Transitivity Processes in Sabrina Carpenter’s Songs “Espresso” and “Please Please Please”

Abstract

Music plays a crucial role in shaping some people’s daily activities, influencing mood, productivity, and social interactions. These roles of music in day-to-day life influence music charts to fluctuate, making achieving the number one spot on charts like BILLBOARD HOT 100TM a crucial milestone in a singer's career, symbolizing widespread popularity and success. This is what happened to Sabrina Carpenter’s music career. Her popularity has rocketed in her upcoming new album, Short ‘n Sweet. With “ESPRESSO” and “PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE” reaching the top five spots on the BILLBOARD HOT 100TM, people began to wonder why they were so successful. This study aimed to identify and analyze the different types of transitivity processes present in songs, and to explore how these processes contribute to conveying themes and emotions in the lyrics. The data revealed the presence of all six processes (material, mental, relational, behavioral, existential, and verbal) within these songs. Based on the data, the verbal processes were the most dominant in the two songs that were analyzed which occurred 45 times in total or for about 30.41% of the total 148 occurrences. It suggested a heavy reliance on communication and dialogue, which indicated the songs emphasized conversations, declarations, or expressions of thought through speech, reflecting the lyrical style where the artist might be storytelling or conveying messages directly to the audience. Future studies on Sabrina Carpenter's music could explore her discography to examine how transitivity patterns vary across albums. Comparative analyses with other pop artists could highlight genre-specific trends in transitivity usage.