A Transitivity Analysis of D. H. Lawrence's The Rocking-Horse Winner

Abstract

Abstract : Stylistic studies have long been interested in the construction of meaning in literary texts, as stylisticians believe that a thorough analysis of meaning in a text leads to more appreciation of its artistry. The study uses transitivity as a tool of analysis in order to discuss D. H. Lawrence's The Rocking-Horse Winner. The study attempts to fill two gaps in the literature: (1) the need for more stylistic transitivity analyzes that aim at interpreting rather than describing the text using frameworks that are rigorous, retrievable and replicable; and (2) the lack, in the current literature, of a linguistic approach to D. H. Lawrence's The Rocking-Horse Winner. The study uses a framework of analysis based on Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar, in which process types are identified in the text and then used to arrive at an interpretation of the text based on the linguistic analysis. The study compares the linguistic approach to other existing approaches to the same text, namely, the psychological, the sociological and the biographical approaches. The study concludes that the linguistic approach supports the psychological approach to the text.