are done for) in a material process). A

relational process is a process of being (including

having). It is divided into three types: identifying

process that takes Token and Value as its

participants, attributing process that takes Carrier

and Attribute as its participants, and possessing

process that takes Possessor and Possessed as its

participants. A mental process is a process of

sensing. This process includes cognitive,

desiderative, perceptive, and emotive. It takes either

one or two participants. The first participant is called

Senser and the second participant is called

Phenomenon. Verbal processes in clauses (or clauses

of saying) are an important resource in various kinds

of discourse. In a narrative, verbal clauses help to

create dialogue passages (Halliday and Matthiessen,

2004). It generally takes two participants: Sayer and

Verbiage. In addition, it may have another

participant called Receiver (somebody or something

that is addressed to). A behavioral process is a

process of physiological and psychological behavior

such as breathing, coughing, smiling, looking,

listening and dreaming (Halliday and Matthiessen,

2004). It takes only one participant (first participant)

called Behaver. Existential process is the

representation that something exists or happens

(Halliday, 1985). Like behavioral process, it takes

only one participant; but unlike behavioral process,

it takes only second participant called Existent.

Based on the types and the number of the

participants mentioned above, processes can be

categorized as monovalent (binding one participant),

bivalent (binding two participants) and trivalent

(binding three participants). The other transitivity

element, circumstance, can be divided into 7 broad

categories. Circumstance answers such questions as

‘when’, ‘where’, ‘why’, ‘how’, etc. (Refnaldi and

Rosa, 2016). Circumstances include a circumstance

of time, place, manner, cause, accompaniment,

matter, and role (Gerot and Wignell, 1994).

In relation to transitivity theory elaborated

above, this article seeks to find out whether such

transitivity system is different in different language

which is influenced by its culture. In a more specific

way, this article explores the transitivity system used

in the English version of “Hikayat Deli” text, which

is originally written in Deli Malay language.

2 RESEARCH METHOD

This study uses a content analysis to see the

transitivity system used in the English version of

“Hikayat Deli” text. The data of this study were the

clauses of the English version of “Hikayat Deli”

text. The text has been translated into bahasa

Indonesia in 2017 by Nurlela, Gustianingsih and

Sofyan whose translation model was published in

2018 (Nurlela, 2018).

3 DISCUSSION

3.1 Processes and Participants

Based on the data analysis, it was found that the six

types of processes proposed by Halliday (1985) were

used in the English version of “Hikayat Deli” text

despite their different frequency. The types of

processes used in the English version of “Hikayat

Deli” text is displayed in Table 1.

Table 1: The types and frequency of processes.

No.

Types of

Processes

Frequency

Number

Percentage

Material

3,724

41.80%

Relational

2,641

29.64%

Verbal

1,175

13.19%

Mental

948

10.64%

Behavioral

316

3.55%

Existential

106

1.19%

Total

8,910

100%

The results of the data analysis presented in

Table 1 show that a material process is the type of

process most frequently used in the English version

of “Hikayat Deli” text. This finding is in line with

Landa (2017) who found that material process is the

type of process most frequently used in short stories

(which also belong to narratives). Besides, the

results of the data analysis also show that most of

material processes are used in the complication;

nevertheless, they are also used in the orientation

ICOSTEERR 2018 - International Conference of Science, Technology, Engineering, Environmental and Ramiﬁcation Researches

1336

and resolution. In this text, material processes are

found to have been in the form of monovalent

(binding one participant), bivalent (binding two

participants) and trivalent (binding three

participants) as presented in Table 2.

Table 2: Types of material processes in relation to

valences.

Material

Processes

Frequency

Number

Percentage

Monovalent

894

24.00%

Bivalent

2,346

63.00%

Trivalent

484

13.00%

Total

3,724

100%

The results of the data analysis in Table 2 show

that most of material processes used in the English

version of “Hikayat Deli” text is bivalent (63%). The

clause in (1) is one of the clauses containing a

bivalent material process.

(1) In a short period, both of finished their study.

of time his sons

Circ: Extent:

Time

Actor

Process:

Material

Goal

The clause in (1) is the example of the use of

material process in the orientation of the text where

the clause introduces the education level of the

characters. The material process in this clause is

bivalent since it binds two valences: both of his sons

(as the Actor) and their study (as the Goal).

Nevertheless, as mentioned earlier, most of material

processes are used in the complication, one of which

is shown in (2).

(2) Then Lebei Hitam caught him

Actor

Process:

Material

Goal

The clause in (2) contains a conflict between the

characters indicating that it belongs to the

complication of the text. The material process

‘caught’ binds two valences: Lebei Hitam (as the

Actor) and him (as the Goal).

The second category of material processes

frequently used in the “Hikayat Deli” text is

monovalent (24%) whose examples are provided in

(3) and (4).

(3) Our ship sank in the sea on the way to China

Actor

Process:

Material

Circ: Loc:

Place

Circ: Extent:

Place

(4) In the next hulubalang came to the Palace

morning and ministers

Circ: Loc.:

Time

Actor

Process:

Material

Circ: Loc.:

Place

As shown by the clauses in (3) and (4),

monovalent material processes are generally used in

this text to show the transition from a conflict to

other conflicts usually accompanied by

circumstances of extent and location. The material

process ‘sank’ in (3) binds only one participant (the

first participant), i.e. Our ship (Actor); meanwhile,

other clause elements are composed of circumstance

of location of place (in the sea) and circumstance of

extent of place (on the way to China). This clause

signals the beginning of the complication when one

of the King’s sons left the Deli Kingdom to go to

China for study. Furthermore, the material process

‘came’ in (4) also binds only one participant (the

first participant), i.e. hulubalang and ministers

(Actor). Like clause in (3), clause in (4) also uses

two types of circumstances, i.e. circumstance of

location of time (In the next morning) and

circumstance of location of place (to the Palace).

Although the material processes in (3) and (4)

bind only the first participants, the results of the data

analysis found that the material processes also bind

the second participant as shown in (5).

(5) but some of them were killed

Goal

Process: Material

The material process ‘are killed’ in (5) binds

only one participant, but instead of binding the first

participant, it binds the second participant (some of

them) serving as the Goal. The analysis shows that

the participant ‘one of them’ is not the one who did

the action of killing, but it is the goal or the target of

the killing action. Therefore, the only participant in

(5) is categorized as the Goal.

In addition to monovalent and bivalent, some

material processes used in the “Hikayat Deli” text

are trivalent (13%) whose example is provided in

(6).

(6) and its colonies always pay tribute to them

Actor

Process:

Material

Goal

Recipient

As shown in (6), the material process ‘pay’ binds

three types of participants. In addition to the first

participant serving as the Actor (its colonies) and the

second participant serving as the Goal (tribute), this

clause has the third participant called ‘Recipient’

represented by ‘to them’. It is called recipient

because it receives the goal of the action made by

the actor.

The second most frequent type of process used in

the “Hikayat Deli” text is a relational process. This

finding is in line with (Oktoma, 2017) who found

that a relational process is the second most frequent

type of process used in English narrative texts

written by Indonesian students. However, her

findings show a big gap between the uses of the two

processes: material processes (62.53%) and

relational processes (15.1%). The difference is

caused by the general idea of the texts. The “Hikayat

Transitivity Analysis of the English Version of Hikayat Deli

1337

Deli” text, in addition to telling the actions done by

the characters, frequently introduces the good

characteristics of the King of Deli: how he behaves

to his family members, how he treats his people,

how he appreciates people, and how he keeps the

security of his people. Therefore, the “Hikayat Deli”

text tries to show a good exemplary of a king that

used to be known as egotistical, authoritarian, rude,

despotic, etc.

Table 3: The distribution of relational processes.

No.

Types of

Relational

Processes

Frequency

Number

Percentage

Attributing

1,994

75.50%

Possessing

418

15.83%

Identifying

229

8.67%

Total

2,641

100%

Relational processes are commonly used in the

“Hikayat Deli” text to introduce the characters,

particularly in the orientation. Among the so-called

three types of relational processes – identifying,

attributing and possessing – attributing processes are

most dominantly used as displayed in Table 3. The

clauses in (7) and (8) are the examples of the use of

attributing processes in introducing the characters.

(7) The King was fair, wise and generous,

Carrier

Process:

Attributing

Attribute

(8) so he became famous in other

countries.

Carrier

Process:

Attributing

Attribute

The clause in (7) is used to introduce the

characteristics of the king, i.e. fair, wise and

generous. These characteristics are the Attribute of

the Carrier ‘The King’ bound by the attributing

process ‘was’. Even though identifying processes

also involve the be verb, ‘was’ in (7) functions as an

attributing process since both of the participants it

binds are irreversible. Therefore, the clause in (8) is

not acceptable.

(9) *Fair, wise and generous were the king

The clause in (9) was not acceptable because the

Carrier was not the clause element that needs to be

given any Attribute, but it should serve as the

Attribute given to the Carrier of the clause. In

addition, the characteristics represented by the words

‘fair’, ‘wise’ and ‘generous’ cannot be used to

identify the king because: (i) not all kings are fair,

wise and generous; and (ii) other persons who are

fair, wise and generous should not always be kings.

This means that those characteristics are only used

as the attribute given to the carrier bounded by the

attributing process ‘was’.

In addition to the be verb, attributing processes

can also be represented by the process of becoming.

The attributing process ‘became’ in (8) describes the

entity (Carrier) by giving its Attribute, so ‘he’ is

described as becoming ‘a famous person in other

countries’. This contains the meaning that although

he becomes one of the famous persons in other

countries, he is not the only famous person in other

countries.

The clauses in (7) and (8) indicate that the

“Hikayat Deli” text prefers to introduce the story’s

characters by providing the description (Attribute) of

the characters (Carrier). This means that Hikayat

Deli tries to specify its characters by describing

them rather than by identifying them as someone or

something.

Furthermore, identifying processes, despite their

less frequent use, are also used in the orientation part

of the story. The clause in (10) is one of the

examples of how an identifying process is used in

the text.

(10) This text was the story of royal descent

of Deli Kingdom.

Token

Process:

Identifying

Value

The clause in (10) is used to introduce what the

text is about, i.e. the story of royal descent of Deli

Kingdom (serving as the Value of the process

‘was’). In this clause, the Token is equated with the

description contained in the value. Unlike attributing

process whose grammatical subject is always the

Carrier, the position of the Value can be either

before the process or after the process; in other

words, the changes or shifts of the participants’

positions do not change the participants’ roles.

Therefore, the clauses in (11a) and (11b) are both

acceptable.

(11) a. This text was the story of royal descent of Deli

Kingdom.

b. The story of royal descent of Deli Kingdom was

this text.

The clauses in (11a) and (11b) show that the ‘this

text’ is equated with ‘the story of royal descent of

Deli Kingdom’.

An identifying process is also used in clause (12)

where the Token is identified as the Value. This

means that ‘The King’ is equated with its description

‘the descent from Sultan Iskandar Zulkarnain’.

(12) The King was the descent from Sultan

Iskandar Zulkarnain.

Token

Process:

Identifying

Value

ICOSTEERR 2018 - International Conference of Science, Technology, Engineering, Environmental and Ramiﬁcation Researches

1338

The difference between attributing and

identifying processes in the “Hikayat Deli” text can

be illustrated as “providing either additional

information or necessary information”. Attributing

processes provide necessary information which is

not known before, while identifying processes

provide additional information which is or might

have been known.

In addition to attributing and identifying

processes, the “Hikayat Deli” text also uses

possessing processes in the orientation one of which

can be seen in (13).

(13) The King had two sons

Possessor

Process: Possessing

Possessed

The clause in (13) is used to introduce some

information related to the King’s family. The use of

the possessing process in this clause shows the

number of children (sons) the King has. Therefore,

the nominal group ‘The King’ is labeled Possessor

for possessing an entity, and ‘two sons’ is labeled

Possessed for the entity being possessed.

The interesting finding of this study is that verbal

process belongs to the three most frequent processes

used in the “Hikayat Deli” text, in addition to

material and verbal processes. Most of studies found

that the three most frequent types of processes used

in narrative texts are material, mental and relational

(cf. Patpong, 2006; Williyan & Bumela, 2016).

Patpong (2006), for example, found that Thai

narrative texts can be characterized by the frequent

use of material, mental and relational processes.

The frequent use of verbal processes in the

English version of “Hikayat Deli” text is due to a

large number of dialogues among the characters.

Typically, a dialogue is initialized by an

introductory clause containing verbal process. The

mental processes used in the text include ‘said’,

‘told’, ‘ordered’, ‘asked’ and ‘explained’. The

clauses in (14) to (16) are the examples of verbal

processes used in the text.

(14) Then their parent said

Sayer

Process: Verbal

(15) Then Muhammad Dalik asked the man

Sayer

Process:

Verbal

Receiver

(16) The King asked the right time to the

of leaving hulubalang and

ministers

Sayer

Process:

Verbal

Verbiage

Receiver

All of the clauses in (14) to (16) contain verbal

processes, but those processes are different in term

of their valences. The verbal process ‘said’ in (14)

only binds one participant which is the Sayer (their

parent). This means that the process does not specify

its Receiver (the third participant) and its Verbiage

(the second participant). Therefore, it belongs to a

monovalent process. This is used when the text has

already given the information about the characters

involved in such context of dialogue. Menwhile, the

verbal process ‘asked’ in (15) has specified its

Receiver (the man). As the process binds two

participants, Muhammad Dalik (the Sayer) and the

man (the Receiver), it belongs to a bivalent verbal

process. The example of verbal process binding

three participants (trivalent) can be seen in the

clause in (16). The verbal process ‘asked’ binds

three participant: (i) the first participant (the Sayer)

represented by ‘The King’; (ii) the second

participant (the Verbiage) represented by ‘the right

time of leaving’, which is the entity being asked; and

(iii) the third participant (the Receiver) represented

by ‘to the hulubalang and ministers’, to whom the

entity of the question is asked verbally.

Furthermore, the results of the data analysis also

found that different parts of the English version of

“Hikayat Deli” text prefer to use certain type of

process more dominantly as shown in Table 4.

Table 4: Types of processes and generic structure.

Types of

Processe

Most frequently used in

Orientat

ion

Complic

ation

Resoluti

Material



Relation



Verbal



Mental



Behavio

ral



Existent

ial



The results of the data analysis show that

material processes are most frequently used in the

complication of the text. This is logical since the

complication is the part of the text that tells the

events shared in the text. Telling the events,

undeniably, means telling a number of physical

actions performed by the characters. Nevertheless, it

does not mean they are never used in other parts of

the text. They are obviously used in all of parts of

the text, but their frequency is much smaller than the

one in the orientation. Like material processes, the

other types of processes – verbal, mental, behavioral

and existential – are most frequently used in the

complication. Unlike other types of processes,

relational processes are most frequently used in the

orientation part where the settings and the characters

Transitivity Analysis of the English Version of Hikayat Deli

1339

of the text are introduced. Introducing time, place

and characters implies states of being and

possessing, the properties of relational processes.

Meanwhile, there are no obvious differences in the

frequency of types of processes used in the

resolution. All of types of processes are used in the

resolution as they contain part of the orientation and

complication.

3.1 Circumstances

The other transitivity element of clauses is

circumstance. It also plays an important role in the

English version of “Hikayat Deli” text and its

frequency are even larger than process. As shown in

Table 1, the text uses 8,910 processes, but the

number of circumstances is larger. The results of the

data analysis find 9,818 circumstances used in the

text which are distributed in seven different types of

circumstances. This implies that some processes are

accompanied by more than one circumstance. The

frequency and the distribution of circumstances used

in the English version of “Hikayat Deli” text can be

seen in Table 5.

Table 5: Frequency and distribution of circumstances.

Types of

Circumstances

Frequency

Number

Percentage

Place

3,914

39.87%

Time

3,257

33.17%

Role

968

9.86%

Accompaniment

523

5.33%

Manner

510

5.19%

Matter

497

5.06%

Role

149

1.52%

Total

9,818

100%

The results of data analysis presented in Table 5

show that circumstance of place (39.87%) and

circumstance of time (33.17%) dominate the types

of circumstances used in the text. This finding shows

that place and time are the two most important

elements of clauses in narrative texts. This implies

that narrative texts should be able to inform the

readers about where and where the story took place;

without such clear information, narrative texts would

not be interesting to the readers which finally would

deny the social function of narrative as a text created

to entertain its readers (Gerot and Wignell, 1994).

Circumstances of place and time are not only useful

in the orientation part of the text, but they also play

the same important role in the complication of the

text.

Meanwhile, the other types of circumstances –

role (9.86%), accompaniment (5.33%), manner

(5.19%), matter (5.06%) and role (1.52%) are much

less frequently used in the text.

4 CONCLUSIONS AND

SUGGESTIONS

Based on the research findings, it is concluded that

(i) “Hikayat Deli” is a narrative text that entertains

its readers through the action and noble

characteristics of the characters realized in the

frequent use of material and relational processes; (ii)

there is a tendency of different frequency of

appearance of certain types of processes in different

parts of the text (orientation and complication); and

(iii) circumstances of place and time determine the

quality of narrative texts. It is suggested to other

researchers to do the similar research in different

types of texts, if possible, in other different

languages, to reveal the typical characters of texts in

terms of their transitivity system in different genre

and in different languages.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I am indebted to the Ministry of

Research, Technology and Higher Education of

Republic of Indonesia as this research is funded by

the Directorate of Research and Community Service

of the Directorate General of Research

Reinforcement and Development of the Ministry of

Research, Technology and Higher Education of

Republic of Indonesia in 2018.

REFERENCES

Halliday, M. A. K. 1976. System and Function in

Language: Selected Papers. In Kress, G. R. London

(Ed.). Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Halliday, M. A. K. 1985. An introduction to functional

grammar. Arnold, London.

Halliday, M. A. K. & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. 2004. An

introduction to functional grammar (3rd ed.).

Routledge, London and New York.

Gerot, L. & Wignell, P. 1994. Making Sense of Functional

Grammar. Gerd Stabler, Sydney.

Landa, E. M. 2017. A study of the transitivity system in

fictional narrative: A comparison of process types in

Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories. Master’s Dissertation.

Universidad Complutense Madrid, Madrid.

ICOSTEERR 2018 - International Conference of Science, Technology, Engineering, Environmental and Ramiﬁcation Researches

1340

Nurlela, Sofyan, R., Gustianingsih. & Rosa, R. N. 2017.

Theme characteristics of Indonesian narrative text. A

paper presented at Persidangan Antarbangsa

Linguistik Bahasa Melayu on 16-17 November 2017,

Penang, Malaysia.

Nurlela, Sofyan, R., Gustianingsih. 2018. Translating

“Hikayat Deli‟ into Bahasa Indonesia and the Need of

Meaning-Based Translation Model. International

Journal of English Language & Translation Studies,

6(1), 75-80.

Oktoma, E. 2017. Process types in students’ narrative text.

Indonesian EFL Journal, 3(1), 79-88.

Patpong, P. 2006. A systemic functional interpretation of

Thai grammar: An exploration of Thai narrative

discourse. Doctoral dissertation. Macquarie

University, Sydney.

Refnaldi & Rosa, R. N. 2016. Pengantar Gramatika

Fungsional Sistemik. FBS UNP, Padang.

Rosa, R. N. 2013. Introduction to Linguistics. Sukabina

Press, Padang.

Sofyan, R. & Tarigan, B. 2018. Theme markedness in the

translation of student translators. Indonesian Journal

of Applied Linguistics, 8(1), 235-243.

Spindler, G. & Spindler, L. 1990. The American Cultural

Dialogue and Its Transmission. The Falmer Press,

London.

Williyan, A. & Bumela, L. 2016. Process types in EFL

learners’ narrative text: A portrait on linguistics and

gender connections. ELT-Echo, 1(1), 65-81.

Transitivity Analysis of the English Version of Hikayat Deli

1341