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Language, and Education Studies An Analysis of Ariana GrandeAos Twilight Zone Transitivity Process Friska Dita English Language and Culture Department Faculty of Language Universitas Widya Dharma Pontianak Email: friska_dita@widyadharma.
Abstract The transitivity processes in Ariana GrandeAos song AuTwilight ZoneAy are investigated through the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) framework, which is developed by Halliday and Matthiessen .
The song is recognized for its unclear and reflective lyrics.
To analyze the lyrics, a qualitative descriptive approach is used.
The lyrics are broken down into individual clauses, and each is examined to identify the six types of transitivity processes: material, mental, relational, behavioral, verbal, and existential.
The findings revealed 42 transitivity processes, with relational processes appearing most often, accounting for 40.
48%, mental processes at 30.
95%, and material processes at 14.
Existential processes composed 9.
52%, and behavioral processes accounted for 4.
Notably, verbal processes were not present in the analysis.
The high frequency of relational and mental processes suggests that the song centers on emotional exploration and forming identity.
In contrast, the limited use of processes focuses on external actions or speech, underscoring the songAos dreamy and inward-looking nature.
This research presents that transitivity analysis can reveal the linguistic techniques used in pop music lyrics to convey meaning, emotion, and perspective.
Introduction Popular music is a powerful cultural artifact that entertains and reflects social values, emotional realities, and linguistic creativity.
Studying song lyrics within linguistics provides a lens through which to examine how artists express identity, convey emotion, and structure Lyrical content often mixes storytelling with poetry, making it an excellent area for analyzing how language works.
The Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) approach, created by Halliday, sees language as a way to communicate meaning through social and cultural In SFL, the transitivity system is key, as it shows how different experiences are expressed through various processes (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2.
Looking at transitivity in song lyrics helps experts understand how language expresses feelings, thoughts, and personal This way of studying language and popular culture provides many examples.
When song lyrics are treated as texts, they show how people create and share meaning individually and as a group.
They reveal how humans can use language to express inner feelings, emotional challenges, and complex ideas in short, musical forms.
As music changes with new styles, online sharing, and worldwide reach, the language in songs becomes more complex and meaningful.
From a functional grammar point of view, this is especially clear in pop music that uses strange, symbolic, and emotional language.
Therefore, a linguistically-grounded exploration of contemporary song lyrics, especially those charting on global platforms, contributes to language studies and popular culture scholarship.
Ariana Grande is a well-known singer in today's pop music scene.
She is famous worldwide for her voice, ability to blend different music styles, and the way she writes songs.
Over time, her songwriting has become more emotional and thoughtful, moving from love themes to deeper, more creative ideas.
In March 2025, she released a special version of her Eternal Sunshine album.
Brighter Days Ahead.
This version
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This track caught much attention from critics because it used a different poetic style, full of dreamlike and strange ideas.
Twilight Zone became the most played song on U.
pop radio in April 2025 (Cantor, 2.
and later reached number 18 on the Billboard Hot 100 and 7 on the Global 200 (Billboard.
Rolling Stone .
said that the song continued the emotional story of the album, and its unusual way of writing helped it become popular.
The song also became popular because of its confusing and mysterious sounds and lyrics, which mix dream and reality, making people feel emotionally disconnected.
This strange tone, created through metaphors, unclear sentences, and mood-filled words, makes the song a good candidate for a transitivity analysis.
Rather than telling a clear story, the song focuses on feelings and emotions, shown through broken images and changing speaking Notes in Forbes (McIntyre, 2.
, radio play helped the song return to the charts, showing that many people connected with it personally.
This response suggests that unclear and emotionally deep language can profoundly affect how listeners interpret and feel about Because of the song's complexity, using the transitivity system from System Functional Linguistics (SFL) is a helpful way to understand how experience is shown in the Twilight Zone.
The transitivity system groups clauses into six main types: material, mental, relational, behavioral, verbal, and existential.
Each type shows how people experience the world differently (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2.
These process types are shown through grammar and work with the people and situations in the song to create meaning.
By looking at and categorizing these processes in the song's lines, we can better understand how the song's voice expresses feelings, thoughts, and inner struggles.
This study looks at the main process types used in Twilight Zone by Ariana Grande and explores how they affect the song's mood, message, and how the lyrics present the world.
The study will answer the following questions: What process types are most frequently used in Ariana Grande's Twilight Zone? How do these processes contribute to the construction of meaning and mood in the song? The study will demonstrate how language in music functions not only as a vehicle for narrative but also as a tool for psychological and emotional expression by applying the transitivity system from SFL to this contemporary pop text.
Literature Review Review of Related Studies Several studies have used SFL's transitivity framework to examine how meaning is created in song lyrics, showing that it works well in understanding how language, emotion, and identity connect.
Harbi et al.
looked at ten popular songs by The Beatles and found that material processes were most common.
This shows the band often focused on physical and real actions, which might come from their own experiences and what they saw in society.
Similarly.
Siahaan .
studied some of Bon Jovi's songs and found all six types of processes were present, but material processes were the most frequent.
This suggests Bon Jovi's songs often discuss physical actions and social situations.
In comparison.
Mulyati .
looked at the way actions and relationships are shown in three songs by Alan Walker: "Faded," "Alone," and "Lily" from his Different World album.
She noticed that the songs often talk about things like who people are, their feelings, and more profound life experiences.
This shows how different artists can use transitivity in many ways.
Some focus on what happens and the outcomes, while others focus more on emotions, ideas, and how people connect.
These results also fit with wider uses of transitivity analysis in other areas.
Mehmood et .
used this framework to examine political speeches, showing how different ways of expressing things show different political beliefs.
Zhao and Zhang .
applied it to literary writing to see how people form their identities.
Together, these studies show functional BLESS
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The Theories of Transitivity Understanding the concept of transitivity, as explained in Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), is important for grasping how language conveys and represents complex human experiences.
This theoretical model helps explain how language connects with meaning by showing how language choices reflect real-life experiences (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2.
Fontaine .
affirms the key role of transitivity in expressing layered experiences, while Thompson .
highlights how this framework can express various viewpoints, intentions, and interactions between people.
In this system, the verbal group plays a central role in showing transitivity processes and defining the roles of participants within a sentence.
It is also known as the predicator.
Halliday and Matthiessen recognize that the classification consists of six main processes: material, mental, relational, verbal, behavioral, and existential.
This classification provides a thorough way to analyze how language operates to build and express meaning.
In material processes, the physical actions involve two main participants: the Actor .
ho act.
and the Goal .
he receiver or targe.
These processes show observable events or actions in the physical world.
For example, in the sentence "The woman speaks eloquently," the woman is the Actor, and eloquently is the Goal.
Analysts usually identify material processes by asking, "What did X do?" This question helps distinguish material processes from others by focusing on the actual performance of an action, which helps shape the narrative involving action and its Mental processes deal with internal states such as thoughts, feelings, and perceptions.
They involve two main participants: the Senser .
ho is experiencing somethin.
and the Phenomenon .
he thing being experience.
The three categories of mental process are perceptive .
ike seeing or hearin.
, affective .
ike loving or fearin.
, and cognitive .
ike thinking or believin.
(Gerot & Wignell, 1.
Kristiano .
further notes that these processes reflect personal experiences, making them helpful in examining internal struggles, emotional depth, and identity development in literary and musical works.
Analysts recognize mental processes by asking, "What do you think/feel/know about X?", and showing their nature of reflecting on personal experiences and thoughts.
Relational processes involve defining and expressing relationships between entities by assigning qualities or roles.
These are divided into identifying and attributive types.
Identifying processes state an identity and often allow the roles of Token and Value to be reversed, as in "Mr.
Arwin is the strictest teacher I have ever met," which can also be phrased as "The strictest teacher I have ever met is Mr.
Arwin.
" In contrast, attributive processes assign characteristics to entities through the Carrier and the Attribute, typically in a non-reversible structure.
Verbal processes involve speaking and reporting, connecting how language works with how people relate to each other.
These processes have three main participants: the Sayer .
ho is speakin.
, the Receiver .
ho is listenin.
, and the Verbiage .
hat is being sai.
There is also an optional participant called the Target, which refers to the discussed subject.
Mehmood et al.
and Zhao and Zhang .
mention that verbal processes help show how people interact and express their intentions, making them helpful in studying dialogue, songs, and social interactions.
Behavioral processes lie between physical and mental actions, including breathing, smiling, dreaming, and listening.
These actions are usually done by one person, the Behaver, who does them on purpose.
Gerot and Wignell .
say these processes help show inner feelings through physical actions, giving a clearer picture of characters' emotions and thoughts in writing.
Existential processes show that something is present or happening.
These usually have the word "there" and include one participant, the Existent.
Verbs like "be," "exist," "occur," and BLESS
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Unlike relational clauses, which explain or describe, existential clauses state that something exists or is happening, often used to set scenes or introduce new elements into a conversation (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2.
Besides looking at process types, researchers also focus on how language helps shape Fairclough .
points out that conversations are places where people create and discuss their identities.
In song lyrics, especially in confessional or narrative styles, relational and mental processes often show how the speaker sees themselves and feels emotionally.
Gee .
further notes that identity in discourse is also context-dependent: the manner of speech, the choices of expression, and the mode of delivery reflect evolving roles, alignments, and stances.
Artists can articulate self-doubt, empowerment, vulnerability, or transformation through linguistic selection.
Although this study is not mainly about it, the Appraisal Framework, as a part of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), created by Martin and White in 2005, gives practical ways to understand how language shows attitude, stance, and evaluation through sentence structures.
It consists of three main domains: Attitude .
ncluding affect, judgment, and appreciatio.
Engagement .
he recognition and negotiation of other voices or viewpoint.
, and Gradation .
he scaling or intensity of meaning.
These resources help explain how speakers emotionally and evaluatively position themselves to the audience and the experiences described.
While the current study centers on transitivity analysis, the Appraisal Framework reveals that process types describe actions or states and reflect the speaker's emotional stance and identity This interplay between experiential and interpersonal meanings underscores the importance of considering evaluative language when analyzing song lyrics, particularly in understanding the' emotive and personal nuances of linguistic choices.
Theoretical Framework This study uses Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) as its main approach, focusing on transitivity analysis to examine how language creates experience and identity in Ariana Grande's Twilight Zone.
SFL, which was developed by Halliday and Matthiessen .
, sees language as a system for expressing meaning through social and cultural contexts.
Through contextually grounded choices.
Among its three metafunctions, ideational, interpersonal, and textual, this study is primarily concerned with the ideational metafunction, specifically the experiential function, which is realized through the transitivity system.
Transitivity offers a model for understanding how experiences, thoughts, emotions, and actions are encoded in language through process types, participants, and circumstances.
Halliday and Matthiessen .
identify six main process types: Material .
oing, happenin.
Mental .
Relational .
Verbal .
Behavioral .
sychological/physiological behavin.
, and Existential .
Each type of process has specific roles for participants, which show how people and events are described in language.
"Twilight Zone," looking at these patterns helps understand the speaker's emotions, how they see themselves, and how their relationships change over time.
Besides finding the different process types, this approach examines how language helps create and shape identity.
Fairclough .
says that identity is formed and discussed through how people talk.
Particularly in lyrical texts, mental and relational processes are often used to express emotional positioning and inner reflection, enabling the artist to perform a version of the self that is simultaneously personal and stylized.
Gee .
further emphasizes that identity in discourse is situated and relational, shaped by how individuals use language to convey roles, affiliations, and personal stance.
In "Twilight Zone," the frequent use of mental processes like sensing .
, "Did I dream," "I cannot believe") and relational clauses .
, "You are not who you say you are") illustrates how the speaker negotiates doubt, disbelief, and emotional disorientation, key aspects of identity under emotional strain.
Although not centrally applied in this study, the Appraisal Framework (Martin & White, 2.
within SFL complements the transitivity system by showing how attitudes, emotions.
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This demonstrates how grammar is deeply connected to our emotions and perspectives.
Therefore, analyzing transitivity in The Twilight Zone goes beyond sentence structure.
it also explores meaning, showing how powerful emotions and identity formation are conveyed through language.
Ultimately, this method provides a more comprehensive understanding of language and narrative.
By looking at transitivity, the study shows how Ariana Grande's lyrics reveal her inner struggles, emotional growth, and changes in identity, giving a complete picture of how language is used to tell stories and express the self in pop music.
Methodology This study uses a qualitative and descriptive approach based on the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) framework, focusing on transitivity analysis.
The goal is to look at how language patterns, especially different types of processes, show emotion and shape identity in Ariana Grande's song "Twilight Zone.
" The official lyrics of the song are the primary data source, obtained from Billboard.
The song was chosen because it has deep, emotional content that fits well with the study's aim to understand how language expresses personal experiences.
The basic unit being studied is the clause, the main grammatical structure in SFL that helps organize and express meaning.
Each clause in the lyrics was carefully segmented based on functional grammatical boundaries and then examined to determine the type of process it represents:
material, mental, relational, behavioral, verbal, or existential.
After that, the people and situations connected to each part were found and grouped.
A table was made to track how often and where each type of process appeared, which helped show clearly the patterns in the song.
The analysis went through four main steps: breaking the lyrics into smaller parts, recognizing the processes used, noting the people and situations involved, and putting the results into a table for further understanding.
Even though the analysis was based on interpretation, steps were taken to keep it consistent and reliable by following the classification rules from Halliday and Matthiessen .
When there was uncertainty, especially with metaphorical or abstract language, choices were made carefully, sticking to established SFL While recognizing that interpreting language can be subjective, this approach offered a structured and theory-based way to explore how language affects emotions and identity in the song.
Findings Table 1.
Total Occurrences and Percentage of Types of Transitivity Processes Types of Transitivity Processes Mental Material Relational Behavioral Existential Verbal Total Occurrences of Processes Percentage 30,95% 14,29% 40,48% 4,76% 9,52% 0,00% The analysis of song lyrics facilitated the identification and quantification of transitivity processes, with the resulting data presented in a structured format in Table 1.
This data delineates the occurrences and corresponding percentages for each type of transitivity process.
The analysis identified the presence of all six transitivity processes, material, mental, relational, behavioral, existential, and verbal, within the song Twilight Zone by Ariana Grande.
This examination emphasizes the song's linguistic diversity and contributes to a deeper understanding of its thematic complexity.
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The most common type was relational processes, which happened 17 times, making up 40,48% of all processes.
Mental processes came next with 13 instances, accounting for 30,95%.
Material processes occurred 6 times, which is 14,29%.
Existential processes were recorded 4 times, or 9,52%.
Behavioral processes occurred twice, constituting 4,76%.
No verbal processes appeared in the lyrics, resulting in 0%.
The total of process clauses was 42, with details and percentages in Table 1.
This distribution highlights the relative importance of each transitivity process type within the song lyrics.
Behavioral processes occurred twice, constituting 4,76%.
No verbal processes appeared in the lyrics, resulting in 0%.
The total of process clauses was 42, with details and percentages in Table 1.
This distribution highlights the relative importance of each transitivity process type within the song lyrics.
Discussion In Ariana Grande's "Twilight Zone," transitivity processes are strong language tools that help shape the themes of identity, confusion, and mixed emotions.
By looking at these processes from the most common to the least, we can better understand how the lyrics build the strange and deep feeling of the song.
This analysis uses Halliday's transitivity framework to show how these processes affect the song's emotional tone and story.
Relational Processes: Creating Disorientation Through Identity Doubt (Identifyin.
and Giving Emotions and Mental Changes (Attributiv.
The most common process in the song is the relational identifying process.
These sentences help define or match things, and in this song, they mainly show the speaker trying to understand themselves or their world.
These processes are seen in several lines, like Line 2:
"Was I just a nightmare? " and Line 11: "Like a Twilight Zone.
" In these lines, the speaker compares themselves to unclear, unreal, or spooky ideas.
In Line 2, they wonder if they are just a "nightmare," showing a strong feeling of being disconnected and scared of being unimportant or disturbing.
In Line 11, comparing themselves to the Twilight Zone makes a metaphor that shows they are in a strange and confusing mental state.
These metaphors show the speaker is confused and unsure, giving a sense of being lost in life.
Line 15 makes this confusion even stronger with the question, "Am I in a dream?" This relational sentence puts the speaker between being awake and asleep.
Line 16 adds to this by asking, "Is this even real? " Both lines doubt the speaker's experience and suggest they might not see things.
Moreover.
Line 17 "It don't feel rightAy, is more casual in tone but still fits into the overall pattern of identifying something wrong.
The speaker expresses a sense of something being off or not quite right, showing a gap between what they feel and what they know is true.
This adds to a strange and slightly scary feeling.
Lines 18 and 19 keep the theme of confusion about identity: "Something about you is so familiar," followed by, "But I don't know where I've seen you These lines reflect the haunting sense of deja vu, anchoring the speaker in an emotionally resonant and mentally inaccessible moment.
This use of identifying relational processes helps frame the entire song within a psychological "Twilight Zone," emphasizing ambiguity, loss of identity, and confusion between what is real and imagined.
Although less common, relational attributive processes still have an important role in influencing the emotional and psychological tone of the song.
Attributive clauses explain qualities or conditions.
In Line 3, the speaker asks, unlike identifying processes, "Did I lose my mind? " It shows a concern about mental decline and matches the theme of instability.
The idea of losing one's mind is a metaphor and expresses the speaker's uncertainty about their mental Line 6, "A little bit twisted,Ay and Line 7, "Kinda feeling different," both ascribe altered emotional or mental states to the speaker.
"twisted" evokes distortion or a departure from normal emotional balance.
In contrast, "different" suggests a slight change in how someone is perceived or their character.
These characteristics reveal the speaker's evolving and unstable emotional state, contributing to the strange and surreal mood.
These subtle yet essential details BLESS
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Mental Processes: Reflecting Inner Conflict and Psychological Ambiguity (Cognitiv.
, while also Evoking Haunting Emotional Memory (Affectiv.
The second most frequent type is the mental cognitive process, which represents processes of sensing, thinking, and perceiving.
These processes reveal the speaker's inner reflections and attempts to make sense of her surroundings.
For instance.
Line 1 asks, "Did I dream the whole thing?", a classic musical phrase that examines the line between memory and It presents the song's main question regarding reality from the start, establishing a mood of self-reflection and uncertainty.
This cognitive introspection is echoed in Line 8: "I keep looking at the door.
" This line introduces a physical action interpreted through a cognitive lens: watchfulness, waiting, or hoping for something or someone to appear or escape.
It illustrates the speaker's hyperawareness and emotional anticipation.
Line 10 follows with "You look just like me," a powerful perceptual statement that further destabilizes the idea of a separate, stable identity.
The resemblance between the speaker and the "you" character may symbolize self-projection, dissociation, or emotional mirroring, all of which contribute to the mood of disorientation.
In Line 14, "And I start to feel dizzy," the speaker describes a physical response caused by emotional or psychological stress.
This experience shows how inner feelings of instability and confusion, already mentioned earlier, are expressed physically.
These mental processes are important in showing the speaker's internal turmoil.
they reflect a distorted, fragmented way of seeing the world the song aims to convey.
Together, they enhance the emotional impact of the lyrics, helping the listener feel the speaker's confused and troubled state of mind.
A smaller group of mental processes deals with emotions and longing.
These lines show the speaker as someone troubled by past emotional experiences.
In Line 4, "Like a ghost I cannot forget," affective memory is portrayed in an eerie and ghostly way.
The ghost metaphor serves a lasting emotional influence, an unfinished connection, or a painful past event.
This is followed by Line 5, "And it is haunting me," which makes the metaphor explicit.
The word "haunting" shows a strong, lasting feeling that does not go away, adding a sad tone to the overall mood.
These actions not only connect memories with feelings, but also make the emotions stronger and support the feeling of mystery and ghostliness to the song.
Material Processes: Giving Form to Emotional Force Material processes, which typically represent physical actions or events, are not prominent in the song, but when they appear, they lend texture and dynamism to the emotional In Line 12, "And I just cannot ignore it," resisting or failing to resist represents emotional compulsion.
It suggests that the experience, whether love, memory, or trauma, is too powerful to be suppressed.
Line 13 uses a vivid metaphor: "Like a wave that hits me.
" Though a material process on the surface, the wave represents emotional force, overwhelming the speaker.
This line points to one of the few moments of active impact in an otherwise introspective song.
The revelation and force implied by the wave metaphor embody emotional intensity that contrasts with the more passive questioning tone elsewhere in the song.
These material clauses reinforce the theme of being emotionally "hit" or disrupted, contributing to a feeling of vulnerability.
Behavioral and Existential Processes: Enhancing the Surreal and Simulated Reality Lastly, the song uses a few existential and behavioral processes to expand on its speculative, surreal tone.
In Line 9, "Like I've been here before," the speaker expresses a moment of deja vu, a classic existential experience.
This line bridges memory, repetition, and timelessness, core elements of the Twilight Zone motif.
Repeating or reliving an experience lends a circular, almost trapped feeling to the song's structure.
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Line 20, "You feel like a glitch in the simulation," combines relational and behavioral elements.
The speaker feels something unusual about the other person, an underlying issue in the real world.
Words like "glitch" and "simulation" hint that the world might not be authentic or could have flaws.
This line ties directly into the songAos narrative, linking themes of confusion, misleading appearances, and a frail identity.
The Absence of Verbal Processes: Silence.
Introspection, and Emotional Isolation A significant discovery from the transitivity analysis of Ariana Grande's Twilight Zone is a lack of verbal processes.
In Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar, verbal processes involve speaking, asking, or expressing something aloud, such as "She said" or "He asked.
" These clauses usually show interaction between people and often help tell a story, have a conversation, or share a moment between participants.
The fact that there are no verbal processes in this song is a meaningful decision that significantly affects how the song feels.
The absence of verbal clauses suggests that this song is not about talking to others but focuses on inner thoughts, being alone, and thinking deeply about personal feelings.
The speaker is not addressing someone in a back-and-forth exchange, nor is she recounting spoken events or retelling conversations.
Instead, the mood is deeply introspective, and the speaker is caught in a private world of emotion, perception, memory, and identity confusion.
The lack of outward speech mirrors the inward spiral of the speaker's experience.
This silence may also indicate emotional isolation.
In many lines, the speaker seems confused, haunted, or emotionally overwhelmed ("Did I dream the whole thing?" "Am I in a dream?" "It is haunting me").
These experiences are not being shared with or explained to The song's lyrics do not mention a listener, only the speaker's inner thoughts and This creates a feeling of emotional confinement, where the speaker is stuck in her mind, unable or unready to share her feelings with others.
The lack of spoken language matches the song's strange and dreamlike feel.
In dreams or when someone is disconnected from reality, words are often missing or broken, making it hard to communicate.
The lyrics clarify that the speaker is not in a typical, ordinary world by leaving out any verbal expressions.
She is in a strange, in-between place, like a "Twilight Zone," where usual ways of acting, talking, or explaining do not work.
Thematically, this also shows a loss of control.
Talking about feelings or asking questions gives people a sense of power in daily life.
However, in "Twilight Zone," the speaker feels powerless, only moving through emotions and memories, without clearly expressing them.
The absence of spoken lines makes the song feel more helpless and uncertain.
Finally, from a stylistic point of view, the silence of the lyrics opens up emotional resonance for the listener.
The song becomes more universal and open-ended by not anchoring the lyrics in specific dialogue or speech events.
The thoughts expressed could belong to anyone.
they resonate as feelings many listeners may have, but are deeply unspoken.
Conclusion This study looked at how transitivity works in Ariana Grande's song Twilight Zone using the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) approach, especially the model by Halliday and Matthiessen that focuses on how meaning is created through transitivity.
The results showed that the song's meaning and feeling are heavily influenced by the most common processes:
relational, mental, and material.
Each plays a different role in shaping the speaker's identity, emotions, and the surreal atmosphere of the song.
The most common type of process used was relational, especially identifying clauses.
These clauses show the speaker trying to understand her identity and the unclear situation around her.
They reflect someone feeling stuck between different realities, moving through thoughts, and uncertain about their mental state.
Mental processes, like cognitive and affective ones, add to this inner struggle, showing a broken and unstable sense of self, marked by memories, how things are perceived, and lingering emotions.
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The rare use of behavioral and existential processes adds to the dreamlike, surreal feel of the song, emphasizing repetition, presence, and emotional distance.
Most importantly, the lack of verbal processes shows the speaker's emotional loneliness and deep focus on inner thoughts.
Instead of talking or communicating with others, she is caught in a stream of internal thoughts, showing silence, helplessness, and being trapped in her mind.
This emptiness significantly contributes to the song's magical and dreamlike mood.
The transitivity analysis shows how Ariana Grande uses language to express and live out By skillfully combining identifying connections, deep personal reflections, and symbolic actions, the song creates a feeling of being in a calm, almost dreamlike emotional state.
The words act as a poetic way for her to express herself, moving beyond typical storytelling to focus more on mood, feeling, and open-endedness rather than clear explanations or final Based on the findings of this study, several recommendations are offered for future research, educational applications, and linguistic exploration.
Firstly, for linguistic research, it is suggested that future studies should expand transitivity analysis to Ariana Grande's broader discography or other songs within the Eternal Sunshine album to compare how different themes and process types interact.
It would be valuable to investigate whether the dominance of relational and mental processes continues across her stylistically experimental works, or whether other songs feature a more narrative or communicative structure.
Secondly, for analysis in Multimodal and Stylistic contexts, scholars could combine this analysis with Appraisal Theory or multimodal discourse analysis to examine how evaluative language, vocal delivery, musical arrangements, and visual elements like music videos or album artwork connect with the transitivity choices.
This method would offer a deeper insight into how identity and emotions are created through various communication methods.
Thirdly, in English Language Teaching (ELT), song lyrics like Twilight Zone can be great resources for classroom activities, especially for B1 to C1 levels.
Teachers can use transitivity analysis to teach grammar in real-life situations, focusing on how clauses are structured, the roles of participants, and the use of metaphor.
Students can be encouraged to think about how language choices affect meaning, tone, and emotion, which helps them become more aware of grammar and enhances their comprehension and interpretation of language.
Next, in Creative Writing and Music Analysis, songwriters and lyricists can examine how different types of processes influence the listener's experience.
Knowing how to switch between relational, mental, and material processes can help create layered emotions and develop characters in song lyrics.
Lastly, for future analysis, this song's limited use of verbal processes suggests a broader trend in introspective pop music that emphasizes emotion over direct conversation.
Further study could check if this pattern is typical in other introspective or surreal songs across different music genres, especially those that deal with feelings like loneliness, worry, or dreams.
In short, this study shows how functional transitivity analysis can help us understand how modern pop lyrics create emotional and experiential depth.
The Twilight Zone is a rich example of language that uses silence, unclear meanings, and self-reflection to show a personal emotional world, where words shape meaning and mood.
References