There is another participant which is not a restatement of process, but is interpreted as Phenomenon enhancing the process. Phenomenon of our experince includes some entities such as pe[r]
Trang 1NGUYỄN THỊ TÚ TRINH * ; PHAN VĂN HÒA ** ; TRẦN HỮU PHÚC ***
* Đại học Ngoại ngữ, Đại học Đà Nẵng, ✉ trinhntt@caodanggtvt2.edu.vn
** Đại học Ngoại ngữ, Đại học Đà Nẵng, ✉ hoauni@gmail.com
*** Đại học Ngoại ngữ, Đại học Đà Nẵng, ✉ thphuc@ufl.udn.vn
1 INTRODUCTION
Being one of the three core elements in
ideational meaning analysis, participants are key
elements and play an important role in meaning
contributions We examine the characteristics
of participants in terms of lexico-grammatical
diversity and their meanings across our selected
data We suggest a different interpretation of both
types of lexico-grammar and their meanings To
investigate the characteristics of participants in
English and Vietnamese is believed to create
two benefits First, the results can better clarify
the meaning frame in the behavioral process in
general and the role of participants in this type
ĐẶC ĐIỂM CỦA THAM THỂ TRONG CÂU HÀNH VI TIẾNG VIỆT
VÀ TIẾNG ANH
TÓM TẮT
Bài viết này thảo luận các đặc điểm của tham thể trong câu hành vi tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt bằng cách mô tả, lý giải cấu trúc từ vựng-ngữ pháp, nghĩa ý niệm theo khung lý thuyết ngữ pháp chức năng của Halliday và Matthiessen (2004); Martin et al (1997) và so sánh đối chiếu theo 3 nội dung này Chúng tôi lưu ý đến vấn đề từ vựng-ngữ pháp, nghĩa và sự chọn lựa ngôn từ thông qua các lớp nghĩa của tham thể Mỗi loại tham thể được phân tích và diễn giải theo hai bình diện: (i) cấu trúc – theo cấp bậc và (ii) ngữ nghĩa – theo vai Để làm sáng tỏ hơn vấn đề, chúng tôi phân tích các đặc điểm tham thể trong câu hành vi trên cơ sở cứ liệu gồm mười sáu tiểu thuyết và truyện ngắn tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt thế kỷ XIX và XX Kết luận nêu bật những kết quả mới trong công trình nghiên cứu và đề xuất giải pháp
Từ khóa: câu hành vi, ngữ pháp chức năng, tham thể.
of process in particular Second, in language teaching, we frequently face some indeterminate and problematic cases when analyzing and categorizing English and Vietnamese participants
in behavioral clauses; so shedding light on this matter enables a different view of ideational meaning to have a better understanding of the extent of these meanings in contexts and to offer
a more effective way of teaching these meanings
to students
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Halliday and Matthiessen (2000) give an in-depth explanation to how human beings construe
Trang 2their experience of the world In many cases, functionalists like Bloor and Bloor (1995), Eggins (1994), Fowler (1996), Martin (1997), etc., and cognitive linguists like Langacker (1987), Lakoff and Johnson (1980), amongst others, have a common ground that the construction of experience is usually thought of as knowledge, represented in the form of conceptual taxonomies, schemata, scripts and others For this recognition, analyzing the characteristics of participants in behavioral process from the semantic-functional view is necessary In Vietnamese, Hoàng Văn Vân (2012), considered the first, successfully adopts functional grammar’s framework to describe the experiential grammar
of Vietnamese clauses of the system of TRANSITIVITY However, Hoàng Văn Vân does not draw comparisons of the characteristics of participants between English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses
So our study differs in that we make a contrastive analysis of participants in English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses in terms of lexico-grammar and ideational meaning
3 METHOD
3.1 Data collection
Qualitative approach is adopted in this study because our attention is paid to interpreting English and Vietnamese participants in behavioral clauses In other words, we focus on analyzing and making sense of characteristics of participants in English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses rather than seeking to count things
To determine behavioral clauses within this study, we start with behavioral processes because
we look at behavioral clauses from Halliday’s viewpoint Tables 1 and 2 illustrate the raw lists of behavioral processes in English and Vietnamese
Table 1: A list of English behavioral processes
English behavioral processes
smile, laugh, twitch, shiver, kiss, embrace, dance, play, hug, stutter, mumble, stammer, chat, mutter, moan, chatter, chat, talk, gossip, whine, whinge, ponder, puzzle, work out, mediate, ruminate, think, cogitate, scowl, shudder, grin, gasp, cry, giggle, mumble, look at, watch, stare, gawk, view, look over, observe, dream, listen, taste, sniff, sing, frown, insult, slander, praise, flatter, yell, scream, tremble, sweat, cough, yawn, sneeze, breathe, sleep, shit, hiccup, burp, faint, grimace, snort, snore, sniff, gasp, sigh, sob, snarl, cry, stare, blush, groan, nod, blink
Table 2: A list of Vietnamese behavioral processes
Vietnamese behavioral processes
thở, cười, gật gù, gật đầu, cau mày, khóc, rên rỉ, than van, nhăn mặt, gầm gừ, nhăn nhó, rùng mình, ngắm, ngắm nghía, ho, ngáp, hắt xì, thở, ngủ, nấc, ợ, ợ hơi, xỉu, mơ, hít vào, quỳ, nằm, khịt mũi, ngáy, co rúm, co, rùng mình, vã mồ hôi, toát mồ hôi, run, ngửi, khụt khịt, nhảy, ôm, chơi, nói lắp, cà lăm, bi bô, tán gẫu, ê a, tâm sự, nói, lo, làu bàu, than vãn, lầm bầm, lẩm bẩm, lăng mạ, sỉ vả, sỉ nhục, vu khống, vu oan, phỉ báng, ca ngợi, tán dương, tâng bốc, xu nịnh, hò hét, hò la, bợ đỡ, dằn vặt, ngắm, xem, nhìn, trố mắt, quan sát, theo dõi, liếc nhìn, liếc xéo, nghe, nếm, sờ, trầm tư, mơ, điều đình, dàn xếp, tư lự, trầm ngâm, ngẫm nghĩ, cân nhắc, băn khoăn, khao khát, quắc mắt, cau có, rùng mình, run, nháy/chớp (mắt)
Trang 3After building up our raw English and
Vietnamese behavioral lists, we adopt
bottom-up approach to recognize behavioral clauses in
English and Vietnamese novels and short stories
“Jane Eyre”, “The Great Gatsby”, “Tender is the
night”, “Sons and Lovers”, “Women in love” and
“The rainbow” are the five English novels written
by Bronte, Fitzgerald and Lawrence In their
works, the characters, their personal experience
and behaviors are brilliantly described via the
lively wording of the talented writers Besides,
ten Vietnamese novels and stories such as “Sống
mòn”, “Dế mèn phiêu lưu ký”, “Tắt đèn”, “Chí
Phèo” and “Số đỏ” are carefully selected due to
their popularity and wonderful narrative device
of personal experience and behaviors We decide
to collect data from stories and novels but not
in other genres since stories and novels reflect
the reality via the lens and skillful wording of
talented writers
In this paper, sampling is a crucial step and
we decide to adapt random sampling technique
Wordsmith 5.0 and Navigation pane in Word
documents and PDF are used as powerful tools
to select behavioral clauses Concord function
in Wordsmith 5.0 is exploited to collect English
behavioral clauses while Search engine is used
to pick up Vietnamese behavioral clauses since
Wordsmith 5.0 is not applicable to Vietnamese
texts These are two main reasons for choosing
Wordsmith 5.0 and Navigation pane because
the above novels and short stories are already
available in electronic form so it is advantageous
and time-saving for us to process them In
addition, we can work on and store a huge
amount of collected data effectively
1427 English behavioral clauses are
collected and saved from the six novels As for
Vietnamese data collection, Navigation pane is
used to select Vietnamese behavioral clauses and
1330 Vietnamese behavioral clauses are selected
and saved
3.2 Data analysis
A framework for data analysis is offered
in this section All selected English and Vietnamese participants in behavioral clauses are analyzed and categorized in terms of lexico-grammar and ideational meaning and then a comparison of them in English and Vietnamese
is made Theoretically, the relationships between lexico-grammar and function are very close but complex In other words, function (or meaning) is realized or expressed through lexico-grammar or linguistic expressions and according to Fontaine (2013) there is not a one-to one relationship between them
4 TYPES OF PARTICIPANTS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
This section is devoted to discussing two main types of participants in English and Vietnamese
namely: Behaver and Range (Behavior,
Phenomenon, Scope and Verbiage/Target)
4.1 Behaver in English and Vietnamese
Semantic roles are associated with partially specified grammatical functions Behaver is
often realized by (i) nouns subdividing into
proper nouns, common nouns and pronouns and
(ii) noun phrases in English.
(1) All the men laughed (Lawrence, 1919) (2) The Hindu grinned, and murmured shyly
(Lawrence, 1920)
(3) He groaned inwardly, under its bondage
(Lawrence, 1920)
In (1), “All the men” is a noun phrase (NP) while “The Hindu” in (2) falls into a subclass of nouns labeled as proper nouns which are often capitalized and tell us about the individual name
of a person, a place or a thing and “He” in (3) belongs to proper nouns
Trang 4In Vietnamese behavioral clauses, Behavers
are also realized by both nouns and nouns
phrases as following:
(4) Thất vọng, chị Dậu rũ người ngồi im
(Ngô Tất Tố, 1937)
(5) Chúng tôi nằm co quắp vào nhau (Tô
Hoài, 1941)
(6) Những kẻ khác thì ngồi than vãn, khóc lóc
hoặc cãi vã nhau cho qua ngày (Tô Hoài, 1941)
“Chị Dậu” and “Chúng tôi” in (4) and (5) fall
into subclass of nouns namely: proper nouns and
pronouns whilst “Những kẻ khác” is interpreted
as noun phrases It can be seen that there is some
similarity in lexico-grammar Both English and
Vietnamese Behavers are realized by nouns or
noun phrases
Behaver is often fucntioned as an agent
Theoretically, a person or animal having
behaviors, usually endowed with consciousness
is labeled as Behaver as follows:
(7) Helen sighed as her reverie fed (Bronte, 1847)
(8) Gerald watched them with the steady
twinkle in his eyes (Lawrence, 1920)
However, in our selected data, the Behaver,
the participant involved with the behavioral
process, does not have to be a conscious
participant as in:
(9) The wind sighed low in the firs (Bronte, 1847)
(10) The stars shuddered and broke upon the
water (Lawrence, 1919)
(11) The ash tree moaned outside in a cold,
raw wind (Lawrence, 1919)
(12) The cigarette trembled between his lips
with laughter as he spoke (Lawrence, 1919)
Obviously, on semantic grounds of these
participants, “the wind”, “the stars”, “the ash
tree” and “the cigarette” are non-human entities without our common senses and behaviors like
tremble, sigh, moan or shudder Traditionally,
these cases are treated as personification - a form
of figurative language that is used as a literary technique Personification means attributing human characteristics to something that is not human By using human characteristics
to describe an object, animal, or even a place, personification can make descriptions more unique and figurative Within experimental analysis framework, these non-conscious beings are treated as conscious and these cases are also considered as figurative expression strategy (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004, p 203) Consider the following examples in Vietnamese:
(13) Dọc sông, những chòm cổ thụ dáng
mãnh liệt đứng trầm ngâm lặng nhìn xuống nước (Võ Quảng, 1974)
(14) Biển đêm sóng vỗ thật dữ dội, nó gào
thét từ phía mạn Bắc như một cái loa (Trang Trang, 2012)
In (13) and (14), “những chòm cổ thụ” and
“sóng” are conventionally examples of non-human entities – but they can be construed as
Behaver (so endowed with consciousness in
process of behaving)
Last but not least, “conscious beings” typically means a person or people but they may also be represented by a part of the body For examples:
(15) His eyes glanced momentarily at me
and his lips parted with an abortive attempt at a laugh (Fitzgerald, 1925)
(16) Her lip trembled, her face broke, and,
snatching up the child (Lawrence, 1919)
(17) Her eyes, shuddering, appealing, gone,
almost distracted, pleaded to him suddenly (Lawrence, 1919)
Trang 5As in above three examples, “eyes” and “lip” represent the action of behavior as involving a human’s organ rather than the whole person Halliday (2000, p 93) argues that “this is a departure from the norm of language; it owes its effect, that of deconstructing the whole person as a potentially independent agent”
Parts of our body can be construed as Behaver in Vietnamese clauses It is reflective of that our organisms behave in our everyday physical actions and observable emotion associated with individuals For examples:
(18) Mặt lão đột nhiên co rúm lại (Nam Cao, 1957)
(19) Hắn vừa đi vừa tủm tỉm cười, hai con mắt nhỏ tí, gà gà đắm vào bóng chiều (Kim Lân, 1962) (20) Hai con mắt tư lự nhìn ra phía trước (Kim Lân, 1962)
Lexico-grammar and the semantic roles of Behaver are briefly illustrated in figure 1 The next
section provides a discussion of Range in English and Behavioral clauses (see Figure 1)
4.2 Range in English and Vietnamese
According to Halliday and Matthiessen (2004), there are six subtypes of Range namely: Scope,
Behavior, Phenomenon, Verbiage, Attribute and Value Generally speaking, Halliday and Matthiessen
(2004) suggest that Range specifies the domain of the process and defines one of the two things: Either it is a restatement or continuation of the process itself or
It expresses the extent or “range” of the process
In behavioral clauses, Range is subdivided into four categories namely, ‘Behavior’, ‘Phenomenon’,
‘Scope’ and ‘Verbiage/Target’ Range is often realized by nouns or noun phrases in grammatical terms in English The detailed discussion on Range in English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses is made in the next section
Trang 64.2.1 Behavior in English and Vietnamese
BEHAVER + BEHAVIORAL PROCESS+
RANGE-BEHAVIOR
Behavior is always realized by noun phrases
in both English and Vietnamese as in:
(21) Still she dreamed her young dream
(Lawrence 1919)
(22) Nụ cười đong đưa, tung tẩy trên khóe
mắt (Nguyễn Ngọc Tư 2011)
Behavioral clauses can contain a
second participant in Behaver^Behavioral
process^Range model That is a Range: a
restatement of the process (Eggins, 2004,
tr 218) This participant is labeled as the
Behavior elaborating the process Halliday and
Matthiessen (2004, p 204) argue that Behavior
in behavioral clauses are analogous to the Scope
of material clauses For examples:
(23) She sighed a sigh of ineffable
satisfaction (Bronte, 1847)
(24) Yet her mouth gave a little grimace at
the words (Lawrence, 1920)
(25) He caught little, short breaths
(Lawrence, 1920)
These three clauses involve two participants
“She”, “her mouth” and “he” are interpreted as
Behaver while “a sigh of ineffable satisfaction”,
“a little grimace” and “little, short breaths” are
labeled as Range-Behavior It is noticeable that
(23), (24) and (25) are conventional examples of
“dummy processes” which can be semantically
“mixed” into Range These processes are called
“dumb” since the meanings of these processes
don’t make any contributions to the meaning of
the clause In other words, they are significant
at syntactical ground but useless at semantic
ground The meaning of the whole clause can
be understood with these processes and they
become “dumb” in meanings (Trinh et al, 2017)
For examples:
Sigh a sigh – sigh (v) Give a grimace – grimace (v) Catch breaths – breathe (v) Smile a smile – smile (v)
Consider the following examples in Vietnamese:
(26) Một nụ cười khô đét nở trên cặp môi
héo hắt của Lan (Nguyễn Công Hoan, 1933)
(27) Bà lão thở nhẹ ra một hơi dài (Kim
Lân, 1962)
In these two above cases, “Một nụ cười khô đét”, “một hơi dài” are represented in the role
of behavior which can be either physiology or psychology like breathing, coughing, smiling, staring and others in situational context “Dummy processes” are still available in Vietnamese asin:
Thở một hơi – thở (v)
Nở một nụ cười – cười (v) Ném một cái nhìn – nhìn (v) Trao một nụ hôn – hôn (v) Trao một cái ôm – ôm (v) Nhảy một điệu nhảy – nhảy (v)
Mơ một giấc mơ – mơ (v)
It is worth noting that Behavior is a subcategory of range Behavior is either an agent or an object in English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses
(28) His shuddering became less (Lawrence, 1919) (29) His mouth closed, and a frown came on
his face (Lawrence, 1919)
(30) Chị Tiên nở một nụ cười trên môi thắm
(Thạch Lam, 2004)
We have discussed the characteristics of Range – behavior in terms of lexico-grammar and participant role, the next section will cover the second role of Range – Phenomenon
Trang 74.2.2 Phenomenon in English and Vietnamese
BEHAVER + MENTAL-BEHAVIORAL PROCESS+ RANGE-PHENOMENON
Like Behavior, phenomenon is also realized by noun phrases as in:
(31) She sat down on the ground near me, embraced her knees with her arms (Bronte, 1847) (32) Bà lão khẽ thở dài đứng lên, đăm đăm nhìn người đàn bà (Kim Lân, 1962)
(33) Xuân rơm rớm nước mắt (Nguyễn Công Hoan, 1933)
There is another participant which is not a restatement of process, but is interpreted as Phenomenon enhancing the process Phenomenon of our experince includes some entities such as person, creature, object, substance or abstraction Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p 204) identify two types of
phenomenon in mental clauses: Macrophenomenon which is an act and Metaphenomenon which is
a fact But they argue that in: I am watching you (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004, p 251), “you”
labelled is a participant, like the phenomenon of mental clauses Since this is restricted to “watch”,
it can be interpreted as “phenomenon” In our study, it is suggested that Range-phenomenon are in
existence in Behaver^Behavioral process^ range – phenomenon modal as in:
(34) I laughed at him as he said this ‘I am not an angel’ (Bronte, 1847)
(35) We all looked at the subject again (Fitzgerald, 1925)
(36) He turned around and stared at the scene – his wife and Catherine scolding and consoling
(Fitzgerald, 1925)
(37) Vợ hắn thấy Chí Phèo thở ra mùi rượu (Nam Cao, 1957)
It can be seen that Range can often be preceded by a preposition in English and this causes some difficulties in analyzing clauses in a functional framework It remains to figure out whether an element of the clause is functioning as a participant or a circumstance Especially in English, there are a considerable numbers of phrasal verbs It definitely causes some trouble to decide whether
to interpret a structure as process + circumstance or process + participant-range What is more
comprehensive analysis of the following?
(38)
(Lawrence, 1919) (38)