Identity Formation Through Verbal Processes in Toni Morrison's "Beloved"

تشكيل الشخصية من خلال الأفعال في رواية "بِلُڤد" لطوني موريسون

Abstract

Socially shared beliefs and ideas, known as "ideology," are not limited to particular sorts of texts, such as news, political speeches and/or debates, or even commercial advertisements; they may be found in all forms of texts, literary or non-literary. Throughout history, literature has become one of the most potent means used by writers to express a majestic, rhetorical message or idea to audiences. The current study uses a literary text sourced from the fictional novel "Beloved". Despite the fact that "Beloved" was written by one of today's most notable fiction writers, Toni Morrison, only a few studies have tackled her novels from a linguistic standpoint. Based on that, the current study seeks to investigate how the use of linguistic resources, particularly verbs, contributes to the construction of the identity of the main character, 'Sethe'. Informed by Simpson's (2004) model of transitivity, the study in hand employed one of Jeffries' (2010) TCFs of critical stylistics, namely 'Representing Actions/Events/States', to analyze the data. The study concluded that different pictures were drawn for the character under scrutiny. It is also found that the linguistic context in which a process is produced is as crucial as the frequency and type of the process and its respective participants in constructing Sethe's identity.