Transitivity of Proverbs in Things Fall Apart

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate transitivity in proverbs in Achebe's Things Fall Apart. It explores the relationship between linguistic structures in proverbs by critically examining the processes, participants, and circumstantials as used by Achebe in his work. The analysis reveals that Achebe uses more material processes, followed by relational, and then verbal, behavioural, and mental. Achebe mostly uses actors, goals, carriers, attributes, identified, identifier, sayer, verbiage, and behaver to convey the message of his novel and the behaviours of the characters he used in his book. He mostly uses circumstances of location and manner to show that actions of the novel take place in a certain place, time, and manner. The study is anchored on Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar Transitivity. The types of transitivity systems utilized by the writer contribute to the construction of themes reflected in the novel. The paper concludes that Achebe's use of varieties of processes, participants, and circumstances has made his novel interesting and readable. As a result, objective interpretations of texts can be reached by conducting transitivity analyses.