الفهرس 
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Abstract
Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) is a theory of language centering on the notion of language function. Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday (often M.A.K. Halliday), (born 13 April 1925, Leeds, Yorkshire, England) is a British linguist who developed the internationally influential Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) model of language, sometimes known as Systemic Functional Grammar . While SFL accounts for the syntactic structure of language, it places the function of language as central (what language does, and how it does it), in preference to the structural approaches, which place the elements of language and their combinations as central. SFL starts at the social context, and looks at how language both acts upon, and is constrained by this social context.
Transitivity is concerned with construing one particular domain of people’s experience of the world as a process configurations of some general type: material, mental, relational. The participants involved in it are Actor, Goal; Senser, Phenomenon; Carrier, Attribute; and so on. In addition, circumstances are expressing Cause, Location, Manner (including means and instrument), Accompaniment, and so on.
The three types of variables in the transitivity system then are:
(i) The type of process
(ii) The type of participation in process
(iii) The type of circumstance
(i) The type of process has primary options which are ’material/ mental/ verbal/ relational’. The transitivity system is motivated by criteria (i) ’from above’, (ii) ’from below’, and (iii) ’from around’. There are intermediate categories for the main process types. They are: behavioural and existential processes.
(ii) The second major variable is the mode of participation in the process. It is about how participants affect one another through their involvement in a process.
(iii) The type of circumstance is used in any text or speech to add information about time (when), location (where), manner (how), and reason/cause (why, for what/who) to the context in which they occur. They can be probed with where, why, how, and when.
Significance of the present research originates from a number of reasons:
1- Analysing the transitivity system of two Arabic novels and their English versions according to the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) Theory.
2- Studying the results of the analysis and trying to link them to the socio-cultural context of their usage.
3- Helping linguists, writers or translators to understand the role of language in amusing, educating and relating people to the society to which they belong to through literature.
Hence, the Linguistic data chosen for the analysis in the present study are two literary novels written in Arabic. One of them is ”الأيام” i.e. ”The Days” belonging to the recount genre written by Taha Hussein (an autobiography), and the second is رحلة ابن فطومة”” – ”The journey of Ibn Fattouma” – belonging to the adventure genre written by Naguib Mahfouz (a biography). Being two masterpieces in Arabic literature, the researcher has chosen them for the analysis along with their English versions which are translated by prominent figures/authors and published at the American University in Cairo Press.
”الأيام ” or ”The Days”, written in three separate parts, was translated into English by three different translators and compiled in one whole text titled: ”The Days, his autobiography in three parts” of 406 pages published at The American University in Cairo Press in 2001.
EH Paxton translated the first part titled ”An Egyptian childhood’. The Second part ”The Stream of Days” was translated by Hilary Wayment. Kenneth Cragg translated the third part titled ”A Passage to France”.
رحلة ابن فطومة”” was written by Naguib Mahfouz in 1983. It was translated into English as ”The Journey of Ibn Fattouma” in 148 pages by Denys Johnson-Davies at The American University in Cairo Press in 1992.
Steps followed in the present study are:
1. Analysing the discourse of literary texts in the Arabic language and their English versions according to the transitivity system within the framework of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics Theory.
2. Relating the results of the analysis to the context of situation and the context of the culture of each language.
3. Having a conclusion of the results of the comparison between the Arabic literary texts and their English versions according to the transitivity system to find out essential similarities and differences between Arabic and English languages.
Pointing out the similarities or differences between Arabic and English languages so that linguists, writers or translators can benefit from these remarks in their work