Ideation: Construing Experiential Organization

In traditional grammar, the term Transitivity is most familiar to us as a way of classifying verbs according to whether they can be followed by objects. In SFL, however, the term is used in a much broader sense. One major sub-system of Transitivity is that of PROCESS TYPE, which is encoded at the clause rank. A process can be analyzed from three perspectives. Looked at from above, a clause construes a happening, acting, sensing, being, etc., which is related outwardly to the natural world inside and around us. Looked at from below, a clause may be characterized as a structural configuration which consists of, for example, Actor + Process + Goal. This perspective relates the clause inwardly to its linguistic realization. Looked at from around, a clause may be the entry condition to a number of other process types. This is closely related to the phenomenon of projection, which, as was mentioned previously, is either quoting or reporting speech or thought (e.g. We suggest that…, The analysis indicates that…). Usually we find that projection is possible only with verbal and mental processes. Verbal and mental clauses are the most common types of projecting clauses.