A Stylistic Study of "The School" by Donald Barthelme

Abstract

Unfolding meanings, aims, purposes, and other targets through the dissection of the language is possible but not trouble-free since the procedure needs an obvious awareness of the structure of the language and a deep insight into the text. This paper tries to analyze "The School", a short story by Donald Barthelme, stylistically by using the transitivity system, which is based on Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), to reach the meanings which lie behind the words. The transitivity system is devised by Michael Halliday (1925-2018 -the British linguist), which consists of several process types. This system can externalize the meanings of the text through its clauses. Thus, the task of the present paper, as it is stated formerly, is to analyze the clauses in the chosen text adapting Halliday's transitivity system to obtain meanings related to the nature of the story. And analyzing the clauses of Barthelme's story, the nature of the story and the meanings are revealed as the study's major findings.