Transitivity Grammatical Metaphors in the TOEFL Listening Module: A Systemic Functional Grammar

The present study aims to analyze the Transitivity Metaphors in the listening module of the TOEFL books. In this regard, the present study with a qualitative content analysis method investigated three official iBT TOEFL books (including fourteen tests, and each test includes six texts in the form of conversation and lecture). First, we identified each clause of these 84 texts. Then, Transitivity Metaphors were extracted, analyzed and compared in terms of type and frequency. The results indicated that: 1. Transitivity metaphors entail a higher frequency in lecture texts (68%). 2. Two processes have the highest frequency in metaphorical and incongruent meaning: material processes (38%) and relational process (28%), respectively. The results of the Mann-Whitney U test showed Transitivity Grammatical Metaphors are significantly more frequent in the lecture section. So, applying more lecture texts in the listening parts makes TOEFL tests more efficient to measure communicative and metaphorical competence of volunteers