Application of transitive structures in the analysis of the personality type of the characters in the novel Tarlan

Abstract
      Functional linguistics has universal parameters of transitivity, and analytical psychology has introduced psychological types by analyzing the psyche. Considering the transitivity parameters and the archaic nature of psychological types, we seek to analyze the relationship between the psychological types of two characters in novel Tarlan with regard to their "introversion" and "extroversion", the scale of transitivity in the dialogues, and the author's descriptions of the characters. The research question is ‘what role does language play to represent the story characters’ psychology?’. We used the personality typology by Jung and two theories by Hopper and Thompson about the structure and parameters of transitivity. As the data analysis showed, the dominant mental attitude of Tarlan is ‘introvert’ and that of Rana is ‘extrovert’. We then examined the transitivity of the dialogues and clauses of both characters. It was concluded that psychological traits not only shape the person’s disposition, behavior and character but also affect his or her language and how it is used. The clauses of the extroverted characters had higher transitivity, while those of the introverted characters were less transitive in most parameters.
 
Keywords: Psychological type, Transitivity, Structure, Extroversion, Introversion.
 

Introduction

According to the tenets of psychoanalytic criticism, many literary and artistic works are created under the influence of the forces in the artist and writer's unconscious. Great psychoanalysts such as Freud, Jung and their followers have emphasized this issue. By introducing and explaining psychological types, Jung greatly contributed to the understanding of the functions and positions of the human psyche. Based on his typological propositions, one can follow the trend of creating a character in a literary work and thus examine the psychological framework of the characters in literary works, as Jung himself has done it in the book Psychological Types and analyzed examples of the works of Schiller, Nietzsche, etc.
    From this point of view, several important conclusions can be drawn. Firstly, considering the abundance and frequency of the psychological types of the characters in the fiction works of an author, we can understand the level of his ability to characterize and create psychological characteristics. Secondly, based on the frequency of a certain type, the author's bias and partiality towards it, or his distancing from and disgust for another type, the author's own psychological traits can be traced and analyzed in his works. This sheds light on the influence of the author's own psychological type in the creation of a hero or anti-hero character.
 
 

Methodology

The current research is mainly based on the theory that the traces of the psychological type of a certain character can be found in the grammatical construction of the character's utterances and the description that the author has presented about him. As a result, it is possible to see the connection of the character’s language and expressions with his psychological type. Also, if this theory is confirmed, as the basic principle of Jung's psychology claims, not only a person's understanding of the world but also his language and manner of expression are largely influenced by his psychological type and unconscious background.
    This research has been carried out using a library method and a flash drive. A very important interface that makes the present study possible and connects Jung's typological theory to linguistics is the use of linguistic and grammatical bases to prove the psychological nature of characters or, conversely, using typological issues to investigate the grammatical spirit that governs the language of characters. This research seeks to explain the mutual relationship between the psychological type of the characters in a story and the transitivity of their dialogues based on the grammatical types of sentences as well as the linguistic processes that they use. According to Halliday (1994), the analysis of a text that is not based on grammar is not an analysis, but an interpretation of the text. Also, according to Tolan (2007), functional linguistics is the most suitable model of linguistics for the study of literature.
    Therefore, in this study, the point of intersection of these two theories is practically analyzed in the novel Terlan by Fariba Vafi. For this purpose, we chose the two main characters of the novel (Tarlan and Rana) to discover their psychological type and explain its relationship with the transitivity of their dialogues and the author's descriptions of them.
 
 

Results and discussion

The degree of a person’s introversion or extroversion determines the flow of his or her psychological energy. Psychic power is like a river that flows in an extrovert's mind to the outside world without encountering an internal barrier, while an introvert mind prefers to make this river flow in the channels of his inner world.
    Due to the material nature of most transitivity parameters, the rate of transitivity in the language of a character largely depends on the direction of his or her psychic energy (libido). That is, if the direction of the libido or mental energy of someone is towards the outside and material world, transitivity in his language will inevitably increase, but it decreases in proportion with the mental energy spent on introspective ideas and mentalities.
 
 

Conclusion

According to the points discussed, it is concluded that the traces of a character's psychological type can be found not only in the descriptions given by the author but also in the construction of the character’s words and clauses. Transitive constructions make a suitable topic for typological investigations, because traces of the character's psychological tendencies show up during a transitivity system and with regard to the degree of power exerted on the object.
Introversion and extroversion are two pervasive psychological preferences that can be measured with transitivity components; more introverted persons use less transitivity in their sentences, and more extroverted persons use more transitivity. This actually depends on the difference between extroverts and introverts in their preference of subject or object. While introvert people live in the world of their minds and ideas, extrovert ones live in the external and tangible world. This directly affects the qualities of the subject chosen by each type.