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College of Arts
Translation Department
Semantics
Submitted by:
Course Tutor
2018
Abstract
This research paper is dealing with two vital elements that do take a major role in people
lives as, it affects them in one way or another. Semantics in general is used in every sound
human produces from the antiquity till the recent days.
First element is language, it is quite known how crucial it is to achieve all variety of
actions, even the mental ones. While the second is represented by the global news which again
takes an essential part of a person’s day to be in touch with people everywhere.
Introduction:
This research paper takes the well-known news agency Reuters World as an instrument to
detect the verbs used by politicians, government spokesmen, reporters, etc. and analyze it to
achieve the purpose of this study.
Verbs in general have more than just to function as being employed for indicating to an
action but, verbs do have hidden meanings which can be used for significant purposes around the
world, starting with saying or telling something to an individual yet mean quite another thing.
Imagine how this criterion can be employed in terms of politics that governs the public
opinion of a society, a country, a continent and of the whole world. It is well understood that
politics can shape people’s life finely as it is capable of deciding whether or not this community
is worthy of a well-managed way of living or it should be chaotic and underdeveloped. So
politics is the sharp uncontrollable tool that affects each and every living human being.
The wonder of politics is of minor manifestations applied to words that directly and
unconsciously redirect and affect people’s opinions and their point of views towards certain
debates, events, entities or decisions.
Now, how does politics work its charm? it is definitely by manipulating the use of words,
and to have a closer look about that we need to analyze each and every word used in an article or
a statement as by that analysis we are able to ‘decode’ the hidden purposes of using that word in
particular for a certain event or situation that is; it reveals the identity of the speaker and what are
his hidden interests.
Getting back to where politics is spread, social media, TV and newspaper. In this
research the examples were taken from Reuters World Tweets.
In this paper, the English verbs will be analyzed in accordance to the transitivity system
of Halliday “Analyzing clause by Halliday’s Transitivity system”. In this paper, we will acquire
a vivid depict of the transitivity system that functions as one of the analysis methods of clause in
an intellectual language function.
The transitivity system of Halliday is a system that improves the old perception about
transitivity, so if a verb takes a direct object or does not take a direct object is not the major
consideration. Halliday has three components of what he calls a “transitivity system” as the
following: the process used, the participants involved in the process, and the circumstances
related to the process. Then Halliday divides the transitivity system or the types of process into
six processes which are: existential, verbal, behavioral, relational, mental and material.
As Halliday pointed out in his book, (1985a) language has three primary functions
namely: the ideational function, the textual function and the interpersonal function.
The remaining two functions of language are the textual function and the interpersonal
function.
The transitivity is usually realized as the grammatical feature that shows whether the verb
takes or does not take a direct object, below are some of the well-known terms:
The process.
The participants involved in the process.
The circumstances linked to the process.
Halliday made a division in the transitivity process which resulted in six processes:
Material
Mental
Relational
Behavioral
Verbal
Existential
Speaking about the transitivity we will need to define the clause: as defined by Halliday
“A clause in English is the simultaneous realization of ideational, interpersonal and textual
meanings.” (Halliday, 1981: 42)
The clause is highly related to the ideational function in both of the meaning and the
function, therefore it is related to the transitivity.
The third is ‘transitivity’ as ‘the grammar of clause’ as the structural unit that expresses a certain
extent of ideational meanings.
From the aforementioned quotation we can understand that the clause may be analyzed by the
transitivity system. In which makes the clause more understood to the reader because the specific
processes in the clause become clearer.
Material Doing
Mental Sensing
Cognition thinking
Relational Being token, value
These processes are of ‘doing’. They describe the concept that an entity “does”
something that may be done ‘to’ another entity. In this type of process we have two roles which
are; the actor and the goal as in the example below:
I Believe Him
Senser Process: cognition Phenomenon
3. Relational process: being process
This process constitutes three kinds of relational process within the clause as follows:
a) Intensive: indicates that two entities establish a sameness relation between them.
‘x is y’
b) Circumstantial: described as the entity is defined in terms of (time, manner and
location). ‘ x is at y’
c) Possessive: shows that an entity owns the other entity. ‘x has y’
The attributive: the number of participants in this mode is two participants they are: the carrier
and the attribute.
Identifying: this mode contains two participants as well: identifier and identified.
These modes and types of the relational processes are classified in the below table:
Type Mode
Attributive identifying
The intensive The audition is great Mr. John is the chairman
The chairman is Mr. John
The circumstantial The lesson is on a Sunday Today is the seventeenth
The seventeenth is today
The possessive Ali has three bicycles The three bicycles are Ali’s
Ali’s are the three bicycles
Below there are more examples of this process modes and types in the table:
This type of processes takes place between the material processes and the mental
processes. And because of this, it might be difficult to distinguish between
Verbs of behavioral process and verbs of material process.
Verbs of behavioral process and verbs of mental process.
This process is classified by the verbs of saying, the contributors of this process are: the
sayer who speaks, the receiver whom is addressed by the verbalization and the last one is
the verbiage which is the verbalization name.
Another type of the verbal process is when the sayer uses verbs like (insult, praise, abuse,
slander and flatter) in sense of acting directly on another participant verbally using the
ones mentioned. in this case this other participant is named target.
For instance:
The verbs of this process refer to the existence of something or something is happening
which is typically denoted by using the verb be or the verb exist that indicates existence
of something or the verb arise following them by a nominal group that function as the
Existent ( that resembles the existed thing in the process) which can also be any type of a
phenomenon and is an event as well.
Here is an example of the above:
There Is a hurricane
The process The existent / event
In the English clause, there are two functions of participants namely: Range and
Beneficiary.
The beneficiary: is the person whom the process is indicated to or for him. The verbal
process and the material process are the ones where the beneficiary verbs are found.
An example of it this:
We need to clarify this point by mentioning more examples as shown in the table below:
Example Category Type
- He runs (for) six miles. Distant
- Marry studied for three Duration Extent
hours.
- We study in the bedroom. Place Location
- I wake up at seven o’clock. Time
- My father went by train. Means
- It was raining heavily. Quality Manner
- It went through my head Comparison
like an earthquake.
- For want of nail the shoe Reason
was lost
- I’m speaking on behalf of Behalf Cause
Uncle Sam.
- For the sake love . . Purpose
- Sam came with John Comitative Accompaniment
- Sam came instead of John Additive
- I worry about his life Matter
- I’m speaking as your boss. Role
Here we can understand that, from the point of view of the writer that he is totally depending
on the transitivity system in accomplishing effective analysis of the clause.
The ‘clause’ is used as the analysis unit in (SFL) systemic functional language rather than using
‘sentence’ or ‘word’.
As it is explained above, using analyzing the clause by the transitivity system enables us to
understand the experience mentioned by the speaker and the exact processes of a language
therefore we are able to know how human are stating their experiences in life.
There are three grammatically metafunctions of systemic functional grammar in Arabic and the
can be named as following
1. فكريةIdeational
2. تبادليةInterpersonal
3. نصيةTextual
This meaning of clauses in Arabic may be explained through the transitivity system. The six
kinds of processes or العملياتthey are realized with related participants الحدود او المشتركين
According to the systemic functional Arabic, the material processes are realized by verbs of
‘doing’ like لعب, كسر, ضربthey are divided into ones which are done by animate participants
called “actions” and the others which are done by inanimate participants called “processes.
Al-Mowtoukel (1986:45) pointed out that the last is done by non-human characters that express
and control actions.
Adding to that, their initiator watches the action. And the latter are produced external resources
which is illustrated by inanimate entities that do not have the ability of controlling the process.
There are 4 possible entities involved with this kind of processes like
Ac, Gr, Ra and Be Al-Mwtoukel (ibid.: 33) explained that participants of Arabic clauses are
obligatory ones like ( )الحدود الموضوعاتor may by optional ones ( )الحدود اللواحقthese are examples
below to illustrate this process:
The mental processes stand for the inner feelings of the entities (human) like sadness, happiness,
and fear (Al-Mwtoukel (1986: 45).
In Arabic it is represented by what is called ‘Verbs of Heart” as mentioned by (Hassan, 2005: 59)
As these verbs are not used for indicating to to physical actions, but for cognition, affection and
perception instead (Al-Samara’ee, 2000: 6),
This process may be preceded by ( )أal Hamza as pointed out by (Hassan, 2005: 59).
Senser / خالد
This process is expressed in Arabic by verbs like احمر, ضحك, حلمfor example, as stated by
Barakat(2007: 110) that processes of this type may be used to show degrees of affection
like the power of colors or faults.
Also he added that the verbs of this type take one participant only as they are intransitive
ones, Be (the obligatory). Hassan (2005; 185) explained that there might be another
participant ‘cognate object’ for these verbs as they are the restatement of the mentioned
processes.
The verbs of this process in Arabic are expressed by the following examples as قال, ابلغor other
verbs related to them as their synonyms like .اعلم
Some or all of th four participants may be utilized in the processes discussed here according to
(Ryding, 2005: 425; Aziz, 1989; 888):
It expresses both identifying and attributive ones and each one of them have a subtype of
possessive, circumstantial and intensive.
1.1.5.1. The intensive relational process
The nominal sentences are taking the role for expressing this type of processes and less
frequently expressed by verbal sentences, this type can function as identifying process like the
following example:
This process is represented by the meaning of place, time, cause, etc. the nominal sentences are
used in Arabic language to refer to circumstantial processes, with this type of processes, the
adverbials and the prepositional phrases may be employed in the attribute (Faiadh, 1995: 93)
with the concern of identifying circumstances, the adverbs and the prepositional phrases are
employed as attributives (ibid).
In addition, the processes can encode the circumstantial processes ( Al-Mwtoukel,1995: 87) as
the below examples:
The nominative case is shown in the item which is the subject of the equational sentence
(Ryding,2005: 61). Also it may be represented by the process itself as in:
As pointed out by Ryding (2005: 61), the existential processes of Arabic language may be
expressed by adverbs such as ثمة, هناكand some verbs like يوجد.
As referred by Hurford(1994: 10) he said that the adverbs that are considered the most typical
ones add some specific information about manner, time, place to the actual meaning of the whole
clause or the verb,
(Huford, ibid: 70) states that this optional staus is refered to in Arabic as فضلةa surplus or extra
section of the sentence rather than core prediction or part of the kernel (Ryding, 2005:276).
They involve adverbs of manner, degree, time, place, adverbial accusative of specification,
numerical, cognate accusative (ibid).
The circumstances in Arabic can be objects so they receive other roles of participants.
Case study
As an application for the above mentioned processes in the theoretical part of this research paper,
we shall be analyzing the verbs taken from the tweets of Reuters World and shall translate these
examples and figure out the differences or the change happens to the sentences after being
translated.
For translation , there are several approaches used in translating texts and the one chosen here is
the semantic translation introduced by Peter Newmark. According to him, the semantic
translation is an approach by which the translator ties to render the syntactic and semantic
structures as closely as possible, within the limits of the source language, the same contextual
meaning of the source text. (1981, P. 39).
The text is readable yet it stays within the borders of the original text in culture and aids the
reader merely in the connotations if they persist in the essential message of the original text.
It is more complex, more detailed, more awkward, and teds to use overtranslation thus, it is less
general that the source in transmitting nuances of meaning. The semantic translation connects to
the word-group or word (1981 , p. 60).
Starting with the first example
1.
Actor بولسونارو
Material process يربح
Goal سباق الرئاسه البرازيلي
2.
Israeli cabinet honors victims of Pittsburgh synagogue shooting
The following tweets will be taken as examples to reflect the process types of English verbs
and their Arabic translation.
Khamenei sayer
calls verbal
For action verbiage
خامنئي sayer
يدعو verbal
للقتال verbiage
االطفال يلقون حتفهم بسبب األيبوال وبنسب غير متوقعة في الكونغو – وزارة الصحة
Children Behaver
This example analyzed above show the difference in types of verb process in terms of
translating English to Arabic as the behavioral process in the English clause changed into
material in the translated clause.
ازمة سريالنكا تتحول الى عنف بمقتل احدهم في مكتب الوزير السابق
crisis carrier
turns Relational- Attributive
violent Atttribute
ازمة سريالنكا Carrier
تتحول Relational process
الى عنف Attribute
الرئيس المكسيكي الجديد يشكل لجنة تحقيقية بشأن الطالب المفقودين
President actor
Forms Material process
new agency goal
الرئيس actor
يشكل material
لجنة goal
الواليات المتحدة تتوقع تنفيذ فوري من الصين حول معاهدات التجارة
Us senser
Expects Mental process - cognition
Action phenomenon
الواليات المتحدة senser
تتوقع Mental process - cognition
تنفيذ phenomenon
ميشيل اوباما تكرر زيارتها لمدرسه لندن التي الهمت مسيرة التعليم
Michelle actor
Revisits Material process
School goal
ميشيل actor
تكرر Material process
مدرسة goal
تيمر البرازيلي ينشأ وكاله امن معلومات – غازيت الرسمية
Temer actor
creates Material process
agency Goal
تيمير actor
ينشأ Material process
وكالة goal
رئيس الوزراء يصرح ان بأمكان صربيا التدخل ان اعدت كوسوفو جيشا كامال
PM sayer
Suggstes Verbal process
Intervine if Kosovo sets up full army verbiage
رئيس الوزراء sayer
يصرح Verbal process
التدخل ان اعدت كوسوفو جيشا كامال verbiage
االمير السعودي يغادر الجزائر بعد زياره رسمية
prince actor
leaves Material process
Algeria Goal
االمير actor
يغادر Material process
الجزائر goal
Conclusion
In terms of translating tweets of Reuters it was quite clear that the verbs which behave as a
particular process is not obligated to behave the same process after being translated.
That is on top of the numeral differences that hinder the translator while dealing with two
distant languages which both endure radically different features than the other, in terms of
syntax, vocabulary, phonology, morphology and even on a cultural level.
Here we may conclude that even the same verb can by analyzed differently between the
original form and its equivalence in the translated form.
References
Al-Mwtoukel, A. 1986. Studies in the Functional Grammar of Arabic Language. Morocco: Dar
althaqafa.
Al-Mwtoukel, A. 1995. Issues of Arabic in Functional Linguistics: the Underlying Structure and
Al-Samara'ee, F. 2000. Meanings of Grammar. Vol. 2. Oman: Dar Al-Fakir for Publishing
Aziz, Y. 1989. A Contrastive Grammar of English and Arabic. Mosul: University of Mosul.
Bloor, T., & Bloor, M. (1995). The functional analysis of English: A Hallidayan approach.
London: Arnold.
Halliday, M.A.K and Ruqaiya Hasan. 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Oxford University
Press.
Halliday, M.A.K. 1981. Explorations in The Function of Language. London: Edward Arnold.
Thaqafa Press.
Hassan, A. 2005. The Comprehensive Grammar. Vol 1,2,3. Cairo: Modern Library.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuters
https://twitter.com/ReutersWorld
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/languages/learning-languages/translation-career/content-
section-4.2#
Neale, A., 2002. More Delicate TRANSITIVITY: Extending the PROCESS TYPE system
university press.