A transitivity analysis of Adichie’s Zikora

Literary works serve as an important source of data in doing stylistics studies. The study recognises this as a fact and thus, examined stylistic features in Chimamanda Adichie’s ‘Zikora’. The research notes that the short story has not been accorded much linguistic attention over the years. In doing so, it applies Systemic Functional Linguistics by MAK Halliday as an analytical tool to explore 20 clauses with reference to system networks in general and the transitive system in particular. The study first identified the independent clauses in the text. Subsequently, it randomly chose 20 clauses for the analysis of transitivity patterns. The analysis focuses on participants, process and circumstances in the clauses. The research discovered that the material processes are more frequent than other process types in Adichie’s ‘Zikora’, This choice helped the author in presenting actions of the characters rather than giving a mere narration about what they like or hate.