ESTONIAN ACADEMY
PUBLISHERS
eesti teaduste
akadeemia kirjastus
PUBLISHED
SINCE 1997
 
TRAMES cover
TRAMES. A Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences
ISSN 1736-7514 (Electronic)
ISSN 1406-0922 (Print)
Impact Factor (2022): 0.2
CHARACTER CONSTRUCTION IN TRIBUTIVE SONGS: TRANSITIVITY ANALYSIS OF THE SONG “I AM MALALA”; pp. 201–213
PDF | DOI: 10.3176/tr.2016.2.05

Authors
Mehwish Zahoor, Fauzia Janjua
Abstract

The study aimed at analysing the transitivity patterns used in the popular song “I am Malala”. The song is an attempt by the Western media to pay tribute to Malala Yousafzai – a young girl from Pakistan – internationally acknowledged for her advocacy of women’s education. The objective of the study was to analyse the character of Malala as portrayed through an anonymous girl’s voice in the song. Transitivity analysis proposed by M. A. K. Halliday under Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) served as the tool of the study. The results of the study revealed the scope of transitivity analysis in yielding a better understanding of the construction of characters in a “tributive song” composed to pay tribute to important public figures.

References

Azar, A. S. and N. S. Yazdchi (2012) “A stylistic analysis of “Maria” in “Clay”: the character in James Joyce’s short story”. Journal of Basic and Applied Scientific Research 2, 2, 1050–1055.

Bloor, T. and M. Bloor (2004) The functional analysis of English. 2nd ed. London: Arnold.

Fairclough, N. (2003) Analysing discourse: textual analysis for social research. London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

Fowler, R. (1986) Linguistic criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1971) Linguistic function and literary style: an inquiry into the language of William Golding’s The Inheritors. In S. Chatman, ed. Literary style: a symposium, 330–368. New York: Oxford University Press.

Halliday, A. K. (1985) An introduction to functional grammar. London, Melbourne, Auckland: Edward Arnold.

Halliday, M. A. K. (1994) An Introduction to Functional Grammar. (2nd ed.) London: Edward Arnold.

Halliday, M. A. K. and C. M. Matthiessen (2004) An introduction to functional grammar. 3rd ed. London: Arnold.

Haratyan, F. (2011) “Halliday’s SFL and Social Meaning”. 2nd International Conference on Humanities, Historical and Social Sciences. IPEDR vol.17, 260–264. Singapore: IACSIT Press.

I am Malala (official music video/lyrics). Pakium: Pakistani ultimate media. Available online at <http://www.pakium.com/2013/07/14/i-am-malala-official-music-video>. Accessed on 16.05.2016.

Iwamoto, N. (2008) Stylistic and linguistic analysis of a literary text using Systemic Functional Grammar. Available online at <http://human.kanagawa-u.ac.jp/gakkai/publ/pdf/no162/ 16209.pdf>. Accessed on 23.12.2013.

Kennedy, C. (1982) “Systemic grammar and its use in literary analysis2. In R. Carter, ed. Language and literature: aAn introductory reader in stylistics, 82–99. London: George Allen and Unwin.

Kroger, R. O., and L. A. Wood (2000) Doing discourse analysis: method for studying action in talk and text. California: Sage Publications.

Mwinlaaru, I. N. (2012) “Transitivity and narrative viewpoint in Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Weep Not, Child”. In Dora F. Edu-Buandoh and Anita B. Appartaim, eds. Between language and literature: a festschrift for Professor Kofi Edu Yankson, 354–370. Cape Coast: Cape Coast University Press.

Nguyen, T. (2012) “Transitivity analysis of heroic mother by Hoa Pham”. International Journal of English Linguistics 2, 4, 85–100.
http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v2n4p85

Simpson, P. (2004) Stylistics: a resource book for students. New York: Routledge.

Yaghoobi, M. (2009) “A critical discourse analysis of the selected Iranian and American printed media on the representation of Hizbullah-Isreal Wa”r. Journal of Intercultural Communica­tion 21. Available online at <http://www.immi.se/intercultural/nr21/yaghoobi.htm>. Accessed on 16.05.2016.

Back to Issue