Decoding Meaning through Language Choices: A Systemic Functional Analysis of Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s Poem “Captivity”

Abstract

This paper analyzes the poetic meaning in a literary text by scrutinizing it through the three metafunctions of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The data selected for this study from Faiz Ahmad Faiz's poem ‘Captivity’ (متاع لوح و قلم چھن گئی تو کیا غم ہے ) translated into English by Daud Kamal (1984). The main objective of this study is to identify the functional elements within the “Captivity” poem. A lexico-grammatical method known as "transitivity" was used to explore the applicability of the Systemic Functional Grammar promoted by famous linguist M.A. K. Halliday. The theory establishes the view of the functionality of linguistic phenomena in the pieces of literature. The poem's analysis involved three primary functional methods within the theory: Ideational, Interpersonal, and Textual analysis. In the first category, Transitivity includes the material process, which illustrates the happening and doing process. The second interpersonal element, maintaining social relations, indicates the roles of the participants in communication. Finally, the Textual meaning makes a text into a text, such as thematic structure, information structure, and cohesion. This study indicated that elements of the material process have been found eight times in this poem compared to other metafunctions of language. The result showed that the verbs “does matter, been snatched, have dipped, does matter, have been selected, have put” belong to the material process, goals and actors are central participants of the material process and circumstance of the material process are categorized into place and location elements. This study revealed that employing SFL to analyze literary texts has introduced new perspectives to researchers and suggested potential avenues for future studies in literary works.