Narration of Sexual Harassment in Maheen Usmani’s “The Mercurial Mr. Bhutto and Other Stories”: A Transitivity Analysis

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to focus on the portrayal of child sexual harassment experiences in the chapter "Baby" of the book "The Mercurial Mr. Bhutto and Other Stories" using transitivity processes and their components in order to provide a descriptive understanding of the narrative. Child Sexual behavior is directed against a child when inappropriate or coercive usually before the age of consent, it can cause physical and psychological harm. The methodology comprised a qualitative investigation by manually applying Halliday's Transitivity Analysis to examine the Process, Participants, and Circumstantial Elements of each clause following a descriptive analysis. The result reveals that the most used Transitivity Processes, Participants, and Circumstantial Elements are Material, Goal, and Location. Using this research as a paradigm, future research in literature should investigate transitivity analysis for more understanding of sexual harassment narratives. To sum up, this study closes a significant research gap by using transitivity analysis to offer a descriptive comprehension of the narrative of sexual harassment.