(Luận văn) a functional analysis of martin luther king’s speech “beyond vietnam a time to break silence”

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY TRẦN THỊ TỐ NGA A FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF MARTIN LUTHER KING‟S SPEECH “BEYOND VIETNAM: A TIME TO BREAK SILENCE” MASTER THESIS IN

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

TRẦN THỊ TỐ NGA

A FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF MARTIN LUTHER KING‟S SPEECH

“BEYOND VIETNAM: A TIME TO BREAK SILENCE”

MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH

Binh Dinh, 2020

luan van tot nghiep download luanvanfull moi nhat z z @gmail.com Luan van thac si

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BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

TRẦN THỊ TỐ NGA

PHÂN TÍCH BÀI PHÁT BIỂU

“BEYOND VIETNAM: A TIME TO BREAK SILENCE” CỦA MARTIN LUTHER KING THEO NGỮ PHÁP CHỨC NĂNG

Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh

Mã số: 8 22 02 01

Người hướng dẫn: PGS.TS Trần Văn Phước

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in the whole or part from the thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma

No other person‟s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the thesis

This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma

in any tertiary institution

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I would like to express my thanks to all the lectures who have the given the foundation for this thesis and all the staff of the Post- graduate Department at Quy Nhon University for their encouragement, kindness and administrative assistance

My deepest gratitude and appreciation goes to my supervisor Trần Văn Phước, Assoc Prof Dr for his invaluable guidance

My thanks are also due to I am immensely grateful to my aunt, Nhuan Tri, for her help and kindness Many, many thanks to all the teachers at Ton Duc Thang High School in Duc Co District, Gia Lai Povince for creating the best conditions to me

I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to my coworkers and friends, whose kindness and support to my study were great

I would like to show my sincerce thanks to many people who have given

me great help during the time I managed to complete this thesis

Last but not least, I feel deeply indebted to my family, especially my parents for always by my side whenever I got troubles

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ABSTRACT

This Thesis entitled: A functional analysis of Martin Luther King‟s speech

“Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” is conducted to aim at examing the

metafunctions of Martin Luther King‟s speech by analyzing its topic, content and

attitudes This work identified the Tenor/Interpersonal metafunction,

Field/Experiential metafunction, Mode/ Textual metafunction and thematic progressions were applied In terms of Interpersonal metafunction, most of the clauses are declarative, the main role of the speech is to declare the facts that America‟s government neglecting their poverty program to interfere to Vietnam war, which leads to the tragic consequences forward not only lives but resources

of both Vietnamese and American In King‟s speech, the Modality becomes prominent through a range of modal auxiliary verbs to indicate the necessity and urgency of a protest against the war From the Experiential metafunction analysis, it can be concluded that the material processes dominate in six kinds of processes The central purpose of King is to mainly convey information about the actions of breaking the rules and the cruel actios of America‟s government in Vietnam Morever, King mentions about the positive changes of life after conducting a new revolution Regarding to Textual metafunction, it helps listeners to integrate in the King‟s messages Topical theme accounts for the highest percentage and multiple themes play a vital role to latch a sentence explicitly on to the preceding context Last but not least, is the analysis of thematic progression, it is found that the speech also tends to employ the constant theme pattern because it is easy for the speaker to develop the topic and for the audience to be accepted Thanks to thematic progression patterns the related problems of ending Vietnam war are mentioned throughout the speech Hopefully, the reasearch is helpful to those whose are studying political languages as well as learning how to make a successful speech

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LIST OF TABLES

Table

Page Number

2.3 A summary of all the types of process and their

4.4 Frequency and percentage of topical, interpersonal

4.5 Frequecy and percentage of simple and multiple

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure

Page Number

2.1 Giving or demanding, goods-&- services or

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES v

LIST OF FIGURES vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS vii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale of the study 1

1.2 Aims of the study 4

1.3 Objectives of the study 4

1.4 Research questions 4

1.5 Scope of the study 5

1.6 Significance of the study 5

1.7 Organization of the thesis 5

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Review of previous studies related to the research 7

2.2 Theoretical background 8

2.2.1 Definition of Speech and Text 8

2.2.2 Systemic Functional Grammar 8

2.2.3 Three Metafunctions 9

2.2.3.1 Interpersonal meaning of the text 10

2.2.3.2 Experiential meaning of the text 13

2.2.3.3 Textual meaning of the text 18

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2.2.3.4 Thematic progression patterns 25

2.2.4 Martin Luther King 28

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 31

3.1 Research methods 31

3.1.1 Data collection 31

3.1.2 Data collection and coding procedure 31

3.1.3 Data analysis 32

3.1.3.1 Text analysis method 32

3.2 Summary 33

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 34

4.1 Interpersonal function in Martin Luther King‟s speech 34

4.1.1 Mood Structures 34

4.1.1.1 Frequency of mood structures 34

4.1.1.2 Description and lexico-grammatical realizations of moods 34

4.1.1.3 The usage of mood structures to express the interpersonal function 38

4.1.2 Modality 38

4.1.2.1 Frequency of Modality 38

4.1.2.2 Description and lexico-grammatical realizations of modality 39

4.1.2.3 The usage of modality to introduce the interpersonal function 41

4.1.3 Summary 42

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4.2 Experiential function in Martin Luther King‟s speech 42

4.2.1 Transitivity structures 42

4.2.1.1 Frequency of each process 42

4.2.1.2 Description and lexico-grammatical realizations of processes 43

4.2.1.3 The usage of processes to introduce the experiential function 48

4.2.2 Summary 49

4.3 Textual function in Martin Luther King‟s speech 50

4.3.1 Thematic structures 50

4.3.1.1 Topical, interpersonal and textual themes 50

4.3.2.2 Simple and multiple themes 54

4.3.2.3 Marked and unmarked themes 56

4.3.2 Summary 59

4.4 Thematic- progression patterns 60

4.4.1 Frequency of thematic progression patterns 60

4.4.2 Descriptions and lexico- grammatical realizations of thematic progression patterns 61

4.4.2.1 The constant pattern of thematic progression 61

4.4.2.2 The zig-zag pattern of thematic progression 62

4.4.2.3 The multiple rheme pattern of thematic progression 64

4.4.3 The usage of thematic progression to present the interpersonal function 65

4.4.4 Summary 66

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CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS 67

5.1 Main findings of the study 67

5.2 Conclusions 67

5.3 Limitations 69

5.4 Implications 70

REFERENCES 72

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale of the study

Language is used as the most effective transportation not only to express meanings but also carry out various functions in distinctive contexts and situations of our lives English has become an international laguage and the second laguage of almost nations Systemic Functional Grammar gradually tends

to the popular topics for reseachers and linguistists If Syntax plays a vital role in indicating the set of rules, principles, and processes that govern the structures of the sentences in a particular language, Grammar is the sallient key in recognizing the sounds of words, the meanings of those words and the different ways of arranging words together to make meaningful sentences.The linguistic items are investigated in various functional aspects synchronously because a linguistic unit may have not only one function at a particular time

It is a well- known fact that laguage is the main tool that human beings use to communicate to each other, to express our attitudes and feelings to the world around us such as in literatures, social problems, political aspects and so

on According to Habermas (1992) stated, communication is an extremely complex and ever- changing phenomenon Communication allows humans not only to express the shared set of physical, emotional, and psychological needs that are alive inside us at any given moment, but also give this information to others for enriching life for others and ourselves (Habermas, 1992)

However, only by using language, what the speaker‟s meaning can not be understood thoroughly Hearers have to combine it with its context and functions for the apprehending of speaker‟s meaning It is used for the interpretation of hearer which hear the speaker, or reader which read the text SFG can do this because the way of this model of language explains the connection between context and text for understanding the meaning of a language In functional

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linguistics, people can understand how the wording of the text simultaneously encode three types of meaning: textual meaning, interpersonal meaning, and ideational meaning, which are influenced by their context of situation: mode, tenor, and field (Halliday, 1978, p.123)

From such a fact, to have deep insights into the nature and functions of language analyzed by many methods and approaches, Functional Grammar has attracted interest of not only many linguistists but also learners A number of studies were conducted and based on Functional Grammar The social functions language was emphasized by Halliday, the works of Schegloff, Jefferson and Sack are important in the research of conversation, turn-taking and other aspects

of spoken interactions (Schegloff, Jefferson, & Sacks, 1977)

Depending distinctive situations or contexts, language will have different function forms, for example: stories, news, speech, poems, movies or songs In terms of speech, it an an aspect of language which is represented by the use of signals produced by meant of human exhalation, phonation, articulation, resonance, communicated by acoustic and auditory means (Milloy, 2013)

The writer has reasons of choosing speech as her object research which is going to be analyzed First, it is particularly true that language is the salient method to communicate in our daily life Especially, language seems to be a very important tool used by political communities to establish group awareness and cement voters by making them feel that their vote count Therefore, Van Dijk observed that each speech delivered by a politician is a realization of his intention and has its own function (Van Dijk, 1997)

In addition to the powerful language, the speech also played on the emotional story with a range of semiotic resources including the facial expression, gestures, intonation and the impressive wait and pause before speaking Given that the speech has attracted so much attention and caused a

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great sensation, it is worthwhile to take a closer look at it

Furthermore, the reasons why the writer chooses Martin Luther King‟s speech are, firstly, this speech is his most famous and influenced speech among his seventeen speeches In addition, it had influences not only in America but Vietnam (the hometown of the writer) with title

“Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” He delivered it to oppose the

America‟s role in Vietnam war King also criticized American opposition

to North Vietnam's land reforms in his speech

Besides, Martin Luther King was a social activist and Baptist minister who played a salient role in the American civil rights movement from the mid-1950s until his assassination in 1968 Martin Luther King was well-known of all time by his famous speeches which have fluency, persuasives and the power to touch and charm million‟hearts

“And if we will only make the right choice, we will be able to transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of peace

If we will make the right choice, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our world into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood…”

He is best known for his role in advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience based on his Christian beliefs In his entire carrier as activist, he often got some precious awards, such as Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence Last but not least, he also awarded the Spingarn Medal from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Martin Luther King had eleven speeches before his tragic assassination

[online] Available at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Vietnam:_A_Time_to_Break_S ilence#Background [Accessed 8 October 2019]

In this thesis, I will follow systemic functional grammar (SFG) to

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analyze the speech text I determine to raise a research entitled: A Functional Analysis of Martin Luther King‟s Speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”

1.2 Aims of the study

This study aims to identify the purposes or functions of Martin Luther King‟s speech through their topic, content, and the attitudes realized by linguistic features or lexico-grammatical realizations

1.3 Objectives of the study

To achieve the aims above, the study will focus on objectives as follows: (1) to identify the tenor of speeches (the attitudes) through the uses of Mood structures and modality to express interpersonal function/meaning realized by their linguistic features;

(2) to identify the field of speeches (their content) through the uses of processes to express experiential/ideational function/meaning realized by their linguistic features;

(3) to identify the mode of speeches (their topics) through the uses of thematic structures to express textual function/meaning realized by their linguistic features;

(4) to identify the communicative effectiveness of speeches through the uses of thematic- progression patterns

1.4 Research questions

In order to achieve the aims and objectives mentioned in this paper, I try

to find the answers to the following questions:

(1) What mood structures and modality and their lexico-grammatical realizations are used to express the tenor or King‟s attitudes in speech? (2) What transitivity structures and their lexico-grammatical realizations are used to express the field of the Martin Luther King‟s speech?

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(3) What thematic structures and their lexico-grammatical realizations are are used to express the mode of Martin Luther King‟s speech?

(4) What types of thematic progression patterns are used to make Martin Luther King‟s speech effective?

1.5 Scope of the study

Due to limited knowledge and time allocation, the study narrows the functional analysis inspired by M.A.K Halliday (1985, 1994, 2004) which was revised by M.A.K Halliday and Christian M.I.M Matthiessen in 2004 (the third edition) in some aspects of Field, Mode, Tenor and by Eggins (2004) in thematic progression patterns developed by basing on Halliday‟s theory on the data of the

speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” of Martin Luther King

Prosody or phonological aspects are beyond the analysis of the study

1.6 Significance of the study

By investigating the values of Martin Luther King‟s speech “Beyond

Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” First of all, it will make a significant

contribution towards providing readers and learners with a thorough understanding about language used in political speech in the light of functional grammar Morever, the result of this study is expected to give more information both to teachers and learners about the utilization of political speech It is hoped

to help users of English approach the political speeches in their language from a different viewpoints, reconsider them in the light of functional grammar and use them better in communication, language teaching and studying in political speeches translation from English

1.7 Organization of the thesis

The study consists of five chapters; each chapter takes responsibility for a particular function

Chapter I: Introduction

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This chapter indicates the overview of the study consisting of statement of the problem, research aims and objectives and research questions, the scope and the structure of the study

Chapter II: Literature review

In this chapter, all the terms as well as the key theoretical concepts of functional grammar that the study is based on are clearly explicated so that the following parts of the research can be easily followed by readers Morever, it reviews some previous studies of the issue which is investigated

Chapter III: Research methodology

This chapter describes the methods and procedures to carry out the study

It consists of the research design and procedures for doing this study, selection of speech, the method of collecting data and data analysis

Chapter IV: Findings and discussions

This chapter deals with the results of the study that the researcher investigates from the collected data based on the research questions mentioned above It decribles the frequency, the lexico-grammatical realizations of each feature in three metafunctions and thematic progression patterns

Chapter V: Conclusion and Implication

A summary of the study, the major findings, the implications, the limitations as well as suggestions for further studies are all mentioned in this final chapter

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this research, the writer uses SFG was introduced and developed originally by Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday, known as Halliday (1978, 1985, 1994) The writer focuses on Halliday and Matthiessen (2004)‟s theory about three metafunctions which include Interpersonal function and Experiential function and Textual function Beside, the writer also uses Suzanne Enggins (2004) for analyzing the thematic progression patterns

2.1 Review of previous studies related to the research

So far, there have been some studies on English political speeches

Nguyễn Thị Thanh (2011) applied Systemic Functional Grammar in order to investigate the structure in the speech “I have a dream” by Martin Luther King (T T Nguyen, 2011)

Reza Fahlevi (2015) studied metafunction and context of situation realized in Martin Luther King‟s speech “I have a dream” The writer used theories of Halliday (1985), Gerrot and Wignell (1994), and Enggins (2004)

to analyze metafunction and related it into context of situation realized through register variable (Fahlevi, 2015)

Ubong E Josiah and Gift Oghenerho (2015) analyzed the pragmatic contents and sentence structures of the speech “I have a dream” by using the speech acts theory, examined how the speaker made effective use of the speech

to advocate for equality and address racism, also identified the socio-economic and political ideology inherent in the speech (Josiah & Oghenerho, 2015)

All those works do more or less to contribute to study political speeches either in their structures, metafunction and context, pragmatics In general, until now there was no research on using SFG to analyze the speech

“Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”

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2.2 Theoretical background

2.2.1 Definition of Speech and Text

Speech refers to the faculty or power of speaking; oral communication; ability to express one's thoughts and emotions by speech sounds and gesture

Traditionally, a text is understood to be a piece of written or spoken material

in its primary form (as opposed to a paraphrase or summary) A text is any stretch of language that can be understood in context It may be as simple as 1-2 words (such as a stop sign) or as complex as a novel Any sequence

of sentences that belong together can be consid ered a text

For Halliday and Hasan (1976, p 1-2), the notion „text‟ is:

“[A term] used in linguistics to refer to any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length, that does form a unified whole [….] A text is a unit of language in use It is not a grammatical unit, like a clause or a sentence; and it is not defined by its size [….] A text is best regarded as a SEMANTIC unit; a unit not of form but of meaning” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976)

Functional linguists analyze a text, spoken or written, from a

functional point of view A text is “a harmonious collection of meaning

appropriate to its context” (Butt & 2000) To have thoroughly

understanding about a text is often impossible without reference to the context where it begins And context can be analyzed from two perspectives: the context of culture and the context of situation The former refers to the broad sociocultural environment, which includes ideology, social conventions and institutions; the latter relates to the specific situations within the sociocultural environment (Droga & Humphrey, 2002)

2.2.2 Systemic Functional Grammar

Functional approach to grammatical analysis has been adopted over three

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decades because of being a general theory concerning the grammatical organization of natural languages Halliday is well-known by his grammatical

theory and descriptions, outlined in his book entitled: An Introduction to

Functional Grammar, which was first published in 1985 A revised edition was

published in 1994, and then a third, in which he collaborated with Christian Matthiessen, in 2004

Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), developed by Halliday and his colleagues, has had a great impact on language learning and teaching It is different from all the previous models of grammar in that it interprets language

as interrelated sets of options for making meaning and seeks to provide a clear relationship between functions and grammatical systems Halliday (1994) distinguishes three layers-called metafunctions-of meaning in language: the ideational/ experiential, concerned with the resources to construe human experience and realized by the system of transitivity; the interpersonal, concerned with the resources available to speakers to interact with one another (and thus make requests, offers, statements and questions) and realized by the system of mood and modality; and the textual; concerned with the resources to construct text and mainly realized by the system of theme (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004)

2.2.3 Three Metafunctions

These three aspects reflect the three main functions, or metafunctions, of language Halliday (1994) describes the three metafunctions as follows:

The ideational/experiential metafunction: It enables people to use language

to represent experience, and is influenced by field

The interpersonal metafunction: It enables people to use language to enact social relationships, and is influenced by tenor

The textual metafunction: It enables people to use language to construct logical and coherent texts, and is influenced by mode (Halliday, 1994)

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2.2.3.1 Interpersonal meaning of the text

Interpersonal meaning of the text can be analyzed by interpersonal function which is realized by mood an d modality The interpersonal metafunction is about the social world, especially the relationship between speaker and hearer, and is concerned with clauses as exchanges It also is concerned with language as a form of interaction between people, in order t o

“show how defensible or binding we find out prop osition or proposal” (Butt, 2000)

metafunction of the language and is the grammatical resource for realizing an interactive move in dialogue (Martin, Matthiessen, & Painter, 1997)

According to Halliday (1994, p.68), it is through the interpersonal metafunction that people establish, negotiate and assume their position in social relationship, and it is concerned with clauses as exchange The interpersonal meaning begins with defining basic speech role: giving information, giving goods -and-services and demanding goods -and-services, respectively called statement, questions and commands

The two variables of speech role (giving and demanding), and the variables of commodity (informati on and goods and services), when taken together, define the four basic speech functions: giving information, demanding information, giving goods-and-services and demanding goods -and-services The usual labels for these functions are: statement, question, o ffer, and command Figure 2.1 shows these options, with examples

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illustrated:

Role in exchange

Commodity exchanged (a) goods-&-

services

(b) information

(i) giving „Offer‟

would you like this teapot?

„statement‟ he‟s giving her the teapot (ii)

demanding

„command‟

give me that teapot!

„question‟ what is he giving her?

Figure 2 1: Giving or demanding, goods-&- services or information

These basic functions are closely associated with particular grammatical structures: statements are most naturally expressed by declarative clauses, questions by interrogative clauses, commands by imperative clauses, which are the three main choices in the Mood system of the clause

According to Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p.72), every free clause

selects for Mood Some, such as John! And Good night!, are minor clauses, they

have no thematic structure, and so will be left out of account The others are major clauses A free major clause is either indicative or imperative in Mood; if indicative, it is either declarative or interrogative; if interrogative, it is either

"yes/no" interrogative or "WH-"interrogative

Example:

Indicative: declarative: Bears eat honey Bears don‟t eat honey

Indicative: interrogative: yes/no Does Do bears eat honey? Don‟t bears eat honey?

Imperative: interrogative WH‟: What eats honey? What do bear eat?

imperative: Eat! Let‟s eat!

Beside mood, interpersonal meaning is also realized through modality Modality indicates the speaker‟s judgment of the probabilities or the obligations involved what he or she is saying As Ton Nu My Nhat (2004) defines, modality

is a complex area of English grammar which has to do with different ways in

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which a language user can intrude on his/her message, expressing attitudes and judgment of various kind (Ton, 2004)

Polarity is thus a choice between yes and no But these are not the only possibilities; there are intermediate degrees, various kinds of indeterminacy that

fall in between, such as „sometimes‟ or „maybe‟ These intermediate degrees,

between the positive and negative poles, are known collectively as Modality (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004)

The semantic function of a clause in the exchange of information is a proposition and the semantic function of a clause in the exchange of goods-&-services is a proposal

Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) note that there are two types of

Modality, they are modalization and modulation There are so many ways of

getting yes to no poles Because of that, modality needs to account for the distinction between propositions and proposals Proposition is the meaning of the positive and negative poles in asserting and denying Proposition is accounted for by modalization, that is the subtype of modality On the other hand, proposal

is concerned with the meaning of the positive and negative poles in prescribing and proscribing Proposal is accounted for by modulation, the second subtype of modality

Modalization has to do with “proposition” (the function of the clause in

the exchange of information) Propositions can be affirmed and denied What the

Modality system does “is to construe the region of uncertainty that lies between

„yes‟ and „no‟” (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004, p.147) Halliday and

Matthiessen (2004) also indicate that there are two kinds of intermediate

possibilities: degrees of probability (possibly/probably/certainly) and degrees of

usuality (sometimes/usually/ always)

A distinction is made between modality as described above and modulation

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(scales of obligation and inclination) Modulation concerns proposals (a clause

functioning in the exchange of “goods and services” rather than information) In

command, the inermediate points to represent degrees of obligation: „allowed to,

supposed to, required to‟; in an offer, the represent the degrees of inclination:„

willing to, anxious to, determined to‟ In a proposal, a distinction is made between

the positive do it and the negative don‟t do it Modulated clauses can be offers

(shall I go home?), requests to the listener (go home) or suggestions that both the speaker and the hearer do something (let‟s go home)

2.2.3.2 Experiential meaning of the text

The experiential or representational function of language (clause) is realized by the transitivity system of the language The outer world of reality that

is brought into the inner world of reality in one's consciousness, which is encoded in the transitivity system of language, is interpreted as a what-is-going-

on process, which is related to material actions, events, states, and relations (Halliday, 1978)

The experiential function and the logical function are two sub functions of the ideational function The experiential function is concerned with thoughts in general while the logical function is concerned with the relationship between these thoughts The ideational function is reflected and realized through the

Transitivity system of language Halliday (1994, p.107) states that "Transitivity

translates the world of experience into a manageable set of process types"

According to (Richardson, 2007) "the essence of representation is in the

relationship of 'who is doing, what to whom" (Halliday, 1978) says that

"Transitivity is the key to understand the ideational meaning of texts" According

to Halliday's theory, there are six process types in the transitivity system of English: (1) Material; (2) Mental; (3) Relational; (4) Behavioural; (5) Verbal; and (6) Existential

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According to Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) the transitivity system of a language construes experience into a small set of domains of meaning which differ according to the process itself and the nature of the participants involved in

it Processes play a central role in Transitivity The process centers on that part of the clause that is realized by the verbal group, but it can also be regarded as what

„goings-on‟ are represented in the whole clause It is concerned with different process types which are chosen by the speaker Each process has three basic components: the process verb, the participant(s) and the circumstance(s)

The process which is typically expressed – or realized – by the verbal group in the clause, and is the central component of the message from the experiential perspective indicates the happening or event which the clause is on about, whether is matter of a happening, doing, thinking, saying, being having or simply existing There are 6 main kinds of process in the transitivity system that

I focus in the following part

Participants realized by a nominal group represent thing or people involved in carrying out the process, or thing or people affected by the process Each process in Transitivity systems has its key participants that can be persons, objects, or abstractions; they can be the agent of the action or be affected by it, benefit from it or receive its effects

The circumstances realized by adverbial groups or prepositional phrases, reflect “back ground” function in the clause, which consist of the expressions of time, place, manner, means, cause, condition, concession, accompaniment and role Circumstances are often optional; in some cases they may be more or less obligatory to be included

Six process types are recognized via mental, material, behavioural, relational, verbal and existential At first, Halliday recognizes the process of material, mental and relational as the three main process types in the English

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transitivity system and then finds the other three processes, which are located at the borderlines of the first three Below is a table which is adopted from Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p 171)

Table 2 1: Six processes of Halliday's theory

Material During the European scramble for Africa, Nigeria fell to the

British

and the British ruled it until 1960

Behavioural people are laughing

Mental The Ibos did not approve of kings

Verbal

so we say > that every fourth African is a Nigerian

Can you tell us about the political and cultural make-up

of Nigeria?

Relational that every fourth African is a Nigerian

Existential so today there‟s Christianity in the south

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Material process is the process of doing: action and event For example:

kick, run, paint, repair, burn… According to Halliday and Matthiessen (2004,

p.179), a "„material‟ clause construes a quantum of change in the flow of events

as taking place through some input of energy" He adds "Material clauses

construe figures of „doing-&-happening‟” They express, according to Halliday

(1985, p.103), "the notion that some entity „does‟ something which may be 'to‟

some other entity"

The basic meaning of material processes is that some entity does something or undertakes some actions In this process, there may be one, two, three or four participants

The “doer” of this type of action is called an actor Any material process has an actor, even though the actor may not actually be mentioned in the clause

A second participant – the goal - is the participant to which the doing is aimed at Sometimes, the second participant is a beneficiary (the participant benefiting from the doing) or a range (the participant specifying the scope of a happening)

Mental process is the process which encodes meanings of thinking or

feeling According to Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p.197)," mental clauses

are concerned with our experience of the world of our own consciousness" He

claims that these processes may represent abstract doings and happenings

Halliday divides mental process verbs into three classes: cognitive – verbs of thinking, knowing, understanding, affective – verbs of loving, hating, adoring, liking, fearing, perceptive – verbs of seeing, hearing, feeling, and desiderative –

verbs of wanting, desiring or wishing

All mental processes have two participants One is called senser and the other is phenomenon Senser is the one that feels, thinks, perceives It must be a conscious being Phenomenon is one that is thought, felt or perceived by the senser

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There are only two participants in mental process: senser and phenomenon Senser plays a role as the subject of the sentence and, phenomenon

as the “experiencer”

According to Halliday (1994), behavioural process is the process of

physiological and psychological behaviour Halliday and Matthiessen (2004)

describe it semantically as a “half – way house” between mental and material processes Verbs that denote behavioural are: watch, taste, sniff, dream, breathe,

cough, smile, laugh,…etc The majority of behaviourals have only one

participant This participant is called the behaver, which must be a conscious being

Behaviourals can contain a second participant that is like a range: a restatement of the process This participant is called the behaviour

If there is another participant which is not a restatement of the process, it

is called a phenomenon

Verbal process is the process of saying For example: say, tell, warn,

argue, ask, etc Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p.252) states that "Verbal clauses, in news reporting, allow reporter to impute or assign information to sources, including officials, experts and eye witnesses”

A verbal process typically contains three participants: sayer, receiver, and verbiage The sayer, which does not have to be a conscious being, is one that is responsible for the verbal process The receiver is one to whom the verbal process is directed The verbiage is what is said

Relational process is the process of being and having For example: be,

have, become, etc Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p.210) states that

"Relational clauses serve to characterize and to identify" There are three

subtypes of relational process: „the intensive‟, „the circumstantial‟ and „the

possessive‟ Depending on the mode of clause, attribute or identifying, the

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participants in relational are given different names

In the attribute mode, the participant is referred to as carrier The quality

or the thing showing that the carrier belongs to a class of thing is referred to as attribute

Table 2.2: The principal categories of relational clause

(Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004, p 216)

Existential process is the process of existing For example: There is/

are… indicating that something exists In this type of process, there is generally

a participant, the existent and one or two circumstantial elements In narrative,

for instance, these clauses are used to introduce different participants 'There'

when used in existential clauses enables the addressee to prepare for something which represents new information that is about to be introduced

This is why “existential clauses have been interpreted as 'presentative'

constructions‟‟(Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004,p 257) There in such clauses

has no representational function in the transitivity structure of the clause It is neither a participant nor a circumstance, but it is used to indicate the feature of existence

To sum up, the table below will show all types of processes:

(i) Attributive

„a is an attribute of x‟

(ii) Identifying

„a is the identify of x‟

(1) Intensive „x is a‟ Sarah is wise Sarah is a leader; the leader is

Tomorrow is the 10th; the 10th

is tomorrow

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Table 2.3: A summary of all the types of process and their general category

meaning (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004, p 260) PROCESS TYPE Category meaning Participants, directly

invoved

Participants, obliquely involved

Material:

Action Event

Behavioural „Behaving‟ Behaver Behaviour

Mental:

perception cognition desideration emotion

Verbal „Saying‟ Sayer, Target Receiver,

Verbiage

Relational:

Attribution Identification

Being

„attributing‟

„identifying‟

Carrier, Attribute Identified, Identifier, Token, Value

Attributor Assigner

Existential „Existing‟ Existent

2.2.3.3 Textual meaning of the text

There is no more basic role for the clause than that of creating text Every

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clause is either constitutive of a text or part of a larger text Focusing on the clause in isolation, as has been the case for the previous two chapters, has its advantages since it allows the analyst to focus on the meanings that this unit is able to express The textual metafunction is different, in many respects, from the other two metafunctions in that its meaning spans across clause boundaries and

is fundamental in the creation of text Whereas the experiential metafunction allows the speaker to represent his or her experience and the interpersonal metafunction enables interaction, as Halliday (1994) explains, the textual metafunction breathes relevance into the other two In focusing on textual meaning, this chapter marks a shift towards text but it does so nevertheless from the perspective of the clause and the main element of the clause that express textual to as theme, as will be discussed below Therefore, the goal here is to show how to recognize theme in a variety of different clauses and to understand to the creation of text Theme is a resource for organizing the interpersonal and ideational meanings of each clause in the form of a message According to Halliday (1994), the clause has the character of a message: it has some forms of organization giving it the status of a communicative event One element in the clause functions as the point of departure for the message (labeled as theme) and the remainder gives new information about the point of departure (labeled as rheme) The clause as a message is thus a configuration of two thematic statuses, theme + rheme The combination of theme and rheme, which gives the clause its character as a message, is known as thematic structure

The theme-rheme structure is the basic form of the organization of the

clause as message Within this, the theme is what the speaker selects as his point

of departure, the means of development of the clause But in the total make up of the theme, components from all three functions (Ideational, Interpersonal and Textual) may contribute (Halliday,1985, p 53) Following is example of theme-

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rheme structure in the clauses:

My mother This saucepan

Figure 2 2 Theme- rheme structure in English clause

Theme is realized in English by the first position in a clause The definition of theme given by Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p.38) is that

“theme is the given information serving as the point of departure” of a

message.They also define theme as the element which serves as the point of departure of the message It is that with which the clause is concerned Theme always starts from the beginning of the clause It is what sets the scene for the clause itself and positions it in relation to the unfolding text In the first text the reader is being led around and invited to notice and appreciate; in the second, the reader is held firmly to the topic that is being described The theme is functionally occupied by the first element of the transitivity system of clause The identification of theme is based on order: Theme is the element which comes first in the clause Therefore, the theme is not necessarily a nominal group It may be an adverbial group or preposition phrase

In a word, based on the above mentioned definition, the concept of theme

is regarded in the thesis as the starting - point for the message and it is what the clause is going to be about In addition, theme can be a nominal group, adverbial group or prepositional group

Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) mention that theme can be classified in

to topical Theme, interpersonal theme, and textual theme

Topical (Ideational) theme can be recognized as the first element in the

clause that expresses some kinds of “representational” meaning More technically,

it is a function from the transitivity structure of the clause: a participant, a

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Every clause must contain one and only one topical theme in a clause Once

we have identified a topical theme in a clause, we can consign all the remaining constituents to the rheme role It is this principle which is allowed to determine the theme/ rheme boundary

The interpersonal theme includes all elements coming before the topical

Theme that express interpersonal meaning The interpersonal part of the theme in English clause, if present, includes one or more of the following: (the Interpersonal theme is in bold print)

- The finite, typically realized by an auxiliary verb:

Should they be doing that?

- The mood adjunct:

Perhaps I must eat something

+ The vocative:

Mr Hatch, please take off your hat!

The above examples show the interpersonal theme in English clauses The third clause constituent that can occur in thematic position is the category of textual elements These elements do not express any interpersonal or experiential meaning but they do important cohesive work in relating the clause to its context The two main types of textual elements which can get to be theme are (i) continuative adjunct and (ii) conjunctive adjuncts A continuative adjunct as

theme is one of the small set of discourse signalers (yes, no, now, well, oh, etc.) It

indicates that the speaker‟s contribution is somehow related to what a previous speaker has said in an earlier turn A conjunctive adjunct as theme is the element

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which serves to link clauses or sentences together It is described as textual theme when it occurs before the first topical theme in a clause, for example:

Well, I won‟t go there again

Concerned with the system of topical theme, interpersonal theme, and

textual theme, it is necessary to distinguish simple theme and multiple theme

Drawing out from this definition, there may be one or more elements which can function as theme in the clause The theme always includes one, and only one, experiential element This element is immediately followed by the theme - anything following the first experiential element is part of the theme When the clause has only topical theme without any elements preceded, we say that the

Theme in the clause is simple theme or single theme When there is more than

one element functioning as theme in the clause, we say that the clause consists of

multiple theme Multiple theme includes a topical theme and all other elements

come before it These elements may be textual or interpersonal theme Therefore, if all possible constituents are present in the clause, a multiple theme consists of three components: textual theme (continuative, structural and conjunctive), interpersonal theme (vocative, modal, mood-marking) and topical theme, which represent the three metafunctions - textual, interpersonal and experiential respectively The examples below:

A white Rabbit with pink eyes ran past Alice Topical (ideational )theme

Rheme Simple theme

But Then Surprisingly the Rabbit took a watch out of its pocket Textual

theme

Textual theme

Interpersonal theme

Topical theme Rheme

Multiple theme

Figure 2 3 Simple theme and multiple theme in English clauses

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The figure 2.3 above adopted from Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) illustrates simple theme and multiple themes

In addition to the former classification, Theme can also be categorized into

Unmarked and Marked It is based on theme markedness Theme markedness is

organized and realized differently from language to language and functions as one of the distinctive characteristics of text types and as a reflection of the culture in which the language is embedded The following table shows examples

of unmarked and marked themes in clauses:

Table 2 4: Marked and unmarked themes

U n m a U r k e d t h e m

e Unmarked

theme

Declarative clause

Nominal group pronoun, common or proper noun as Head

I /had a little nut-tree there /were three jovial Welshmen

a wise old man (john) /lived in a house in the wood

Nominalization what I want / is a proper cup of coffee Exclamative as the sub -

category of declarative clause

Adverbial phrase How carefully/ he seems to greet

Interrogative clauses WH-element where / did you get that from?

Imperative clauses Verbal group Answer /all five questions!

Let's/ not quarrel about it!

pronoun as Head

Eliot / you‟re particularly fond of All this /we owe both to ourselves and

to the peoples of the world [[ who are

so well represented here today]]

Nominalization what they could not eat that night # the

Queen next morning fried

Interrogative clauses

Non-finite element After tea/ will you tell me a story?

Non-wh-element In your house/ who does the cooking? Imperative clauses

Non-finite element Your kids/ keep out of the way!

First/ catch the fish

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When the topical theme is conflated with the subject of the clause, it is

unmarked theme The term “unmarked”, according to Eggins simply means

“most typical/usual” while “marked” means “unusual” (Eggins, 1994) When

unmarked choice is made, it gives the theme no special prominence In contrast, when a marked choice is made, the speaker signals that something in the context requires a prominent meaning to be made The most unusual form of marked theme is an adverbial group or a prepositional phrase which functions as adjunct

ran wildly up and down

were always clouded with salt by the end of the day

is to sleep

fell off the wall?

killed Cock Robin?

Unmarked theme Rheme

Figure 2 4 Unmarked theme in English clauses

Marked choice is made when theme conflates with any other constituent from subject in the mood system One common way of creating a marked theme

is to move a circumstantial element to thematic position

From the three sides of the house For a while

Figure 2 5 Marked theme in English clauses

The other classification proposed by Halliday (1985, p.44) is marked and

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unmarked themes Unmarked theme is realized when one element occupies two

positions of grammatical subject and thematic For example: “she went back

downstairs.” Marked theme is realized when an element other than the subject

occupies the theme position, so a condition is created for the appearance of

marked theme For example: “when she opened the door, she screamed at him

like a crazy person.”

2.2.3.4 Thematic progression patterns

Halliday (1994, p 55) indicates that thematic principle lies behind the organization of paragraphs in written discourse where the topic sentence of paragraph is nothing other than its theme He also refers how themes and rhemes could be chained in to thematic progression to create coherent text (Halliday,

1994, p.388)

Thematic progression indicates to the way theme link with each other and with rheme so as to provide continuity in discourse and to organize the text Danes defines thematic progression as follow:

…the choice and ordering of utterance Themes, their mutual concatenation and hierarchy, as well as their relationship to the hypertheme of superior text units (such as the paragraph, chapter ), to the whole text and the situation Thematic progression might be viewed

as the skeleton of the plot ( Dane, 1974, p 114- cited in (T T H Nguyen, 2008)

Paltridge (2000) states that thematic progression refers to the way in which the theme of a clause may pick up or repeat, a meaning from preceding theme and rheme (Paltridge, 2000)

According to Eggins (1994) (adapted and developed theories of Halliday),

Thematic Progression refers to the exchanging flow of information between

consecutive theme-rheme pairings in a text As mentioned above, the success of

a cohesive text depends heavily on whether the arrangement of given and new

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information is effective or not The distribution of information needs to follow

certain patterns of thematic progression Eggins (2004) classifies three main

patterns of thematic development/progression:

First, Eggins (2004, p 323) postulates theme reiteration, which some

linguists label the “continuous or constant theme” This kind of thematic

pattern often appears in short biographical passages and narratives It is also frequently found in textbooks and descriptions of factual information Some linguists label it as the constant theme (Bloor & Bloor, 1995) and (Danes, 1974)

As the title suggests, the first theme is repeated in the beginning of the next clauses This type is occasionally called parallel pattern:

John (TH 1) was born in Russia and was deeply fascinated with the circus at

a very early age (RH1) He (TH 2) loves the antics of the clowns (RH2) He (TH3) receives an apprenticeship in a small circus at the age of six (RH3)

The example abides by the following pattern of thematic progression:

Figure 2 6 The constant pattern of thematic progression

Eggins (2004) refers to a second type of theme as the zig-zag Thematic

development, which Bloor, T & Bloor, M (1995) and Danes (1974) categorize

as the linear theme pattern In this pattern, the rheme of one clause is taken up as the theme of a subsequent clause He indicates that various texts use this kind of theme structure (see figure 2.7)

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Figure 2 7 The zig-zag pattern of thematic progression

(adapted from Eggins, 2004, 324)

The Rheme of one clause is taken up as Theme of the subsequent clause,

as example below:

Outside my window (TH 1) is a big garden with many kinds of plants (RH1), and in the middle of the garden (TH 2) is a flower bed (RH 2) The flower bed (TH3) is full of roses and tulips in the spring (RH3) Roses and tulips (TH 4) are my favorite flowers (RH 4)

A third common type of thematic progression is the multiple-Rheme

pattern

Figure 2 8a Multiple rheme pattern of thematic progression

Bloor, T & Bloor, M (1995) proposes a multiple rheme pattern, which is essentially the same thing as a multiple-rheme pattern This multiple-rheme pattern is common in longer expository texts It occurs when the rheme of a

Tiêu đề	A Functional Analysis of Martin Luther King’s Speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”
Người hướng dẫn	PGS.TS. Trần Văn Phước, Assoc. Prof. Dr.
Trường học	Quy Nhơn University
Chuyên ngành	English Language
Thể loại	Thesis
Năm xuất bản	2020
Thành phố	Bình Định

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Số trang	90
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