Transitivity Analysis of Material Process Ceroboh in the 2013 Lahad Datu Conflict News Report

Authors

  • Norhafizah Mohamed Husin Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 50460 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
  • Asmah Haji Omar Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37052/jb23(1)no4

Abstract

This study is a linguistic analysis of the conflict that occurred in Lahad Datu, Sabah, in 2013, as reported in the news. Using online news archives, this quantitative and qualitative study aims to identify the elements of language that describe the conflict and see if there is a tendency to make different interpretations based on the selected newspaper reports so as to sketch those tendencies. The texts of the Malay-language news reports from four main newspapers - two national newspapers (Utusan Malaysia and Berita Harian) and two local newspapers in Sabah (Utusan Borneo and New Sabah Times - the Malay news section) -were analyzed and the main lexical items were identified. The main lexical items generated using corpus linguistics were then analyzed using the transitivity analysis of the Systemic-Functional Theory by Halliday (1981, 1985). This study found that the use of lexical items produces different interpretations in the newspapers, stemming from their use in the context of clauses and sentences. The differences in interpretation by the different
newspapers can also be seen from the thematic structure of the clause. In conclusion, the application of the Systemic-Functional Theory and the selected transitivity analysis can be used to show the difference in interpretation between the analyzed newspapers.

Keywords: Conflict, clause, transitivity, process, interpretation, ceroboh

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References

Published

2023-04-18