Stylistics routledge English Language Introductions

Activity
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it can help distinguish the two characters through the sorts of actions they
perform. In a sense, the question helps differentiate who 
does
from who
thinks
.
(b)
A related issue in transitivity analysis concerns the success or failure of a
semantic process. It is common for narrative description to indicate that 
a character 
attempts
to carry out a process, but that the process either fails,
or ends up being self-directed. In a self-directed material process, for
example, the Actor and Goal become the same entity. Notice how in example
(4b) from 
Cal
, the process attributed to Cal as Actor is not only self-directed
(‘He moved his mouth to smile’) but it fails as well (‘the muscles of his face
would not respond . . .’).
(c)
Look again at the Mills and Boon passage exploring the issues raised in 
(a) and (b). Is it true to say that its romantic heroine is portrayed as
‘helpless’? And if so, is the portrayal of a female central character in this way
sexist?
Passage C
:
(a)
The framing question set out for passage B obviously works better for
material processes which express action than it does for relational processes
which represent states of being. Not much seems to happen by way of
physical action in the passage from 
Dracula
and you may have found this
passage more difficult to analyse for this reason. However, transitivity still
has an important part to play even in heavily descriptive passages like text C.
Furthermore, relational processes, of which there are many in C, are very
much tied up with the sense of stasis in the scene and with the image of
inertia and repletion which is attributed to the vampire.
(b)
In the light of the observations in (a), look again at the relational processes
in C. Remember, this process type is not just coded through the verb ‘to be’
but through a variety of intensive verbs like ‘seem’, ‘appear’, ‘become’ and so
on. The participant roles for these processes include the elements Carrier and
Attribute. What sort of entities make up the Carrier element and what sort
of descriptions (Attributes) are attributed to them? Does the pattern you
uncover give the impression of the Count as a whole being, or is his portrayal
delivered in a more corporeally fragmented way?
(c)
While transitivity is undoubtedly an important feature of style, it forms only