Drawing on Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL),
this study scrutinizes the grammar of experiential meaning, one of the
three metafunctions which contribute to the functions of the clause. It
aims at explaining how processes are used to make meaning in the novel
under investigation. Using sampling method, three extracts have been
selected from Toni Morrison’s Paradise. The findings show that material
process has the highest frequency of occurrence in the novel. This implies
that the participants have performed physical, real and tangible actions.
The findings also reveal how Toni Morrison makes her message more
impressive to the readers on the one hand, and how the context can greatly
influence the process types and the interpretation of the literary discourse
on the other.
Keywords: Functional Structuralism, Experiential Meaning, Transitivity,
Process