(LUẬN văn THẠC sĩ) AN INVESTIGATION INTO SHIFTS IN THE VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF ENGLISH EXISTENTIAL PROCESSES IN ‘WUTHERING HEIGHTS’ BY EMILY BRONTE

QUY NHON UNIVERSITY NGUYỄN LÊ THANH NHÃ AN INVESTIGATION INTO SHIFTS IN THE VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF ENGLISH EXISTENTIAL PROCESSES IN ‘WUTHERING HEIGHTS’ BY EMILY BRONTE Field: Engli

QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

NGUYỄN LÊ THANH NHÃ

AN INVESTIGATION INTO SHIFTS IN

THE VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION OF ENGLISH EXISTENTIAL PROCESSES IN

‘WUTHERING HEIGHTS’ BY EMILY BRONTE

Field: English Language Code: 80 22 02 01

Supervisor: LÊ THỊ GIAO CHI, Ph.D.

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

NGUYỄN LÊ THANH NHÃ

NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ SỰ CHUYỂN DỊCH

TRONG VIỆC DỊCH THUẬT TIẾNG VIỆT CÁC DIỄN TRÌNH HIỆN HỮU TIẾNG ANH VỚI TÁC PHẨM ‘WUTHERING HEIGHTS’

TÁC GIẢ EMILY BRONTE

Chuyên ngành: Ngôn Ngữ Anh

Mã số: 80 22 02 01

Người hướng dẫn: TS LÊ THỊ GIAO CHI

ABSTRACT

This thesis attempts to investigate the shift in the Vietnamese translation

of English existential processes as represented in a literary work Wuthering

Heights by Emily Bronté It particularly looks at ‘existential’ clauses as

representation embodied in this piece of literary writing and examines the shifts that occur in the rendering of existential meaning in these clauses into Vietnamese

Based on Halliday’s functional approach to clauses as representation, clauses in English and their Vietnamese equivalents were analyzed in both lexico-grammar and semantic meaning, and then Catford’s model of translation shift was adopted to the interpretation of different types of shifts that have occurred via translation

The research data include a sample of 140 ‘existential’ clauses extracted

from the literary work entitled Wuthering Heights of Emily Bronté and 140 Vietnamese translational equivalents in Doi Gio Hu translated by Duong Tuong

The result shows that there are three types of translation shifts that have

occurred in the process of translation, namely the structure shift, the class shift, and the unit shift These changes in the lexico-grammar via translation has

necessitated shifts in the representation of experiential meaning, turning

existential process into other types: material, relational, mental, and verbal

Finally, the correlation between shifts in translation and shifts in processes has thus established This piece of research is hoped to shed further light into the use

of translation as a heuristic tool to analyze aspects of language in communication across English and Vietnamese (Lê, 2014) It also draws out some implications for the teaching and learning of English, for research in language and translation studies

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A number of people helped me when this thesis was on its ways My grateful thanks in particular are to Dr Le Thi Giao Chi, my supervisor, who has supported me a lot during the time I work on my thesis Her kind encouragements, her endless patience, her critical comments and valuable materials, her invaluable reading of the drafts as well as her useful feedback have contributed to the final shape of this thesis

My special thanks next go to my family for their love and kind support to

me during the time working on this study

I am also grateful to my friends and classmates for their warm encouragements, help and valuable materials; I will not name here for fear I might inadvertently leave someone out This thesis would not be possible without their

contributions

Thank you all!

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

This thesis represents my own work and due acknowledgment is given whenever information is derived from other sources No part of this thesis has been or is being concurrently submitted for any other qualification at any university except where due reference has been made in the text

Quy Nhon, 2019

NGUYEN LE THANH NHA

TABLE OF CONTENT

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1.RATIONALE 1

1.2.AIMS OF THE STUDY 2

1.3.OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 3

1.4.RESEARCH QUESTIONS 3

1.5.SCOPE OF THE STUDY 3

1.6.SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 3

1.7.ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY 4

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1.AN OVERVIEW OF PREVIOUS STUDIES 5

2.2.THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 7

2.2.1 Translation and Equivalence 7

2.2.2 Systemic Functional Grammar 9

2.2.2.1 Overview 9

2.2.2.2 Metafunction 12

2.2.2.3 Ideational Metafunction 12

2.2.2.4 Transitivity system 12

2.2.2.4.1 Material process 14

2.2.2.4.2 Mental process 16

2.2.2.4.3 Relational process 17

2.2.2.4.4 Behavioural process 19

2.2.2.4.5 Verbal process 19

2.2.2.4.6 Existential process 20

2.2.2.5 Classes and Function 21

2.2.2.6 Groups and Phrases 22

2.2.2.6.1 Nominal Group 22

2.2.2.6.2 Verbal Group 23

2.2.2.6.3 Adverbial Group 24

2.2.2.6.4 Prepositional Phrase 24

2.2.2.7 Embedded Expasions 24

2.2.2.8 Metaphorical Modes of Expression 26

2.2.2.8.1 Ideational Metaphor 26

2.2.3 Translation Shifts 27

2.2.3.1 Category Shifts 28

2.2.3.1.1 Structure Shifts 28

2.2.3.1.2 Class Shifts 28

2.2.3.1.3 Unit Shifts or Rank Shifts 29

2.2.3.1.4 Intra-System Shifts 29

2.3.SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 30

3.1.RESEARCH APPROACHES 30

3.2.DATA COLLECTION 31

3.3.DATA ANALYSIS 32

3.4.SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 4 DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS 34

4.1.PREAMBLE OF ENGLISH EXISTENTIAL CLAUSES 34

4.1.1 The Structure of ‘Existential’ Clause 34

4.1.1.1 Circumstance at the Beginning of the Clause 35

4.1.1.2 Circumstance at the End of the Clause 36

4.1.2 The Structure of Nominal Group 37

4.1.2.1 Pre-modifier 37

4.1.2.1.1 Deictic 37

4.1.2.1.2 Numerative 37

4.1.2.1.3 Epithet 38

4.1.2.1.4 Classifier 38

4.1.2.2 Post-modifier 38

4.1.2.2.1 Prepositional phrase 38

4.1.2.2.2 Non-finite clause 38

4.1.2.2.3 Finite-clause 38

4.2.DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS 39

4.2.1 The Translation Shifts 39

4.2.1.1 Structure Shift 40

4.2.1.2 Class Shift 43

4.2.1.3 Unit Shifts 46

4.2.2 Process Shifts from Perspective of Translation shifts 50

4.2.2.1 Structure Shift 52

4.2.2.1.1 Existential Process 52

4.2.2.1.2 Material Process 53

4.2.2.1.3 Relational Process 54

4.2.2.1.4 Discussion 54

4.2.2.2 Unit Shift 56

4.2.2.2.1 Relation Process 56

4.2.2.2.2 Nominal Groups 58

4.2.2.2.3 Discussion 58

4.2.2.3 Class shift 59

4.2.2.3.1 Material Process 59

4.2.2.3.2 Mental Process 60

4.2.2.4 Class and Unit shift 61

4.2.2.4.1 Nominalized nominal groups 61

4.2.2.4.2 Nominal groups with embedded clauses 64

4.2.2.5 Non Lexicogrammar Shifts 67

4.3.SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTER 69

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION 70

5.1.CONCLUSION 70

5.2.IMPLICATIONS 73

5.3.LIMITATIONS 73

5.4.SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 74

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1.The structure of an ordinary ‘existential’ clause 34

Table 4.2 The structure of ‘existential’ clause with circumstance as theme 35

Table 4.3 The structure of ‘existential’ clause with circumstance at initial position 35

Table 4.4 The structure of an ‘existential’ clause with circumstance at end position 36

Table 4.5 The experiential structure of a nominal group 37

Table 4.6.Structure shifts in the translation of English clauses 40

Table 4.7 Class shifts in the translation of English clauses 44

Table 4.8 Unit shifts in the translation of English clauses 47

Table 4.9 Occurrences of shift in process via translation shifts 51

Table 4.10 Analysis of the sample numbered 35 53

Table 4.11 Analysis of the sample numbered 10 53

Table 4.12 Analysis of the sample numbered 122 54

Table 4.13 Analysis of the sample numbered 88 56

Table 4.14 Analysis of the sample numbered 19 57

Table 4.15 Analysis of the sample numbered 32 58

Table 4.16 Analysis of the sample numbered 101 59

Table 4.17 Analysis of the sample numbered 69 60

Table 4.18 Analysis of the sample numbered 4 62

Table 4.19 Analysis of the sample numbered 117 62

Table 4.20: Analysis of the sample numbered 100 65

Table 4.21 Analysis of the sample numbered 11 66

Table 4.22 Analysis of the sample numbered 20 66

Table 4.23 Analysis of the sample numbered 137 68

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1: Stratification in English language 11

Figure 2.2:The grammar of experience: type of process in English 13

Figure 2.3: Central and Peripheral elements in the experiential structure14 Figure 2.4:The system of process type 21

Figure 3.1:PDFDRIVE website screen 31

Figure 4.1: Occurrences of translation shifts by type 39

Figure 4.2 Occurrences of shift in process via structure shifts 52

Figure 4.3 Occurrences of shift in process via unit shift 56

Figure 4.4:Occurrences of shift in process via class shifts 59

Figure 4.5 Occurrences of shift in process via unit and class shifts 61

ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviation

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

The introduction chapter is an overview of this thesis It begins with the rationale, followed by the aims of the thesis, research questions, scope of the thesis, significance of the thesis, ending at the organization of the research papers

1.1 Rationale

Literary books play a crucial role in the exchange of cultures as well as entertainment purposes Thanks to the printing press and the Internet, they are now widely published or uploaded online so that it is easier for individuals to access However, these books are written in different languages, which requires the readers either to master the language written or to rely on translated books In this regard, language barrier seems to remain a challenge which hinders persons from communication across time and space For that reason, translation practice

is more essential than ever

Translation activities involve working with two languages, and there are always differences between them no matter how similar they are As a result, there has been a strong urge towards formulating translation theories to resolve this

problem In translation theory, the term equivalence has been concerned and

defined by a great number of scholars in the field Halliday (2001) suggests that

analyzing equivalence should be considered in terms of stratification, rank, and

metafunctions

From the perspective of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), language

should be viewed as a system of meaning A language includes different stratas:

phonetic, phonological, lexicogrammatical and semantic Each of these strata is

organized in hierarchy with several elements at different ranks Metafunctions, namely ideational metafunction, interpersonal metafunction, and textual

metafunction, refer to the way human beings use languages (Halliday &

The ideational metafunction consists of two kinds of meanings:

experiential and logical In a conversation, speakers must talk about something;

their talks have content, which makes experiential meaning, or it is also named

representational meaning This meaning is expressed through the system of Transitivity or process type In transitivity system, there are six types of process: material, mental, relational, verbal, behavioural and existential The realization

of a process is through its constituents: process, participants, and circumstance These elements are, in turn, realized by lexicogrammartical elements (Eggins,

2004)

Building on SFG, Catfold in his model of translation shifts (1965) suggests analyzing translation equivalence through the lens of grammartical hierarchy He proposes translation shifts as a tool to analyze them There are two major types in translation shifts: category shifts and level shifts

The term Shifts means the adoption of different structures or forms in target

language (TL) to achieve the equivalence with source language (SL) Process shifts or shifts in process refer to the adoption of different process in TL, compared

to the process of SL, to achieve the equivalences in translation

Being aware of shifts in the lexicogrammar arising during translation practices and its role in realization of process, there would be a possibility of

process shifts in translation This motivates us to carry out the study entitled “An

Investigation into Shifts in the Vietnamese Translation of English Processes in

“Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronté”

1.2 Aims of the Study

The study aims at investigating into shifts in lexicogrammar and in

existential processes in the process of rendering the Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronté into the Vietnamese translation work by Duong Tuong based on Catfold’s translation shifts and Halliday’s systemic functional grammar

1.3 Objectives of the Study

To achieve the aims of the study, the researcher will focus on some specific objectives:

-To find out the structure and configuration of ‘existential’ clause in the literacy work Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronté;

-To find out the types of translation shifts in translation;

-To examine how translation shifts facilitate shifts in process

1.4 Research Questions

To achieve the aims and objectives mentioned above, the thesis concentrates on answering the following questions:

1.How are ‘existential’ clauses structured and existential processes

represented in Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronté?

2.What types of shift are involved in translating these English ‘existential’ clauses into Vietnamese?

3.In what way do translation shifts facilitate shifts in processes as embedded in English ‘existential’ clauses?

1.5 Scope of the Study

Translation shifts occur at any ranks of lexicogrammar, but this study

concern the rank groups/phrases and above Moreover, despite of the three lines

of meaning in metafunctions, this study focuses on only one aspect of ideational

meaning, specifically the experiential meaning In addition, the sample of data is

limited in Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronté and Đồi gió hú translated by Dương

Tường

1.6 Significance of the Study

I hope that the thesis will reveal about how existential clauses change in translation Besides, it is hoped to shed light on differences in communication between English and Vietnamese language in expressing the existence

1.7 Organization of the Study

In the thesis, there are five chapters

The first chapter is the introduction part including the rationale, aims and objectives, research questions, the significance of the study, scope of the study and the organization of the study

The second chapter is about the summary of theory of translation and equivalence, Catfold’s theory about translation shifts, Halliday’s theory about clause as representation, below and beyond the clauses, and previous studies related to the topic

The third chapter is devoted to a description of the methods used in this thesis, process of data collection, and examples of data analysis

The fourth chapter, the major chapter of the thesis, presents and discusses the research findings regarding the ‘existential’ clauses, how they are translated into Vietnamese, and shifts involved in translation as well as shifts in processes facilitated in the act of translating

The final chapter gives a summary of the research, with main ideas or research findings being summarized, implications being drawn, limitations as well as suggestions for further research being put forward

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

In what follows, a review of prior researches related to the problem under investigation is presented, starting with the translation theory in general, the Systemic Functional Linguistics by Halliday and Matthiessen (2004), and then a linguistic theory of translation by Catford (1965)

2.1 An Overview of Previous Studies

For centuries, translation has played a crucial role in communication, and

in provision of access to important texts for science and religious purposes (Munday, 2008) The notion of translation was proposed by different linguistics

Approaches to equivalences in translation, since then, have been proposed

by a great number of researchers Meetham and Hudson suggest the fully and partial equivalent; Nida mentions formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence Newmark introduces the approaches based on semiotic or communicative purposes (Lê, 2015)

The concept of equivalence is also discussed by Halliday (2001), using the theory of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFL) He suggests three approaches to

equivalence: stratification, rank and metafunctions

Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), as its name implies, is an approach

to linguistic description Its aim is to explain language in term of meaning, and to develop grammar which is for the possibility of saying useful things about any text (Matthiessen, Teruya, & Lam, 2010) Indeed, there are many researchers introducing and summarizing the theory Eggins (1994) points out the principles and techniques of the functional approach to language Bloor and Bloor (1995) summary the theory for the beginners Martin, Matthiessen, and Painter (1997) give a great number of grammatical analyses

Many attempts have been recognized to study the Vietnamese language from the lens of SFG Hoang (2005), for example, constructs the transitivity

system of Vietnamese language Similar to the theory, he also suggests six

processes in Vietnamese language: material, mental, relational, behavioural,

verbal and existential He also found out three unique features First, it is different

in meaning by using the verb bị or được in passive clauses; second thing is the compulsory of the word lạ in dependent range of ‘material’ clause; and finally,

the verb groups serving as process in ‘relational’ and ‘existential’ clauses can be omitted (see section 2.2.2.7.1)

As regards translation field, Chueasuai (2017) applied SFG in his study aimed at the relationship between interpersonal metafunction and the notion of

power relation among main characters in the literacy work Fifty Shades of Grey

in both original English version and Thai translation By analyzing the conversation of main characters, it reveals that there are differences in the representation of power between original version and translation due to the lack

of several features in Thai language compared to English one

Hu (2017) carried out a study about comparison of experiental meaning between the poem Ode to the West Wind and Its Chinese Translations The results show that the process is not usually maintained in translation, it is possible to turn one kind of process into another without changing the meaning

Rosaa, Sinar, Ibrahim-Bell, and Setia (2017) compared the translation between student and professional translators in translating history texts They applied SFG, particularly analyzing metafunctions It was found that metafunctional shifts occurred in translation, and the professional did it more than students Furthermore, the professions did it for the purpose of maintaining the meaning, while the students tried to keep the form

SFL was also the basic framework for the theory about translation of

Catford (1965) In the book A Linguistic Theory of Translation, Catford (1965)

defines equivalence by reference to the different strata in language Catford

recognizes equivalence at all strata, not only content strata but also expression

ones (phonology and phonetics) He also introduces what can be well seen as a

tool for analyzing translation, which is translation shifts

The term shift was introduced by Catford in his work published in 1965

He defines shifts as “departures from formal correspondence in the process of going from the SL [Source language] to the TL [Target language]” (p.73) He categorizes it into two major types: Rank shifts and category shifts

In similar vein, Vinay and Darbelnet (1995) discuss also the concept of

shift, using the term transposition, but it hadn’t been popular until their book was

translated into English language

Translation shift theory is a useful tool for analysis of lexicogrammar shifts

in translation, and there have been many researchers utilizing it (Khafaji, 2006; Rezvani & Nouraey, 2014; Venckienė, 2015)

Despite many researches about shifts of metafunction, there is not any investigation of shift (i) between English and Vietnamese languages, (ii) studying the process shift from lexicogrammar perspective For those reasons, we decide

to carry out this piece of research from the metafunctions approach, particularly

experiential meaning using Catford’s model of translation shift (1965/2000) to

examine the shifts in process that occur via translation

2.2 Theoretical Background

2.2.1 Translation and Equivalence

The practice of translating has been established for thousands of years, but the study of the field was concerned to have a deep look in just around 20th century (Munday, 2008) The definition of translation is still an argument in the scholarly world, and it has been proposed by different linguists and/or translation theorists

Jakobson (1959/2000) uses the term interlingual translation to refer to the

practice of translating, and it is, according to him, “an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other languages” (p.114) He defines translation as the

process of “sic[substituting] messages in one language not for separate code-units

but for entire messages in some other language” (p.114) Catford (1965) also explains the translation term as “the replacement of textual material in one language (SL) by equivalent textual material in another language (TL)”(p.20) Larson (1984) says translation is a transfer of meaning from the source language

to the receptor language He says that the form of language will be changed, but the meaning must be kept With importance attached to the intention of the text and intention of the author, Newmark (1988) considers translation as rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text

By combining the definitions above, translation could be said a process of transforming the forms between source and target languages, but maintaining its content as well as author’s impacts to readers

The aim of translation, in fact, is difficult to achieve in translation practices

as according to (Nida, 1964/2000), there are no two identical languages, with regard to meaning given to a symbol and its translation, or their arrangements in sentences or phrases This view can be illustrated by the comparison of Jakobson (1959/2000) about the word “cheese” in English and Russian languages After the comparing, he concludes that “there is ordinarily no full equivalence between code-units” (p.114) For that reason, Meetham and Hudson (1972) say:

Texts in different languages can be equivalent in different degrees (fully or partially equivalent), in respect of different levels of presentation (equivalent in respect of context, of semantics, of grammar, of lexis, etc.) and at different ranks (word-for- word, phrase for-phrase, sentence-for-sentence) (as cited in Bell, 1991, p 6)

In the book A Linguistic Theory of Translation, Catford (1965) made a

distinction between textual equivalence and formal correspondence He says that

textual equivalence is a TL text or just a proportion of TL text in translation which

is said to be equivalent to SL text or a proportion of SL text, and “the discovery

of textual equivalent based on the authority of a competent bilingual informant or translator” (p.27) He says about formal correspondence as the following:

A formal correspondent is any TL category which may be said to occupy, as nearly as possible, the 'same' place in the economy of the TL as the given SL category occupies

in the SL (Catford, 1965, p 32)

Munday (2008) comments about those two notion “Textual equivalence is thus tied to a particular ST–TT pair, while formal equivalence is a more general system-based concept between a pair of languages.” (p.60) As the focus of translation is on reproducing the meaning of SL text, rather than maintaining the linguistic pair, Nida and Taber (1982) says that “certain rather radical departures from the formal structure are not only legitimate but may even be highly desirable” (p.13) This means that there will be some lexicogrammar changes to reproduce the message of SL text For that reason, Catford (1965) introduces the

tool called translation shifts (see section 2.2.3)

Nida (1964/2000) suggests two equivalence approachs: formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence The initial focus on preserving the content, while the

latter is related to impacts to readers Similarly, Newmark (1988) propose two

translation methods called communicative translation which attempts to achieve

“equivalent effect (to produce the same effect or one as close as possible) on the reader ship” (p.48) and semantic translation which prioritize semantic meaning

Halliday (2001) suggests metafunctions as a vector for analyzing

equivalence In the three metafunctions, ideational meaning is placed as the

highest value due to “a general rule, translation equivalence is defined in

ideational term; if a text does not match its source text ideationally, it does not

communication context SFG views language as a resource which is fundamentally shaped by the usage thereby explaining the form of language in terms of the meaning it expresses (Thompson, 2009)

In the 1930s and 1940s, Firth established the foundation for a social approach to linguistic description After that, his student, Halliday, developed the idea in his distinctive direction, and SFG, at first, was presented as the name Scale and Category Grammar Halliday continued his framework which was eventually named Systemic Linguistic The framework was then applied the name Functional Grammar to more explicitly grammatical aspects (Trask, 2005) In more recent year, it has been contributed greatly by Jim Martin and Christian Mathiessen (Thompson, 2009)

Hoang (2005), says that language models are assumed to consist of different strata In most language models, there are three strata: phonetics, syntax,

and semantics Each of them is organized into different ranks, patterns and

systems Ranks refer to varied units in that stratum; for example, lexicogrammar

includes clauses, groups, words, and morphemes Regarding to patterns and systems, the former shows the combination of units into larger one, whereas the latter illustrates the available options for choice in each position of units

In SFG, there are five strata: context, semantics, lexicogrammar, phonology and phonetics as the following figure

Figure 2.1: Stratification in English language

(Derived from Halliday and Matthiesen 2004)

Phonetic and phonology strata relate to our speech sounds, and they are strata for expression The content expands into 2 strata: lexicogrammar and sematic A language is used to make sense of our experience, and to carry out the social interaction with others, it is the statum of semantics Simultaneously those experience and social interaction are transformed into wording, it is stratum of lexicogrammar Finally, context stratum is about what is going on, the relationships of participants in the conversation, and the means they use to interact There is a relationship between these strata, and it is called realization, it means that a stratum is realized by the lower one (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004)

SFG deals with the lexicogrammar, the stratum of wording It is located between semantics and phonology Despite dealing with lexicogrammar, SFG prioritizes to semantics; it means that grammar is viewed as a resource for meaning expression (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004) Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) say that “giving priority to the view ‘from above’ [semantics] means that the organizing principle adopted is that of system: the grammar is seen as a network of interrelated meaningful choices” (p.31)

With regard to ranks, SFG focuses on clause as “it is the mainspring of grammatical energy; it is the unit where meanings of different kinds, experiential,

interpersonal and textual, are integrated into a single syntagm” (Halliday &

meaning Its aim is to explain how wordings are used to express the meaning; in other words, what a language form consists of is less important than how it functions in the clause The other main feature is its functional nature; The design

of SFG is to link the relationships between forms and meanings in consistent ways (Thompson, 2009)

2.2.2.2 Metafunction

The key feature of SFG is multi-perspective model, proving analysists with complementary lenses for interpretation of language in use The ideas of kinds of meaning is one of the most basic of these complementarities The kinds of meaning refer to ideational meaning, interpersonal meaning, and textual meaning The ideational meaning construes experience; The interpersonal meaning shows social relations between communicators, and the textual meaning are concerned with information flow (Martin & White, 2005)

2.2.2.3 Ideational Metafunction

There are two components in this metafunction: experiential and logical

meaning Experiential meaning expresses ongoing human experience, and it is realized by transitivity system Logical meaning shows the relationships between units in the same ranks (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004)

2.2.2.4 Transitivity system

It construes the world of experience into a manageable set of process type Each type of processes is constructed by different models, and it expresses different domains of experience There are six types of processes: material, mental, relational, existential, verbal and behavioural, which are introduced in the figure below (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004)

Figure 2.2:The grammar of experience: type of process in English

(Taken from Halliday & Matthiessen 2004) Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) says that “material, mental and relational are the main types of process in the English transitivity system” (p.171) He also states each region of process has its own core areas showing prototypical members

of the process types; but when the region spread continuously, it shades into each other, forming the overlaps which is the result of the process types fuzzy

In a process type exists three constituents, namely process, participants, and circumstances, the last of which are optional elements

1 a process unfolding through the time

2 the participants involved in the process

3 circumstances associated with the process (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p 175)

The realization of these elements is shown as the figure below:

Figure 2.3: Central and Peripheral elements in the experiential structure

(Taken from Halliday & Matthiessen 2004) Figure 2.2 has been remarked by Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) as follows:

The configuration of process and participants constitutes the experiential centre of the clause Circumstantial elements augment this centre in some way — temporally, spatially, causally and so on; but their status in the configuration is more peripheral and unlike participants they are not directly involved in the process (Halliday &

Matthiessen, 2004, p 176)

From the figure, the process is realized by verbal groups, the participants

by nominal groups and the circumstances by adverbial groups and prepositional

There are two sub-types: creative and transformative

(a) In a ‘creative’ clause, the outcome is the coming into existence of one participant: it may be an actor or a goal (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004)

The followings are the examples of ‘creative material’ clause: the outcome

is an actor:

This sub-type of process is said to be shaded into existential process -or the goal

According to (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004), in addition to actor and goal,

there are other kinds of participants namely Scope, Recipient, Client, and

Attribute Scope follows verb groups just like goal; however, it is not affected by

the performance of the process but rather it is the domain where the process takes place

Recipients and clients are both the benefactive roles, but recipients receive goods, while clients receive service

They built me a house

Attribute

2.2.2.4.2 Mental process

Mental process is concerned with our experience of the inner world (our consciousness) In contrast to material process, it describes states of mind or psychological event taking place in our own consciousness

The configuration of mental process always includes a participant who is

human, and it is called Sensor The other main constituent is called the

Phenonmenon which is felt, thought, wanted or perceived

There are four sub-types: Perceptive, cognitive, desiderative, and emotive

(Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004) Examples of each type of process follow this

Perceptive mental process

Cognitive mental process

Senser Pr: mental Phenomenon Circumstance

(Cir)

Desiderative mental process

Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) states that these four sub-types often overlap each other in meaning

2.2.2.4.3 Relational process

It construes both inner world like mental, and outer world like material, yet

it shows the relationships rather than “sensing” and “doing” There are three types

of, and two mode of relation The combination of each type and mode creates six types of relational process which will be illustrated as below (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004)

● In ‘attributive intensive’ clause, there is an entity – Carrier, ascribed by some class – Attribute

In some cases, the attribute shows a quality of sensing, which is similar to mental process

● In ‘identifying intensive’ clause, there are two entities in the clause; The

first one is named Identified which is identified by the other – Identifier Put

differently, the latter provides the identity for the initial

Identified Pr: relational Identifier Cir

The differences between identifying and attribute mode of relation are that (1) attribute element is represented by nominal group with indefinite article, whereas identifying element is definite article (2) The two participants in

‘identifying’ clause can be reversed, but ‘attributive’ clause cannot, and (3) there are several distinct verbs for each mode

In the ‘intensive’ clause, there is a configuration with the third participant called assigner in ‘identifying’ clauses or attributor in ‘attributing’ clause who/which assign the relationship of identity or attribution

Assigner Pr: assign Carrier Attributive

● ‘Possessive’ clauses show the relationship between owner and the entity

of owner It is also divided into two types:

‘Attribute possessive’ clause

‘Identifying possessive’ clause

Identified Pr: relational Identifier

● In ‘circumstantial’ clause, the relationship between the two terms is one

of time, place, manner, cause, accompaniment, role, matter, or angle

‘Attributive circumstantial’ clause

‘Identifying circumstantial’ clause

Identified Pr: relational Identifier

2.2.2.4.4 Behavioural process

These are processes of physiological and psychological behavior It is located on the border of mental and material process, which means that its characteristics is partly from material and mental ones (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004)

There is usually one participant labelled Behaver, and it is similar to Sensor

from mental configuration

Sometimes it also includes another participant called Behaviour, its

function is similar to scope from material process

2.2.2.4.5 Verbal process

These processes set the dialogue up for communication The participants

involved are Sayer which can be anything that put out a signal, Verbiage – the

content of what is said or the name of it, and the Target - the entity which receive

(listen or read) the verbiage (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004)

2.2.2.4.6 Existential process

These represent that something exists or happens The only participant

involved is Existent – the entity or event which is being said to be existed

(Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004)

Pr: existential Existent

In several situations, where the circumstantial element is at the beginning, the adverbial group “there” will be removed from the clause

In addition to the common verb “to be”, there are other verbs in ‘existential’ clauses such as happen, occur, stand, exist …

There is also a special type of ‘existential’ clause which include the nominalized figure We will discuss it later towards the end of the section on SFG (see Chapter 2, Section 2.2.1.11)

The process type is summarized as the following figure:

Pr: attributive; +Carrier; +Attribute

Figure 2.4:The system of process type

(Taken from Eggin 2004) Along with the metafunctions, it can be seen that constituents of a configuration are realized by the lower strata, lexicogrammar Therefore, in order

to understand how they shift in a configuration, it is necessary to look through the relationship between elements in both semantic and lexicogrammar strata as well

as the description of latter strata

2.2.2.5 Classes and Function

Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) define a class as “a set of items that are in some respect alike” (p.50), and regarding to the word classes, they categorize them into three groups and one phrase, namely verbal, nominal, and adverbial groups, and prepositional phrase They also claimed that “the class of an item indicates in a general way its potential range of grammatical functions” (p.52); this means that a class do not play exactly the same function in different configuration but it varies in a certain range For example, a nominal group can

be labeled as an actor or a senser but cannot be a process in the clause

They also say that “the significance of any functional label lies in its relationship to the other function with which it is structurally associated” (p.60)

In other words, the function Senser is interpretable appropriately when there are other kinds of functions like mental process and phenomenon in the configuration

2.2.2.6 Groups and Phrases

Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) define a group as “a combination of words built up on the basis of a particular logical relation” (p.310) In this part, we will discuss about nominal group, verbal group, adverbial group, and prepositional phrase

2.2.2.6.1 Nominal Group

A typical nominal group may include “one or more of the functional elements Deictic, Numerative, Epithet” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p 312), Classifier and Thing

Deictic’s main function is to distinguish between specific or non-specific thing This kind is realized by articles, demonstrative and possessive determiners, and total or partial determiners Numerative elements represent numerical features either quantity or order, exact or inexact

Epithets show some quality of the thing It can be an objective property of the thing and an expression of the speaker’s subjective attitude towards it Classifier’s indication is about a specific subtype of the thing in question They can be either adjective or noun

Thing is “the semantic core of the nominal group It can be common noun, proper noun or personal noun” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p 325) Here an example of a nominal group:

Those two splendid old electric trains with pantographs Deictic Numerative Epithet Classifier Thing Qualifier

Determiner Numeral Adjective Adjective Adjective Noun Prepositional phrase

In a nominal group, the thing is normally the head, but under certain circumstances the other elements will take the place For example, head as deictic: everyone; head as numerative: three of them; head as epithet: the poor

Finite /Event Finite Auxiliary Event

The finite’s role is to relate the process to the speaker by tense and modality, and the event’s function is to express a process, which can be event, relation, behavior, or saying

“The class of word functioning as Event in the verbal group structure is the verb” or, specifically the “lexical verb” Lexical verbs can be one word or a group

of word (called phrase verbs) Phrase verbs consist of a verb and at least one in two other optional elements: adverb and preposition (Halliday & Matthiessen,

2.2.2.6.3 Adverbial Group

It consists of an adverb as a head with or without modifying elements Those elements for pre-modifiers may be polarity (not), comparison (more, less; as) and intensification

Polarity Comparison Intensification Head

Its potential label in transtivity system is circumstantial constituents such

as time (yesterday, today) as manner: quality (well, badly) comparison (differently)

2.2.2.6.4 Prepositional Phrase

Matthiessen et al (2010) remark about prepositional phrase like this:

Like groups, phrases constitute the rank intermediate between clauses and words However, unlike groups they are not logically structured groups of words, but rather more like miniature clauses (Matthiessen et al., 2010, p 159)

A prepositional phrase, thus, contains a preposition and a nominal group;

several examples of prepositional phrase are in the morning, in the corner, and on

the burning deck It functions as Adjunct in the structure of the clause or

post-modifier in a nominal group or an adverbial group

Example of circumstantial adjunct: stop for lunch and a swim at Kuta Postmodifier in nominal group: the girl in the house

Postmodifier in adverbial group: faster than a crocodile

Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) claimed that “there is in fact an area of overlap between prepositional phrase and non-finite clause” (p.360); there are some cases these two can be used interchangeably

2.2.2.7 Embedded Expasions

Apart from taxis relation, Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) also introduce the notion of embedding They said “Embedding is a semogenic mechanism whereby a clause or phrase comes to function as a constituent within the structure

of a group, which itself is a constituent of a clause” (p.426), and they use [[ ]] for embedded clauses (ECL), and [ ] for embedded phrases For examples:

the man [[who came to dinner]]

Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) summarize all types of embedding elements in the table below:

Clause: non-finite [[for Jack to built the house]] -

(Borrowed from (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p 427)) The relative clause is an embedded clause “Its function is to specify which member or members of the class designated by the Head noun”(Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p 428)

Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) categorized embedded clauses into embedded units and differentiated them with ordinary clauses due to their functions as post-modifier for nominal groups

The figure below will show the analysis of a clause containing a nominal group with an embedded clause as the post-modifier

Do you know the girl who is taking the picture

Nominal group Modifier Head Post modifier

[[Clause:Defining relative ]]

Mood Residue Subject Finite Predict Comple

(Taken from (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p 428))

In addition to serving as Postmodifier, ECL also functions as the Head; in this case, ECL is a nominalization of a process For instance, [[threatening people]] will get you nowhere (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004)

2.2.2.8 Metaphorical Modes of Expression

In general, a semantic unit is realized by certain lexicogrammar features For example, the metafunctions are realized by the clause, the participants by nominal groups, or the process is realized by verbal groups Those types of

realization are called congruent mode However, Halliday and Matthiessen (2004)

claim that it is possible for “realignment in the realizational relationship between semantic units and grammatical ones.” (p.614) In other words, under certain circumstances, the figure – the quantum of flow event, can be realized by a

nominal group For instance, the clause they allocate an extra packer may be aligned to the nominal group the allocation of an extra packer, and that is known

as incongruent mode

2.2.2.8.1 Ideational Metaphor

Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) state “ideational metafunction involves a re-mapping between the sequence, figures and elements in semantics and clause nexuses, clauses and groups in the grammar” (p.639) In this process, there seem shifted downwards in the semantics units: a sequence is realized by a clause, or the figure is realized by a group

There are three types of ideational metaphor First of all, the sequence in congruent mode include two figures realized by a nexus of two clauses; however,

in the metaphorical mode, either one or even both clauses are downranked to group/phrase For example, one clause is downranked to a group:

Many of these lessons may have gone wrong because teachers were nervous because the school was being inspected can be rewritten Many of these lessons may have gone wrong because of nervousness due to inspection

Secondly, at the rank of figure, the realization of the figure in metaphorical mode still remains a clause, but there is downgrading in the initial figure to a metaphorical nominal group and creation of new process

e.g I originally intended to write a saga covering three generations of the

Okonkwo family in one book  my original intention was to write …

Finally, the elements in the figure will be affected as well; the process of the figure is nominalized and functions as Thing, while the other elements will be downgraded as groups or phrases serving as modifier for the Thing

We have already been through translation and equivalence Obviously, meaning is prior in translation process, and the meaning here refers to experiential

meaning, according to Halliday (2001) We have also discussed about experiential meaning realized via transitivity system in SFG framework In practice of

translation, as Nida and Taber (1982) mentioned above about lexicogrammar alternation for reproducing meaning, it is high time we discussed about

translation shifts, a useful tool for analyzing lexicogrammar alternation

2.2.3 Translation Shifts

His definition of shifts is that “By 'shifts' we mean departures from formal correspondence in the process of going from the Source language (SL) to the

Target language” He explains the term formal correspondence

is any TL category which may be said to occupy, as nearly as possible, the 'same' place in the economy of the TL as the given SL category occupies in the SL (Catford,

1965, p 33)

There are two major types: category shifts and level shifts:

2.2.3.1.1 Structure Shifts

Structure shifts as its name implied is the changes of structures in translation, it can occur at all rank, and it is the most frequent type in category shifts

The following is an example of structure shifts

SL text: This is an electric train (Deictic-Classifier-Thing)

TL text: Đây là tàu điện (Thing-Classifier)

Accounting for the rank of group, the position of classifier elements in nominal groups are different in these two texts It precedes the thing in nominal group in the SL text whereas it follows the thing in the TL text

SL text: A beautiful girl (Pre-modifier + Thing)

TL text: Một cô gái xinh đẹp (Pre-modifier + Thing + Post-modifier) The word beautiful is in pre-modifier of noun girl, but the equivalence xinh

đẹp is in the post-modifier of cô gái