A TRANSITIVITY ANALYSIS OF THE NEW NIGERIAN NEWSPAPER EDITORIAL COLUMN

Abstract

This paper seeks to employ a theoretical framework for the study of transitivity as a model of discourse analysis. Its uses M.A.K. Halliday’s systemic functional grammar as a framework to analyse the Language use in media. The aim of this paper is to investigate the educational relationship existing between verbs and participants in the editorial column of the Guardian Newspaper. Secondary source was used in collecting the data of the study is extracted from the columns of selected newspapers and simple descriptive method were used in analysing the data for the paper., with a table that contains that’s the frequencies and percentages to showing process is more employed in the editorial column of the paper. It was found that material process (processes of doing) was mostly frequently used in the newspapers’ column, while verbal process is the least process type. The paper concluded that ideational metafunction helps the reader to understand the intention and the message of the newspapers column are trying to pass.