aprilcharlisalive-blog

[aprilcharlisalive-blog]

Transitivity and Point of View Analysis of ‘What We Talk about when We Talk about Love’

Our experiences in everyday life, unconsciously formed by events and actions that we deliver or share through language. Language is an infinite tools that helps us to convey ideas. However, it is limited by the use of grammar. Grammar somehow rules the way we share our experience with people. For example, we will use different verb in stating something in present, past, and future. This particular grammatical used for capturing experience in language is called the system of transitivity. It refers to the way meanings are encoded in the clause and to the way different types of process are represented in language. The concept of ‘transitivity’ is used in an expanded semantic sense, much more so than in traditional grammars where it simply serves to identify verbs which take direct objects. (Sympson, 2004:2) Transitivity itself divided into six processes which are material process, mental process, verbal process, existential process, behavioural process, and relational process. Those all process in transitivity analysis can be applied to any narrative text in order to identify what process that occurred within the text. One of narrative text that can be analyzed is “What We Talk about when We Talk about Love” by Raymond Carver, that will be examined further in this paper.

           The short story by Raymond Carver is written in the first person (Nick) point of view. In the story, Nick is telling us the conversation about love among him and his friends. Their conversation mostly discusses about the experience of Terri with her previous husband. Terri is telling everybody there about how his previous husband treats her cruelly. Those discussions are presented through direct speech that scattered in the text. Beside the discussion or conversation, Nick also depicts other character’s actions and emotions through his point of view description. The way the story is created actually affect the transitivity process that occurred inside the text.

           In “What We Talk about when We Talk about Love”, Terri becomes the most important character because she is the one who start deep conversations about her husband. There are so many actions in that story, especially when Terri and Ed had a fight and Ed finally did the suicide. The description of both characters’ problem actually causes material process domination. After analyzing the whole text, I found 36, 6% material process occurred. Beside the description of Terri and Ed who fight, the description of each character behavior while having  a conversation from Nick’s perspective also give a contribution to material process. Material process here covers two kinds of actor: inanimate actor and animate actor. The example of inanimate actor in material process is “Sunlight (actor) filled (process) the kitchen from the big windows behind the sink (goal).” Whereas, the example of animate actor in material process is “He (actor) dragged (process) me around the living room by my ankles (goal).” However, the number of animate actors in 36, 6% material process is higher than inanimate actor.

           The second most existed process in Raymond Carver story is verbalization process. The verbalization process occurred about 24 %. This number is coming from the conversation between Terri, Nick, Mel, and Laura I the form of direct speech. The existence of the word ‘said’ and ‘asked’ from the text indicates verbalization process. It mostly occurred after or before the direct speech written. For example, “What happened? Laura (sayer) asked (process).” Moreover, it also occurred in indirect speech, for example “Terri (sayer) said (process) the man she lived with before she lived with Mel loved her so much he tried to kill her (verbiage).”

           Another transitivity process that I found from the text is relational process. Relational process is indicated by the existence of to be or the word ‘has/have’. It is divided into three kinds of relational process: intensive relational process, possessive relational process, and circumstantial relational process. There is 15, 75% total of relational process, most of them are intensive relational process. The intensive relational process comes from the description of characters’ background at the time, character’s attitude, and character’s emotion/feeling. For example, “We (identified) were (process) afraid (identified).” The rest of relational process is circumstantial relational process, for example “But we (identified) were (process) all from somewhere else (identifier)” and possessive relational process, for example “Mel (identified) always has (process) love on his mind (identifier)”

           The fourth transitivity process is mental process that dominates the text about 14, 35%. This process comes from all things that characters have in their mind. In this case, characters deliver their understanding/knowledge about love to each other. The verbs of this process that occurred in text include think, like, know, love, want, grant, enjoy, and hope. For example, “Mel (sensor) thought (process) real love was nothing less than spiritual love (phenomenon).”

           Furthermore, another transitivity process that included in text is behavioural process. The behavioural process is the behavior of each characters while they are having conversation, both in the present time or their experience in past time. For example, “He (behaver) grinned (process) at her (circumstance).” In this sentence, grinned means having wide smile. Wide smile somehow shows a person’s behavior toward something. It is not material process because it is not action verb, and it is also not a mental process because it can be seen physically. Therefore, that sentence is considered as behavioural process.

           The last transitivity process is existential process. The percentage of existential process in this text is very low, it’s only 2, 31 %. Existential process is a process that indicates something is real. It is denoted by dummy subject “there” as a subject of a sentence. For example, “There (existent) was an ice bucket on the table (process).” Sometimes, it becomes a starting point of a condition. The number of existential process is very low because the significant point of the story is not about the description of their place condition or existed object, but it’s about the conversation about Terri’s ex-husband. Therefore I only found around 5 existential process in “What We Talk about when We Talk about Love.”

           In short, the transitivity process of what we talk about when we talk about love short story written by Raymond Carver are affected by the author’s intention in the story, how story created, theme and the point of view which is used. The transitivity analysis result has shown that material process gets the highest transitivity process number that exist within the text. It is because of Terri’s story about his ex-husband full of action. Then, the easiest way to identify it is by finding the action verb. If the verb that used by animate or inanimate object is action verb, and absolutely it is a material process.

           Beyond the transitivity process, in this paper I would like analyze Raymond Carver’s work in the perspective of point of view. Point of view of What We Talk about when We Talk about Love short story is first person point of view. The character that become the first person point of view or we can say narrator is someone who knows everything around him. Nick character not only describe about his friends physical action, but also their background. For example, “She was a bone-thin woman with a pretty face, dark eyes, and brown hair that hung down her back. She liked necklaces made of turquoise, and long pendant earrings.” Beside describe physical experience of Terri, he also stated Terri’s favorite jewelry. Moreover, I will analyze Nick’s point of view based on what Paul Sympson had examined in his Stylistics: A resource book for students.

           Nick in “What We Talk about when We Talk about Love” is included in homodiegetic narrator. A homodiegetic narrator is one who is internal to the narrative, who is on the ‘same’ plane of exegesis as the story. (Sympson, 2004:28) Nick is narrator who knows about everyone he tells to the reader. He able to describe the detail information about them. It is not only because he knows about them, but all of them are his friend. He is the part of Terri, Mel, and Laura conversation at the time. Somehow, he’s in the same plane as the other character in the story. Nick is following the story that told by Terri and also give response to it. Even though he doesn’t know Ed well, he becomes the part of group discussion.

           Beside homodiegetic narrator, Nick also use several locative expressions, such as: from the big windows behind the sink, on the table, around the room, across the table, into her glass, from the table, down another bottle. Some locative expressions refer to the character’s action in placing their drinks. It is clearly stated by the existence of word “table” and “glass”. The other locative expression is the description of inanimate object, for example “Sunlight filled the kitchen from the big windows behind the sink.” The other locative expressions is character behavior, for example “Terri looked around the room.”

           Nick as the narrator looks like that he knows everything. But, if we analyze deeply there are a few sentences that show his limited knowledge and it’s called attenuated focalisation. For example, “But we were all from somewhere else.” The utterance of somewhere else indicates that Nick doesn’t know where exactly they all coming from. We do not know if the writer have no intention of making Nick looks like he doesn’t want to tell readers. However, just by analyzing the sentence, we can take conclusion that Nick’s description is limited. It doesn’t give enough knowledge to readers about where did they come from. Another example is when Nick said “I heard his name mentioned in passing.” His name actually refers to Ed (Terri’s ex-husband). This sentence absolutely stated that Nick has no idea of Ed.

           The next point of view analysis based on temporal point of view. Temporal point of view envelops a whole series of stylistic techniques such as repetition, analepsis (flashback) and prolepsis (prevision or flashforward). (Sympson, 2004:79) Based on Temporal definition, I can conclude that this narrative text is using temporal point of view because it contain of many flashback story or analepsis. Analepsis started when Terri said the man she lived with before she lived with Mel loved her so much he tried to kill her. It was becoming the starting point of Terri to tell the reader about his husband evil behavior. It becomes the hot news or hot topic that discussed by four of them. The flashback moment that unforgettable by Terri.

           The third point of view analysis is based on spatial planes point of view. Spatial planes means how the place is narrated by the narrator in the story. At the beginning Nick has clearly explain where they are. “The four of us were sitting around his kitchen table drinking gin.” The word “he��� refers to his friend Mel McGinnis. Nick has told us the exact place where they have their conversation. It was in Mel’s kitchen. Another spatial point of view is when Nick describe about where his friends put their drink. It’s just the same with I’ve been explain in two previous paragraph. Most of spatial planes actually comes from Terri’s story, for example when Terri said “..dragging me around the living room by my ankles.” Terri in the story always tells the reader the detail location information.

           The last point of view is psychological point of view. Psychological point of view can be seen through characters’ behavior and mental process. In this case, all the characters have the same idea in their mind and it’s about love. One of them used word “thought” to deliver their uncertainty ideas about love. For example, “Mel thought real love was nothing less than spiritual love. Terri also feel angry and disbelief while telling story about her ex-husband. Terry may hate her husband after she was beaten but she honestly said if that was love. Even after her friends said if that was not over, she still forced her idea if that was love.

           In short, the result of transitivity analysis of ‘What We Talk about when We Talk about Love’ contains of 216 transitivity process and divided into 36,6% of material process which, 24% of verbal process, 15,75 relational process,  14, 35 % of mental process, 7% of behavioural process and 2, 31 % of existential process. Then, the point of view is homodigietic first person point of view that has located expressions and attenuated focalisation. It also consists of temporal, spatial, and psychological plane point of view.