Transitivity in different registers: the system of process type

Abstract

In this paper, I am concerned with registerial variation in selections from the experiential system of the grammar of the clause — i.e. the system of transitivity, focussing one of its main component systems, the system of process type: drawing on extensive manual analysis of English texts instantiating different registers, I will present some quantitative findings regarding the relative frequencies of the terms of the system - of‘material’, ‘behavioural’, ‘mental’, ‘verbal’, ‘relational’ and ‘existential’ process types - and also qualitative findings regarding characteristic discourse uses of these process types in different registers. This second aspect of the study constitutes the bulk of the paper. I will suggest that characteristic discourse uses of different process types correlate with the field of activity within context, i.e. with “what’s going on” in a given context. Here I will draw on our work on a context-based typology of register, particularly the differentiation of different fields of activity (e.g. Matthiessen, 2014a, 2015a,b, 2019; Matthiessen & Teruya, 2015; Steiner, 2024). The quantitative and qualitative findings are, of course, part of the same picture of the system of process type - complementary aspects of its profile of use. By bringing the two together, I am continuing the work within the SAL (Systemics Across Languages) research programme, initiated by Leila Barbara, and developed by Natalia Ignatieva, other Systemic Functional Linguists in Latin America, and a few of us in other parts of the world.