Basnet 1

Aashish Basnet

Instructor: Ram Chandra Paudel

Critical Stylistics 557

January 16, 2015

Transitivity in The Ugly Duckling.

The Ugly Duckling by Christian Hans Andersen (1805-1875) - a Danish writer shows

famous tale; of a scorned ugly duckling, who runs away from home, spends a miserable winter in

a marsh, and in spring becomes a graceful swan. The tale goes through a rapid transitivity

process. "Hallidayan model of language for unearthing textual ideologies is his version of

transitivity" (39). Transitivity in Anderson's text The Ugly Duckling is evident as the ugly

duckling goes from one place to another creating events to attain his goal, with ideologically

loaded language. The present paper deals with the transitivity in Anderson's text The Ugly

Duckling as the ugly duckling goes from one place to another creating events to attain his goal.

"Clauses represent events and processes of various kinds, and transitivity aims to make

clear how the action is performed, by whom and on what. Transitivity is an important and

powerful semantic concept in Halliday" (Hoa Pham 2). In The ugly duckling "the large egg

broke…It was very large and ugly" (2). In this line we can see the actor as the duckling and the

goal is to break the egg. “Let him alone,” said the mother; “he is not doing any harm” (2). The

verb 'doing' represents the action of the actor duckling abstractly as not harmful. "the task of

functional analysis, particularly transitivity analysis, is to discover the relation between meanings

and wordings that accounts for the organization of linguistic features in a text" (Hoa Pham 2).

Furthermore, In lines like, "Yes, but he is so big and ugly… and therefore he must be

turned out" (3). "he was so ugly and laughed at by the whole farmyard" (3). "So he closed his
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eyes, and flew still farther, until he came out on a large moor, inhabited by wild ducks" (4). The

poor duckling is made fun because of being so ugly, bitten and pushed. Brothers and sisters are

unkind to him, mother wishes he had never been born. Miserable for being ugly and laughed by

the whole farmyard, duckling goes to a large moor, inhabited by wild ducks, remains the whole

night, tired and sorrowful. In the text we can see how the ugly duckling leaves the farmyard

designating the material action process of transitivirt. Moreover, Material actions are the most

prototypical verb, referring to something that is done or happens, often in a physical way, but

also in more abstract ways […]" (39).

"Language can be considered as human representation of the world or reality"

(Caili111). "language represents the world inside the human beings as well as the world around

them" (Caili111). In The ugly duckling because the duckling is ugly he is turned out. The text

The ugly duckling unveils the ideology of how ugliness is avoided, through the form of language

in the text The ugly duckling. As Halliday notes in Towards a Language-Based Theory of

Learning,

The distinctive characteristic of human learning is that it is a process of making

meaning-a semiotic process; and the prototypical form of human semiotic is

language. Hence the ontogenesis of language is at the same time the ontogenesis

of learning. (93)

Meanwhile, After two days on the moor two wild geese come and suggest him to become a bird

of passage to another moor, where there are some pretty wild geese, all unmarried, there's a

chance for him to be lucky, as ugly as he is. The two wild geese die. A large dog passes by but

does not kill him, ugly duckling analyses it as, being an ugly duckling even the dog does not

want to bite him and hastens from the moor. This hastening of duckling away from the moor is
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the next transitivity. "Transitivity specifies the different types of processes that are recognized in

the language and the structures by which they are expressed" (3). The ugly duckling because of

being ugly the two wild geese say to him that there's a chance for him as ugly as he is. There is a

hidden ideology of writer i.e. ugly people do not get married. "Using transitivity analysis,

researchers have tried to reveal that language structures can produce certain meanings and

ideology which are not always explicit for readers" (Hoa Pham 2).

Meanwhile, In evening duckling reaches to a cottage due to violent storm. A women, a

hen and a Tom cat live in the cottage. Duckling is kept by the women in the cottage to have some

duck's egg but on trial for three weeks duckling lays no eggs. The ugly duckling wanted to swim

on the water but sharing it with hen the hen suggests him rather to lay eggs and learn to purr as

quickly as possible. So, hen suggests the duckling to hold tongue. Here the event is reaching the

cottage. The hen suggesting the duckling either to learn how to lay eggs or learn how to purr

suggests material action to be done by duckling, which is impossible because a duckling cannot

lay egg or purr, it can swim. As Pham notes that, "Material processes of transitivity are processes

of doing, usually physical and tangible actions. Halliday calls them action clauses expressing the

fact that something or someone undertakes some action or some entity “does” something – which

may be done to some other entity" (3). The ideology loaded here is that every material has its

own action and most often humans want animal in their farm that can help attain their goal.

Furthermore, in Transitivity the mental process can be classified into three categories,

"cognition, perception and affection, mental processes, internalized and consciousness type, are

concerned with participants labeled as Sensor and Phenomenon" (3). In The ugly duckling the

duckling through mental process believes that he must go out into the world. Winter is outside

which is sad to the poor duckling. Even this feeling of sadness to the ugly duckling is concerned
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with Sensor and Phenomenon: Mental Process. One evening he sees a large flock of beautiful

swans. The ugly duckling felt a quite strange sensation as he watched them. Duckling stretched

out its neck towards them. Stretching out of duckling towards them is a form of transitivity as

Hoa Pham notes, "Behavioral Process The behavioral Process standing between material and

mental processes relate the physiological and psychological behaviors such as ‘breathing;

coughing; smiling; dreaming; and staring" (3). He was envious about this beautiful creatures but

wished to be as lovely as they. The beautiful swans flew away to warmer region. The winter

grew colder and colder. The space where he swam became smaller and smaller, where he lay

helpless frozen fast in the ice. The hidden ideology here is that ugly thing cannot hold beauty like

the swans fly away from duckling. As Farzaneh Haratyan in Halliday’s SFL and Social Meaning

notes:

Transitivity with inter-related options to represent different types of process or

experience investigated from above, below, and around consists of process,

participant with different labels such as Actor, Goal; Senser, Phenomenon;

Carrier, Attribute; and circumstance including Cause, Location, Manner, Means

and Instrument.

Early morning the peasant passing by breaks the ice in pieces with his wooden shoes, and

carried ugly duckling to his wife. Here the actor is the peasant, event is to break the ice and goal

is to carry ugly duckling to his wife. The warmth revived the poor little creature is a mental

process of transitivity. The children wanted to play with him, duckling thought they would do

some harm; so he started up in terror, fluttered into the milk pan, splashed the milk about the

room. "splashed" denotes the transitivity of material action in an intentional or spontaneous

performance externalized and concrete embody an action verb of "splashed", a doer is labeled as
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Actor and optional Goal, affected by the process and circumstance that provides details of the

verb in terms of place, time, manner, condition, etc. The woman clapped her hands, which

frightened him, which is intentional material action in transitivity.

"Duckling flew into the butter-cask, into the meal-tub. The woman screamed, struck at

him the tongs, children laughed, screamed, tumbled, to catch him luckily he escaped" (7). In the

above passage too we can find ducklings material action of flying into the butter, which is

intentional process in transitivity, also the mental processes related to the physiological and

psychological behaviors of children in "laughed, screamed, tumbled," (7). "Poor duckling

endured during the hard winter" (7). Poor duckling enduring in the winter is material action of

duckling presented in the form of mental process. "One morning in a moor, amongst the rushes,

young bird felt that his wings were strong. As he flapped them against his sides, rose high into

the air" (7). Another mental process in transitivity of text is young bird feeling his wings strong

as verbal process of flapping of wings create transitivity. "From a thicket came three beautiful

white swans, duckling remembered the lovely birds and felt strangely unhappy than ever" (7).

Material action of duckling presented in the form of mental process, when he sees the swans.

"He flew to the water, and swam towards the beautiful swans" (7). The ducklings

material action process is flying towards the swans. "The moment they espied the stranger, they

rushed to meet him with outstretched wings" (7). Swans rushing towards the stranger is

intentional process in transitivity, also the mental processes related to the physiological and

psychological behaviors of the swans.

"He saw in the clear stream, his own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and

disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a duck's nest, in a

farmyard" (8). This is the transitivity of the duckling into a beautiful swan with material action
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intervention of his own image. In Halliday's SFL it functions to link grammar to the meta

functions; however, in Halliday’s terms, transitivity as a major component in experiential

function of the clause deals with the “transmission of ideas “representing ‘processes’ or

‘experiences’: actions, events, processes of consciousness and relations”" (2). "It is a semantic

system to analyze representations of reality in a linguistic text and create the same experience

through various lexico-grammatical options influenced by different mind styles or authorial

ideology"(2). Though the ideology here is good things happen at last.

"He felt glad at having suffered sorrow and trouble, great swans swam around the new

corner, and stroked his neck with their beaks, as a welcome" (8). The duckling's mental process

being treated well by the great swans in transitivity of the fairy tale, also the mental processes

related to the physiological and psychological behaviors of the swans. "He felt quite ashamed

and hided his head under his wing; he was so happy, yet not at all proud" (8). The duckling's

mental process being treated well by the great swans in transitivity of the fairy tale, with

ideology that with sorrows and troubles there is maturity. "… never dreamed of such happiness

as this, while I was an ugly duckling" (8). The duckling's mental process being treated well by

the great swans in transitivity of the fairy tale.

Therefore, ugly duckling carries the transitivity of the duckling, leading furthermore to

unveil the plots of the text. Transitivity in Anderson's text The Ugly Duckling is evident as the

ugly duckling goes from one place to another creating events to attain his goal.
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Works Cited

Haratyan, Farzaneh. Halliday’s SFL and Social Meaning. 2nd International Conference on

Humanities, Historical and Social Sciences,Singapore: IACSIT Press, 2011. 1-8.

Jeffries, Lesley. "Representing Actions/Events/States." Critical Stylistics: The Power of English.

Basingstoke [England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Print.

Marshall, Logan, and H. C. Andersen. "The Ugly Duckling." Favorite Fairy Tales. Chicago:

John C. Winston, 1917. Print.

Wang, Caili. "The Process of Transitivity in "Weeping for My Smoking Daughter"." CELEA

Journal, 1 Feb. 2005. Web.