Functional stylistic analysis: Transitivity in Philippine Daily Inquirer and The Washington Post

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the similarities and differences in the stylistic features of Philippine and American editorials, particularly the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) and The Washington Post (WP), respectively, using Halliday’s (2000) transitivity method. Specifically, the study sought to answer these questions: (1) What are the similarities and differences in the transitivity process types employed in the PDI and the WP editorials? and (2) What are the predominant process types employed in the editorials of the two newspapers? The results of the study revealed that the stylistic features of the WP editorials give more emphasis on people’s characters and attributes, which are regarded to be important factors in the argumentative nature of the WP editorials. On the other hand, PDI editorials focus on ‘what is done to someone’ and ‘who does it.’ This study puts forward that the transitivity system could be an effective tool to analyze the stylistic features of editorials. The results also imply that in the application of process types, the stylistic features related to the editorials’ expected or commonly observed style and purposes, i.e., informative, persuasive, argumentative, and purposive, could be realized.

Keywords

• systemic functional grammar (sfg)
• transitivity system
• editorial
• stylistics
• contrastive rhetoric