A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE REPRESENTATION OF MALE AND FEMALE IN SEFI ATTA’S NOVELSEVERYTHING GOOD WILL COMEAND SWALLOW: A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL APPROACH.

Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) –the broad theory developed by Halliday (1985a)–has emphasised the relevance of language use in context to make three simultaneous meanings known as the interpersonal (realized through mood patterns), the experiential (realized through transitivity patterns) and the textual (realized through theme patterns). In this paper, the focus is on the transitivity choices drawn on by both male and female participants in Sefi Atta’s novels Everything Good Will Come and Swallow. This study is an attempt to investigatethe representation of male and female personae both in their differences and similarities through their selection of process types in various circumstancesin two novels written by the same author.The main objective to be reached here is to show how the comparative study of male’s and female’s experience both in Everything Good Will Come and Swallow elicits the authorial ideology. Before dealing with the practical analysis of transitivity patterns and the interpretation derived from this analysis, the theoretical framework provides an overview of the theory.