A systemic functional linguistic transitivity analysis of character in the Mahabharata, Duryodhana and Draupadi / Shevaanni Pillai

Shevaanni , Pillai (2022) A systemic functional linguistic transitivity analysis of character in the Mahabharata, Duryodhana and Draupadi / Shevaanni Pillai. Masters thesis, Universiti Malaya.

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Abstract

The current study is a Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014) investigation of character in a famous and timeless Sanskrit epic called The Mahabharata, a beloved Indian narrative classic and an important piece of history (Doniger, 2020). The data used for the study is an English retold version by Krishna Dharma (1999) who is a well-known author of Indian classics. Altogether four chapters of the book are used in relation to the topic, The Dice Game. The current study employs Halliday’s System of Transitivity as a theoretical framework to analyze two central characters, Duryodhana, a Kaurava prince and antagonist of the story and Draupadi, a Pandava princess and protagonist of the story. The methodology will employ Cresswell’s (2017) qualitative textual analysis and Sriniwass’s (2009) SFL methodology to analyze the data in a systematic way. A total of 620 sentences were analysed regarding the two characters. For Duryodhana, the predominant Participant role is Actor (15.86%) which has the most frequent characteristics of wickedness, hot-temperedness and enviousness foregrounding him as a dominant villain. In contrast, for Draupadi, the predominant transitivity role is Goal (19.26%) which has the most frequent characteristics of helplessness, valuableness, and wisdom, rendering her the victim of Duryodhana’s greed and cruelty. In terms of Circumstances, the Circumstance of Manner was the most prominent found for both Duryodhana (26.42%) and Draupadi (22.78%) which showed many adverbial and adjectival phrases showing their characteristics. Similarly, the Material process (Transformative-Transitive) was most prominent Process type found for both Duryodhana 26.12% and Draupadi 39.18%. The study has shown that the System of Transitivity was indeed a useful tool to study how characters are constructed through a linguistic analysis of a narrative text. The significance of the study is that it shows how characters can be interpreted in an objective way using transitivity patterns found in the text.

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