AN ANALYSIS OF A NARRATIVE TEXT PROVIDED ON STUDENTS’ TEXTBOOK

IN SFL PERSPECTIVE
Submitted as a partial fulfillment of the assignments of Systemic Functional Linguistics
   

Lectures:
Wawan Gunawan, M.Ed.St., Ph.D.

 
 

 
Written by:

Agus Syahiddin
2105243

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM

FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE EDUCATION
UNIVERSITAS PENDIDIKAN INDONESIA
2021
1. Introduction
Students are encouraged to enhance their abilities and inventiveness to assist the
advancement of Indonesian education and the global economy in the fourth industrial
revolution, often known as industry 4.0. (Pentury, Anggraeni, & Pratama, 2020). The
development of students' reading abilities is one of the measures to assist that advancement.
Literacy, according to Suryandari, Sajidan, Rahardjo, Prasetyo, and Fatimah (2016), is
thought to improve the quality of human resources, particularly in the field of education,
which has the biggest influence on the nation's success as a way of achieving skills in 21st
century learning. Furthermore, he noted that the Ministry of Education and Culture has
increased the National Literacy Movement since 2016 in order to develop a literacy culture,
particularly in the field of education. The literacy culture in question is a reading and writing
culture that is intended to increase the quality of human resources (p. 345).
Learning English, both oral and written, is one technique to improve culture literacy that
is related to English learning. Students must study through text types (or genres) such as
descriptive, narrative, process, recount, report exposition, discussion, and explanation in order
to engage and accomplish the social goals of learning English at school and in the community
(Derewianka, 2011; Potradinata, 2018). As a result, the teachers’ plays a critical role in the
development of students' literacy through text. In this context is a narrative text, that has
complications or problematic situations and attempts to resolve them. The narrative mode, or
the collection of procedures used to tell the narrative through process narration, is an
important aspect of narrative text.
Texts are significant instructional tools as they are employed in teaching resources in
classrooms and play a vital role in language learning. Recount, Report, Exposition,
Discussion, Narrative, and Descriptive texts are examples of different genres of texts (Christie
& Derewianka, 2010; Knapp & Watkins, 2005; Emilia, 2011). Furthermore, because the
Educational Unit Curriculum (KTSP) 2006 requires students to comprehend Narrative text,
and textbooks used for educational purposes should orient towards the National Curriculum,
an English textbook used to teach the learning process should provide a proper example of
Narrative text.
As a result, to determine the quality of language content in textbooks, narrative texts may
be studied using the experiential metafunction in the Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL)
framework, which looks at how language is used to construct meaning in social situations
(Halliday, 2004). SFL, particularly the Transitivity system, is used to examine narrative texts
because it considers language not just as a collection of rules but also as a resource for
creating and trading systems of meaning (Halliday, 2004; Eggins, 2004). The purpose of this
study is to apply the SFL approach to assess a narrative text in selected English textbooks
published by Cambridge press. This study purposed to analyse if the text meets certain criteria
of a narrative text in terms of social aim, schematic organization, linguistic qualities, and also
its multimodality.
2. Theoretical Framework
2.1. Narrative Text
A narrative text is a sort of text that tells the story of a set of events that occurred in the
life of a person or a character (Knapp & Watkins, 2005; Gerot & Wignell, 1994). A human,
animal, plant, or thing can be the lead character (Christie & Derewianka, 2010; Knapp &
Watkins, 2005; Emilia, 2011). Its goals are to entertain, to hold the reader's or listener's
attention, to convey a lesson, and to investigate social and moral ideals (Gerot & Wignell,
1994; Emilia, 2004). The narrative text's basic structure is direction, intricacy, and resolution
(Gerot & Wignell, 1994; Knapp & Watkins, 2015). The following are some linguistic
characteristics of narrative texts (derived from Emilia, 2004; Primary National Strategy;
Knapp & Watkins, 2015; p. 321; Gerot & Wignel, 1994, p.16):
a. The tale is written in the first or third person (I, us) (she, he, and they).
b. The verbs are all in the past tense. For instance, a guy and his kid went deer hunting in
the bush one day.
c. Order of events (plot or content have a chronology of events that happened in a
particular order). So that it is chronologically arranged and uses temporal connectives;
once upon a time, then, finally. Connectives are commonly employed to advance the
plot and impact the reader.
d. The main characters are identifiable people who are typically unique and particular.
e. Material, linguistic, and mental processes are the most common in this type of
literature. Because some processes appear in narrative texts, the transitivity system is
utilized to analyze the processes that appear in the text.
There are six types of processes in the transitivity system (Halliday, 2004; Eggins, 2004;
Emilia, 2014). Material, mental, linguistic, relational, behavioral, and existential processes are
among them. Each of these categories is distinct and has its own syntax. Each process in the
transitivity system is made up of three main elements: process, participant, and situation
(Halliday, 2004; Eggins, 2004; Emilia, 2014). Here's an example of a process:
Process:
Process: relational
Carrier attribute doing goal
attributive
material
The expenses, radio my expedition for
Was intended to cover to record
grant training, and kit BBC Radio 4.

2.2. Genre
Some experts try to express their point of view on text and genre. According to
Halliday and Hasan in Butt (2006, p.3), a text is a 'functional language' piece of language
 in use. It also has a well-balanced collection of meanings that matches the context. The
texture and structure of a text are both impacted by its function. A text always occurs in
two contexts, according to Butt (2006, p.3) and Eggins (2006, p.3) (1994, p.30). They are
the cultural and situational contexts, which are separated into three categories: Field,
Tenor, and Mode (Butt, 2006, p.5) and Field, Tenor, and Mode (Butt, 2006, p.5) (Eggins,
1994, p.52).
The key link between context and language, according to Butt (2006, p.6-7), is
that extralinguistic contexts (culture and scenario settings) are realized in our language's
content level (Semantics and Lexico-grammar), and the content is given shape in the
expression.
Register and Genre are text types connected to genre, according to Butt (2006,
p.8). There are a few different points of view on genre, especially those offered by Butt
and Martin. Martin offers two definitions, both of which are useful:
a. Genres are used to attain goals when language is used to do them (1985b, p.248).
b. A genre is a pre-planned, goal-oriented activity in which speakers engage as
cultural participants (1984, p.25). According to Martin in Eggins (1994, p.36), the
reason genres have phases is that we can't always make all of the meanings we
want at once. According to Eggins, the main stages of a genre are a Beginning, a
Middle, and an End in the most generic terms (1994, p.37).
Eggins, on the other hand, talks about genre and register in the context of
language (1994, p.34-35) that the context of culture (genre) is more abstract, more
universal, than the context of circumstance (register); that genres are realized (encoded)
through language; and that the reality of register is mediated by the realization of genres
in language.
2.3. SFL
Halliday created a language method called systemic functional linguistics
(Christie, 2012; Halliday, 1985; Haliday & Matthiessen, 2004; Martin, Rose, & David
2008). In addition, Halliday (1994) discussed language as a source of meaning from two
different viewpoints. First, any natural language, including the system of conjunction,
person, number, voice, or Theme, is believed to be systemic because it provides
alternatives for constructing meaning. According to Jewitt, Bezemer, and 0'Halloran
(2016), it is preferable to educate about things in terms of options rather than prescriptive
rules. Second, every natural language is said to be functional since it developed to meet
basic human requirements, such as the identification of functions for meaning. As a
result, learning a language teaches us how to form and organize our sense of experience
and knowledge of the world, as well as how to manage connections with others (Emilia,
2014).
 As a result, according to Halliday (2002), meanings that have developed to satisfy
basic human needs are articulated in terms of metafunctions, which are ideational,
interpersonal, and textual in a systemic functional linguistic (SFL) viewpoint. The
ideational metafunction is the use of language to comprehend or communicate human
perceptions of the world and consciousness. While interpersonal metafunction refers to
the use of language to allow people to take on roles in communicative acts, such as
understanding and expressing attitudes, judgments, and feelings, interpersonal
metafunction refers to the use of language to enable people to take on roles in
communicative acts, such as understanding and expressing attitudes, judgments, and
feelings. Furthermore, textual metafunction refers to the use of language to arrange a text
and connect its content to other linguistic activities (Bloor & Bloor, 2004; Sihura, 2019).
To put it another way, it has to do with the way text is put together. Because the textual
metafunction is the only subject of this investigation, it will be examined in further depth
as follows.
2.3.1. Metafunction
The interpersonal metafunction, the ideational or experiential metafunction, and
the textual metafunction are the three general functions of language, according to SFL
theory. These three metafunction perspectives will have an impact on how texts
achieve their social objectives.
2.3.1.1. Interpersonal Metafunction
The interpersonal metafunction is concerned with the connection depicted in the
text. The general structure of each text will change owing to the purpose of the text,
and the language elements of the text will differ due to the text's distinct register. It
signifies that the tenor, field, and style of the text altered depending on the occasion
(Derewianka, 1990). The connection and roles of the individuals in the text will
determine the tone of the text. If the writer and reader are not personally acquainted,
the neutral tone, which depicts formality and lack of expression of personal
sentiments and emotion, can be seen in written discourse such as narrative text. When
students write a text describing their holiday experience for their friends to read, the
use of personal pronouns, as well as expressions of personal sentiments and emotion,
may be detected in the text. The text's field deals with a scenario, which refers to
what's going on and the circumstances in which it's happening, and the text's mode
relates to the communication channel utilized by the players. It refers to the distance
between the speaker and the listener or the writer and the reader, as well as the
amount to which the language follows the action.
Interpersonal metafunction also deals with the providing – demanding knowledge
and demanding products and services – objectives of communicative interaction.
Because narrative texts are part of written speech, the phrases employed in them are
 often declarative in nature. The subject and the finite, which are used to form the
Mood of a clause, may also be used to examine the phrase in the narrative text.
2.3.1.2. Experiental Metafunction
The experiential metafunction deals with the sentence as a representation via a
transitivity structure (Gerot & Wignell, 1994), which has three primary parts:
situation, participant, and processes. It is used to communicate feelings, ideas, and
thoughts, as well as participants in a certain situation. Narrative focuses on action and
reaction because it is mostly about occurrences. In narrative text, there are five
primary methods that are employed. First, it concerns with material processes since
physical actions, such as entering, toss, go, saw, and so on, are contained in text. As a
result, the participant takes on the role of a process actor. Other elements can play the
roles of situation and objective, as well as the item that is impacted by the process. As
it narrates people's involvement with their brain and senses, narrative text is likewise
concerned with mental process. In actuality, this is a cognitive process including
thinking and knowing, a perceptual process involving seeing and watching, and a
feeling/affect process involving desiring and liking. The participant is referred to as
the Senser, who is the process's doer, and the other participants are referred to as a
nominal group or sentence that conveys what is felt, thought, or experienced.
We frequently encounter verbal process in narrative texts because the speaker or
writer frequently cites, quotes, or explicitly states something. Two different clauses
realize these: the projecting clause encodes a signal source (Sayer) and signaling
(Verbal Process), while the other (projected clauses) realizes what was said (Gerot &
Wignell, 1994). Narrative is a declarative procedure, but it also has a relational
component. It refers to the processes that form an identity, as well as the processes
that assign a quality, which are referred to as Attributive processes. Participants are
referred to as carier, token, or value. There is also a potential of ergativity appearing
in the narrative text in terms of transitivity structure. For instance, the term expands.
It might be used in the phrases "I grew some flowers" and "I grew some flowers." "It
grew in my backyard," says the narrator. The verb requires a direct object in the first
phrase, which is a transitive form, then it becomes intransitive in the second. It might
be found in practice and analyzed utilizing material process for further elaboration.
2.3.1.3. Textual Metafunction
The structure of theme and rheme is used in the idea of literary metafunction. The
term theme refers to a formal category of a starting point of speech, or a 'point of
departure,' as Halliday puts it. In general, theme does not necessarily relate to the
topic of a sentence, but rather to the sentence's left-most essential part. In addition,
the topic is specified in declarative and non-declarative clauses, clarifying why the
subject is not necessarily the theme of every phrase. The subject, thematization, and
staging are frequently used to determine the sequence in which information is
 acquired. Conjunction is also significant since it shows a logical link between certain
sentences in the text. If the conjunction 'because' is missing, the statement will be
incorrect. Its main goal is to demonstrate the logical link between these two phrases
in terms of consequence and rationale. Conjunctive adverbial like; however,
therefore, alternatively, as a result, and other adjectivals illustrate how the sentence
fits within the broader unit. Because narrative is about sequence, the conjunctive
adjuncts in the text play an important part in keeping the tale together. The usage of
then, after that, next, and so on are instances of conjunctive adjuncts in sustaining the
ordered occurrences.
2.3.2. Context of Situation
The context of situation, according to Halliday and Edward (1994:109), is the
context in which the text comes to life. This is a well-established linguistic idea that
dates back at least to Wegener (1885). Molinowski's notions were further developed
and made explicit by Firth (1957.182), who maintained that the context of situation
was not to be interpreted in concrete terms as a sort of audiovisual record of the
surrounding 'props,' but was, rather, an abstract representation of the environment in
terms of certain general categories having relevance to the text. During the process of
speaking or writing, the context of the scenario may be very different from what is
happening on around you.
If the scenario is to be included in a broad sociolinguistic theory, it must be
represented in even more abstract terms, and it must be conceived of not as a situation
but as a situation as type, in the sense of what Bernstein refers to as a 'social context.'
This is a semiotic structure in essence. The culture is made up of a constellation of
meanings derived from the semiotics system.
If it is true that a listener, with the correct information, may make reasonable
assumptions about what the speaker means – and this appears to be an essential
assumption given that communication occurs – then the 'right information' is what we
refer to as the social context. It is made up of the situation's general qualities that
operate as text determinants in the sense that they indicate the semantic
configurations that the speaker would normally create in the context of the given type.
Such information, on the other hand, is related not just 'downward' to the text, but
also upward to the language system and the social system. We understand a certain
scenario type, or social context, as semiotic structure because the situation is a
theoretical socio-linguistic construct. A scenario type's semiotic structure may be
depicted as a three-dimensional complex: the continuing social action, referred to as
field, the role connections involved, referred to as tenor, and the symbolic or
rhetorical channel, referred to as mode. The field also refers to the social action in
which the text is immersed, and it contains subject-matter as a distinct manifestation.
The tone is the set of role connections among the relevant participants, which
includes, for example, the amount of formality. The mode is the chosen channel or
wavelength, which is simply the role given to language in the overall structure of the
situation; it also includes the medium (spoken or written), which is explained as a
functional variable.
Field, tenor, and mode aren't only components of the speech context; they're also
not types of language usage. They are a conceptual framework for describing the
social context as a semiotic environment in which individuals exchange meanings.
Given a sufficient definition of the context's semiotic qualities in terms of field, tenor,
and mode. It should be able to make reasonable predictions about the semantic
features of the text with which it is connected. This, however, necessitates a level of
abstraction—some notion of text diversity, or register. Both the scenario and the
register associated with it can be characterized to varied degrees of clarity;
nonetheless, the presence of register is a daily truth, as are combinations of
alternatives that are at risk under certain environmental conditions. Because these
options are achieved through grammar and vocabulary, the register may be identified
as a certain set of words and structures. However, it is defined in terms of meanings;
it is not a collection of traditional modes of expression superimposed on some
underlying content by various 'social variables.' The variety to which a text belongs is
determined by the selection of meanings.
Meanwhile, according to Martin (1994:498), a register is the collection of
semantic resources that a culture member links with a circumstance type. It's the
amount of significance that may be accessed in a particular social situation. This
definition corresponds to what Halliday (1978:111) referred to as situation context –
probably the same thing as situation (non-linguistic phenomena). There must be a
context or co-text to properly appreciate a text as a product of social interactions.
Context is defined by Mallinowski (1923) in Halliday and Hasan (1989:9) as the
words and phrases before and following the statement under consideration. He also
defines context as a whole setting that includes not only verbal but also nonverbal
situations in which the text was stated. Later on, he proposed the two concepts of
situational context and cultural context
In order for a text or speech to be understandable, Halliday and Hasan (1985:12)
categorized it into three ideas. These three aspects of the text context were dubbed
field, tenor, and mode. To begin with, field refers to what is now taking place, the
nature of the social action that is taking place. Second, tenor relates to who is
participating, as well as the kind, position, and functions of the players. The last mode
refers to the role of language in the circumstance, namely what the players want the
language to perform for them.
The connection between the text and the situation's context is critical. Every text
has its own context. The three aspects of the context of circumstances, such as field,
tenor, and mode, can be used to describe the unique context. As a result, the field is
represented in terms of experienced meaning. In semantics, the tenor is
communicated through the interpersonal function, while the mode is expressed
through the textual function.
3. Method
This study employed a qualitative approach that included document analysis. Narrative
texts produced from two selected English textbooks used by eighth grade students were the
focus of this study. The study's main focus is on examining narrative passages from two
different English textbooks. Three narrative passages from each textbook were studied using
the SFL framework in order to determine their social aim, schematic organization, and
linguistic characteristics.
4. Findings and Discussion
This section will show the results of the model text analysis, which will include genre,
field, and ideational metafunction analysis, tenor and interpersonal metafunction analysis,
mode and textual metafunction analysis, and clause complex analysis. In addition, some
discussion of the pedagogical implications as a result of the model text quality will be
included in this part.
4.1. Genre of Text
The genre analysis results in the model text "Survival on the Mano River" will begin with
a description of the social purpose, social location, schematic structure, and a brief
explanation of the content of each of the structures. The social objective of this tale is to
delight readers by chronicling the narrator's fantasy voyage to explore the Mano River,
which was supported by a Royal Geographical Society grant. In terms of social setting, this
narrative is regarded a short story because it is just eight clauses long and may be found in
a variety of reading materials such as student's books, magazines, and so on.
4.1.1.
4.2. Context of Situation
4.3. Multimodality

5. Conclusion