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the exact ratios vary, in every society, it is the males more than the females who playfight, bully, fight for real, kill for real, rape, start wars and fight in wars." The silence
around the gendering of violence is as inexplicable as it is indefensible. Sex differences
in other medical and social conditions such as anorexia nervosa, lupus, migraines,
depression and learning disabilities are routinely analyzed along these lines.
Adapted from Time.com, July 24, 2012.
case, s/he resorts mainly to relational processes, making use also of verbal processes
these had not appeared up to now--, and to a lesser extent, of material processes. It is
interesting to see how these processes have been distributed:
The first sentence is a material process (with weve been down this path
interpreted as we have walked down this path) in which an inclusive we which is
interpreted as the Americans--, is the actor of being down (walking down) this path
before so many times. In this way, the writer ascribes her/his own point of view to the
whole American society, effect which is reinforced by the fact that they all have
repeatedly been doing the same thing before (being down this path). Then the writer
resorts to the same inclusive we as the senser of a mental process, and as the sayer
involved in a verbal process:
yet we keep missing the elephant in the room (mental process; participants:
senser/ phenomenon)
But why aren't we talking about the glaring reality (verbal process, participants:
sayer, projected) that acts of mass murder (and, indeed, every single kind of
violence) are overwhelmingly perpetrated by men? (passive material process;
participants: goal; actor)
As a result, the point of view of the author becomes one with that of the whole
American society, as they all are the same senser, actor, and sayer. By means of two
verbal processes (suggest and talk) two projected clauses are introduced: in the first one,
women appear involved in relational or existential processes, while in the second, a
material process (perpetrate) is ascribed to men (actors), the goal being mass murder
and any kind of violence:
that acts of mass murder (and, indeed, every single kind of violence) are
overwhelmingly perpetrated by men? (passive material process; participants:
goal/ actor)
Thus, the writer has stated that the debate on mass shootings should be reduced
to a problem of gender, and at the same time, by featuring men as actors of a material
process and women as carriers of relational ones, a line is drawn between men and
women regarding their responsibility on the issue and the way violence affects them.
The third and fourth paragraphs are intended to support the thesis of the writer.
Here, violence is compared to a deadly disease. In this case, this disease has become
the actor of a material process, and men its goal: a condition (actor) that strikes
(material process) men (goal); afterwards, this condition becomes the token for
violence, the value in an identifying relational process, which works as a transition to
the material process in which men occupy once again-- the role of actors in the
process of committing murder (goal). In this way, disease, violence, and men
alternatively occupy the role of actors in processes which involve some sort of violence,
thus, they become imbued with the same negative connotation. The following paragraph
resorts to statistics to illustrate the state of affairs in regards to male violence, that is
why there is a predominance of relational processes. Through relational processes,
reality can be categorized and evaluated, and it is interesting to see, on the one hand,
that the categories used by the writer as value and token here are: young white males,
and young black males, the tokens for the value population, so that it might be said that
the American society or its population-- in this text, is conceived in terms of the
following binary oppositions: man/woman, black/white, young/adult.
Finally, in the last paragraph, the writer resorts mostly to material processes, as it
is the closing paragraph, and the conclusion. Here, men are clearly identified as the
actors (this time within a projected clause of a verbal process) of the following
material processes: play-fight, bully, fight, kill rape.
This paper does not intend to be exhaustive, but, by analyzing this article from an
experiential perspective, it has been possible to see how reality comes to be represented in texts,
the participant that have been picked up to appear in the text, and the role they are meant to
play.