Transitivity of Discourse Functionality: Letters-to-the-Editor

The study aims to investigate the discoursal value of functionality of transitivity of letters-to-the- ditor. It sheds light on the function of transitivity and its variants in the act of communication. Letters-to- theeditor is a linguistic case in which the letter writer expresses a specific type of mode related to previous issue that needs to be well interpreted by the editor as well as the third reader. To convey the communicative value of transitivity utilised in letters-to-the-editor of The Times, the study adopts Halliday‟s Systemic Functional Grammar (henceforth SFG) to present a statistic of ransitivity processes. The analysis requires Critical Discourse Analysis (henceforth CDA) since letters-to-the- editor is one of newspaper genra. The study presents some conclusions which reflect the communicative value of transitivity of letters-to-the-editor. The discourse functions of transitivity processes realised in the selected samples of letters-to-the-editor are variant, depending on the ideological significance, social power and text type.