International Journal of Sub-Saharan African Research (IJSSAR)

Background: Political autobiographies construe agency and ideology through grammatical choices, yet studies of transitivity in Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom using Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) remain scarce relative to lexical analyses.
Objective: To examine how Mandela’s transitivity patterns encode agency and ideology in “Talking with the Enemy.”
Method: A qualitative case study analysed 31 purposively selected clauses using Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2014) three-component transitivity framework: process, participant, and circumstance. Data were manually coded and iteratively cross-checked. Results: Relational clauses racially polarise prison facilities through opposing attributes. Mandela predominates as Sayer (8/13) and Actor (5/7), while the state is represented exclusively through existential constructions that convey passivity (e.g., “there was no response”). Direct-reported verbal processes construct a narrative arc from conflict to resolution.
Conclusion: Mandela’s transitivity choices systematically foreground his agency while representing the state as discursively inert, demonstrating how grammar functions as an ideological resource in the construction of historical narratives.
Unique Contribution: The study extends previous lexically focused research (Hunjo & Ajakah, 2022) through clause-level grammatical analysis, operationalising Poynton’s (2000) integration of systemic functional linguistic and cultural critique.
Key Recommendation: To assess the generalisability of these patterns beyond a single chapter, future research should extend transitivity analysis to the entire autobiography. Given the interpretive nature of qualitative SFL analysis, complementary corpus-based quantitative analyses and reader-reception studies are also recommended to investigate the extent to which the identified patterns support interpretations of ideology and influence readers’ perceptions.