Gender Matters - Sara Mills

Gender Matters - Sara Mills

5. Transitivity analysis

Gender Matters - Sara Mills

Sara Mills [+-]
Sheffield Hallam University
Sara Mills is a Research Professor in Linguistics at Sheffield Hallam University. Her most recent publications include Gender and Colonial Space (2005, Manchester University Press), Michel Foucault (Critical Thinkers Series, 2003, Routledge), Feminist Post-Colonial Theory: An Anthology (edited with Reina Lewis, 2003, Edinburgh University Press) and Gender and Politeness (2003, Cambridge University Press).

Description

The aim of this essay is to evaluate critically a form of close feminist textual analysis – the analysis of transitivity choices, that is, who does what to whom in a text. Following Deirdre Burton’s influential essay on transitivity, this chapter sets this type of analysis within a wider framework of feminist textual analysis and considers some of the advantages of a close textual analysis in general for feminist work (Burton, 1982). It also considers some of the difficulties which this type of work engenders, and proposes a model of feminist analysis prepared to acknowledge some of the difficulties of attributing straightforward meanings to sets of language items. 

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Citation

Mills, Sara. 5. Transitivity analysis. Gender Matters. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 97 - 114 Feb 2012. ISBN 9781845534967. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=19767. Date accessed: 29 Mar 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.19767. Feb 2012

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