Week 2 · Grammar and Style I: The Clause and Transitivity 小句语法与及物性

Sep 21, 2026 · ← Course home

Planned session. We start climbing the ladder of language at the rung where style does its most visible work: the clause. Systematic grammar is the backbone of stylistic analysis — without it, interpretation has no spine. This week we get comfortable with clause structure and then meet Halliday’s transitivity system: processes, participants and circumstances; material, mental, verbal, relational, behavioural and existential clauses.

The payoff: transitivity is where grammar becomes worldview. Who is agent, who is acted upon, who merely exists — the same scene, cast in different process types, makes the reader see it differently. We test this on short passages of narrative prose.

Key concepts: clause elements; transitivity; process types; participant roles; grammatical vs. lexical choice.

Reading: Simpson Unit A3 “Grammar and Style”, plus B3 for the deeper cut; 刘宓庆《文体与翻译》 opening chapters on layered understanding (概念意义 / 语境意义 / 隐含意义).

Slides and materials will be posted here after class.