A study of construing the experience of rage in english and vietnamese novels from functional grammar perspective

225 A Study of Construing the Experience of Rage in English and Vietnamese Novels from Functional Grammar Perspective Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh* Abstract: Among basic human emotions, rage

225

A Study of Construing the Experience of Rage in English

and Vietnamese Novels from Functional Grammar

Perspective

Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh*

Abstract: Among basic human emotions, rage or anger is probably the most common

experience of human life in the real world The aims of this paper are twofold: to explore how rage as a part of daily human experience is construed in English and Vietnamese novels within the framework of functional grammar elaborated by Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) and to compare functional realization of rage in the two languages on lexico-grammar and ideational metafunction ground In other words, based primarily on the collected data of 15 English and Vietnamese novels, this study focuses on analyzing how the lexico-grammatical resources constitute emotional experience of rage congruently and metaphorically in English and Vietnamese

Keywords: Functional Grammar; Rage; Lexico-Grammar; Metafunction; Functional

realization

Received 13 th August 2018; Revised 17 th January 2019; Accepted 15 th April 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33100/jossh5.2.NguyenThiTuTrinh

1 Introduction

The language of emotion is a vital part of

the experience of emotion Some basic

human emotions such as happiness, sadness,

rage, disgust, anger, and fear - seen from

psychology - are considered universality

among different countries (see Figure 1)

The experience of emotion, particularly

rage, a feeling of intense, violent, or

growing anger, sometimes associated with

the fight-or-flight response has caught the

attention of many psychologists and

linguists Numerous psychological

researchers namely Darwin (1872), Ekman

(1984) and Plutchik (2003) focused on the



Southern Connecticut State University, the USA;

email: nguyent34@southernct.edu

universality of emotion via the non-verbal channel Another interesting debate arises from the question of whether or not emotions are universal Ekman (1993) showed that the expressions of the six

„basic‟ emotions are cross-culturally universal In addition to body language, actions and reactions to show rage or anger, this kind of emotion can be construed via verbal channels The non-verbal channel of rage or physical signs of rage include feeling hot or flushed, a clenched jaw, staring or baring teeth while the verbal channel of rage can be realized by a wide variety of

linguistic expressions such as he is filled with rage and scorn, he flies into a rage, or

he stormed out of the room in a rage

Linguists have worked with emotional construal from various perspectives and

frameworks Lakoff (1987) and Kövecses

(2000), for instance, looked at emotional

construal from conceptual metaphor and

cognitive perspective while Halliday &

Matthiessen (2014) viewed emotional

realization from functional framework

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014) discussed

that human emotion is construed in mental

clauses and the inner experience of an

emotion such as people love (hate, want)

money is „mental‟ However, less attention

has been paid to make a contrastive analysis

of the functional realization of the experience of rage in the two languages, English and Vietnamese This study is devoted to three questions: (i) How is rage construed in English? (ii) How is rage construed in Vietnamese? and (iii) What are the similarities and differences in the functional realization of rage in English and Vietnamese?

Figure 1: Wheel of emotions (Plutchik 2003)

1.1 Theoretical Background

Functional grammar is underpinned in

this study by the fact that language is a

social phenomenon existing within a

particular environment Thus, language

depends on the context in which it is

created However, once it is created, it

becomes part of that context This leads to a

close relationship between the context and

the language Halliday and Matthiessen

(2000:586) stated that emotion is seen as a

location in vertical space: be up/ down, be

high/ low, depress somebody, lift

somebody's spirits, spirits soar; fall in love,

love deeply, abhor/ detest/ dislike deeply

Emotion as liquid/ gas (contained in a

body): explode, vent one's anger, blow one's

top, to boil over, to smoulder, to cool down, and to keep the lid on

Human emotion in the Hallidayan approach

What is an emotion? Different researchers from a wide range of approaches define it differently; have different opinions

as to what should be included under the label, and also how “emotions” differ from other related notions Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) divided mental process into four sub-types: perceptive, cognitive, desiderative and emotive The examples of the four subtypes of the mental process are illustrated as follows:

(2.6)

Senser Process: mental-perceptive Phenomenon

(Halliday and Matthiessen 2014: 256)

(2.7)

Senser Process: mental-cognitive Phenomenon

(Halliday and Matthiessen 2014: 256) (2.8)

Senser Process: mental-desiderative Phenomenon

(Halliday and Matthiessen 2014: 256)

(2.9)

Senser Process: mental-emotive Phenomenon

(Halliday and Matthiessen 2014: 256)

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 83)

stated: “a configuration is referred as a

structure in functional grammar” A clause

represents a pattern of experience, conceptualized as a configuration (Halliday

& Matthiessen, 2000: 11) Experientially, a

configuration consists of three elements:

Process, Participant and Circumstance In

other words, these three elements are

organized in configurations that provide the

models or schemata for construing our

experience of what goes on For example,

(2.9) construes emotion “joy” and can

represent a configuration of „Senser +

Mental process + Phenomenon‟

1.2 Previous Studies

Language and thought are two faces of

the same coin Emotions are integral parts of

thought and beliefs The study of emotion

has a very long history Darwin‟s The

Expression of the Emotions in Man and

Animals (1872) showed his evidence of the

universality of basic emotion Darwin stated

that “it follows, from the information thus

acquired, that the same state of mind is

expressed throughout the world with

remarkable uniformity” In the 20th

century, Ekman (1984) conducted research studies of

the universality of basic emotion However,

the language used to express these basic

emotion, and the norms of each society and

culture could have dialects that differ subtly

from each other Language plays a crucial

role in emotion because language enables us

to construe our experience of emotion and

makes meaning of sensations from the body

and the world in a given context Lakoff and

Kövecses argue the more current approaches

viewing emotion from a cognitive

perspective Lakoff (1987) viewed anger

from conceptual metaphor He offered some

mappings of anger such as ANGER IS

INSANITY : The man was insane with rage,

A NGER IS AN OPPONENT IN A STRUGGLE: I

was struggling with my anger, ANGER IS A

CAPTIVE ANIMAL : He unleashed his anger,

ANGER IS A BURDEN : He carries his anger

around with him, and A NGRY BEHAVIOR IS AGGRESSIVE ANIMAL BEHAVIOR : Don't snarl

at me! Kövecses (2000) studied how human

emotions are "constructed" from individuals' embodied experiences in different cultural settings The view proposed here demonstrates how cultural aspects of emotions, metaphorical language about the emotions, and human physiology in emotion are all part of an integrated system and shows how this system points to the reconciliation of the seemingly contradictory views of biological reductionism and social constructionism in contemporary debates about human emotions

Halliday (2000) and Halliday & Matthiessen (2014) suggested a paradigm of English emotional expressions viewed from

the Transitivity system For example, “I was

fascinated by it” is a „mental‟ clause Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) argued that the domain of emotion could be realized by

both as a Process in a mental clause (e.g she liked it; it pleased her) and as an Attributive in a „relational‟ one

There has been an increasing interest in the study of the language of emotion in English in general However, few attempts have been made to offer in-depth analysis of rage itself Particularly, the absence of linguistic studies on the language of rage in Vietnamese as well as a contrastive analysis

of the language of rage in English and Vietnamese is striking The relation between language and emotion has been the object of linguistic analysis from various perspectives and languages used to construe universal emotions like love, disgust and rage is distinct from each other It is hoped that this article will make some contributions to the study of rage within linguistics

2 Methods

With the aim of interpreting English and

Vietnamese clauses construing the

experience of rage, collecting them in

English and Vietnamese novels plays a

crucial role Qualitative and quantitative

methods were adopted in this study to

complement the main goal of the study The

study was carried out in novels but not in

other genres because “they are examples of

authentic materials that were published and

gained much popularity with readers” (Eikrem 1999: 21) Novels are considered to be trusted research instruments used in studies in such areas as contrastive linguistics, translation, and sociolinguistics In addition, novels reflect reality via the lens and skillful wording of talented writers

Table 1 and Table 2 show two lists of seven English novels and eight Vietnamese novels used in this study

Table 1: A list of eight English novels

publication

4 Vanity fair William Makepeace Thackeray 1848

5 Crime and punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 1867

6 Sons and lovers David Herbert Lawrence 1919

Table 2: A list of eight Vietnamese novels

publication

1 Tắt đèn (When the light is out) Ngô Tất Tố 1937

3 Đêm hội Long Trì (Long Tri festival

night)

Nguyễn Huy Tưởng 1942

4 Tuổi thơ dữ dội (The fierce childhood) Phùng Quán 1988

5 Hồn bướm mơ tiên (Heart of a butterfly

in a dream of immortality)

6 Bến không chồng (River watering place

of unmarried women)

7 Cánh đồng bất tận (Endless fields) Nguyễn Ngọc Tư 2005

The initial step involves recognizing English and Vietnamese clauses construing experience

of rage The selection of these clauses began with selecting expressions that realize rage experience presented by an Oxford Dictionary of English (Stevenson 2010) and Vietnamese rage experience suggested by a Vietnamese dictionary (Phê et al 2003) Table 3 and 4 illustrate the example lists of English and Vietnamese expressions construing rage

Table 3: Examples of English expressions construing rage

English expressions construing rage anger, angrily, angry, annoyance, annoyed, browned off, cross, detest, enrage, furious, fly into a rage, fly into a temper, frustrated, grumpy, hatred, irate, irritable, lament, mad, madden, outrage, rage, resent, resentment, savage, savagely, snappy, sore, spunky, sulk, surly, throw a tantrum, wrathful, writhe, wroth and others

Table 4: Examples of Vietnamese expressions construing rage

Vietnamese expressions construing rage bực (to get annoyed), bực bội (to get irritated), bực dọc (to get annoyed), bực mình (to get irritated), bực tức (to resent), căm (to bear resentment), căm giận (to get outrage), căm phẫn (to get outrage), căm thù (to bear deep resentment), căm tức (to fret with resentment), cáu (to get furious), cáu kỉnh (to get surly), cơn uất ức (rage), điều căm tức (rage), giận (to get furious), giận cá chém thớt (do not cut off your nose to spite your face), giận dỗi (to rage), giận dữ (to get angry), giận hờn (to get angry), hờn dỗi (to sulk), hờn giận (to sulk), mối giận (anger), nổi cáu (to get mad at), nổi đóa (to get mad at), nổi giận (to get furious), nổi khùng (to get mad at), nổi nóng (to get angry), nổi sung (to get mad), nổi tam bành (to fly into a rage), nổi trận lôi đình (to throw a tantrum), nỗi uất

ức (writhe), oán (to resent), oán ghét (to resent), oán giận (to resent), oán hận (to resent), oán hờn (to resent), oán trách (to lament), phát cáu (to get furious), sự căm giận (hatred), sự phẫn nộ (hatred), tấm tức (to grow angry), tức (to get furious), tức điên người (to fly into a temper), tức giận (to get annoyed), tức khí (to get angry), tức mình (to get irritated), tức tối (to get furious), tức tưởi (to get annoyed), tưng tức (to get annoyed), uất (to anger), uất hận (to anger), uất nghẹn (to resent), uất ức (to writhe) and others

The bottom-up approach was adopted to

recognize clauses construing rage in seven

English and eight Vietnamese novels

Wordsmith 5.0 (Scott 1998) and Navigation

pane (Word office 2010) in Word

documents and PDF were used as powerful

tools to select clauses construing rage The

Concord function in Wordsmith 5.0 was

exploited to collect English clauses

construing rage while the Search engine was

used to pick up Vietnamese clauses

construing, because Wordsmith 5.0 was not

applicable to Vietnamese texts There are two main reasons for choosing Wordsmith 5.0 software (Scott 1998) and Navigation pane (Word office 2010); because the above novels are already available in electronic formats, so it is advantageous and time-saving for us to process them In addition, the study can work on and store a huge amount of collected data effectively After processing the English and Vietnamese expressions construing rage in Table 3 and Table 4 in Wordsmith 5.0 and Navigation

pane, 740 English and 720 Vietnamese

clauses were stored, labeled and analyzed

within the system of TRANSITIVITY

developed by Halliday & Matthiessen

(2000, 2004, 2014) and Matthiessen et al

(2010) The interpretation of the collected

clauses construing rage was demonstrated at

both lexico-grammatical and ideational

metafunction levels The lexico-grammar

analysis involves identifying nominal

groups, verbal groups, adverbial groups,

pronouns and prepositional phrases at each

rank level while ideational metafunction

involves analyzing and determining typical

configuration or functional realization of

rage in the English and Vietnamese data on

Halliday‟s functional grammar account

Then, the study investigated the types and

frequencies of functional realization of rage

and presented similar and distinctive

characteristics of these terms between the

two collected data

3 Findings and discussion

3.1 The functional realization of rage in English

This section is devoted to identifying how rage is realized in English on lexico-grammatical and ideational metafunction ground and showing the frequencies of functional realization of rage in English to highlight the choices of wording in the collected data The experience of rage can

be construed in English in numerous ways

Rage is construed by Process, Phenomenon, Attributive or Circumstance

Rage: Mental process

Human experience of rage is often realized by mental process encoded by verbs

such as anger, rage, detest, enrage, madden, and storm For example:

(3.1)

Amalia Ivanovna raged about the room, shrieking, lamenting

(Dostoevsky 1867)

(3.2)

Senser Mental process Phenomenon

(Lawrence 1919) The „Senser‟, “Amalia Ivanovna” and “He” in (3.1) and (3.2) are conscious entities who experience a feeling of violent rage that is difficult to control The second participants “the room, shrieking, lamenting” and “her” labeled Phenomenon may be animate or inanimate

objects

Rage: Phenomenon

Experience of rage is nominalized and encoded by such nouns as rage, annoy, storm, fury and is labeled Phenomenon For example:

(3.3)

(Lawrence 1919)

The study reveals that most of the experience of rage is construed as “things” and these

“things” can be seen as not only emotions but also physical entities which can be blown or watched as in the following examples:

(3.4) Its first fury was blown over (Thackeray 1848)

(3.5) He waited until the children were silent, watching with children’s rage (Lawrence

1919)

(3.6) Her anger was turned against herself (Austen 1813)

Process + Range construction: Perhaps the most widespread use of a faded metaphor (Derewianka: 2003) is the Process + Phenomenon construction where what would be

represented congruently as a Process (e.g look) is represented metaphorically as the Range

(e.g have a look) together with a lexical empty verb There are some examples of an ideational metaphor of rage in our collected data Let us consider the following examples:

(3.7) You flew into a rage about it (Dostoevsky 1867)

Congruently, (3.7) could be rewritten something like:

(3.7a) You raged at it

(3.7) chooses the Process + Phenomenon construction of “fly into + a rage” where the

Process “rage” has now become a noun accompanied by the lexical verb “fly” (3.7) is agnate

with (3.7a) According to (Ravelli 1999:77), “any metaphorical expression has an agnate form which shows its congruent realization The rewording of a metaphorical expression into a congruent one is referred to as unpacking "the grammatical metaphor” These examples could

be regarded as cases of an ideational grammatical metaphor of rage

Rage: Attributive

Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) stated that in the Attributive mode, an entity has some class ascribed or attributed to it Structurally, we label this class the Attributive, and the entity

to which it is ascribed is the Carrier – the „Carrier‟ of the „Attributive‟ It is a central

grammatical strategy for assessing by assigning an evaluative Attributive to the Carrier For

example:

(3.8)

Carrier Process: intensive Circumstance Attributive Circumstance

(Dostoevsky 1867)

(3.9)

Carrier Process: intensive Attributive

(Lawrence 1919) (3.8) and (3.9) have Attributive “angry” and “fiery and furious” and Carrier of the

attribution “We” and “She” The relational processes are realized by “are” and “was” It can be

seen that the experience of rage often realized by an adjective is construed a qualitative

Attributive of an entity in relational clauses (e.g angry/ fiery/ furious/ mad) The lexical verbs

in the verbal groups realizing relational processes could be grow/ look/ feel/ get/ go/ seem/

drive/ turn into as in:

(3.10) He grew grievously irritable (Bronte 1847)

(3.11) Then the play went fast and furious (Lawrence 1919)

(3.12) He seemed quite angry at being spoken to (Austen 1813)

It is noticed that relation clauses falling into Attributive ones are not reversible such as he

was furious  furious was he and the interrogative probe for such clauses is how? or what

like? E.g How do you feel? What is he like?

Rage: Circumstance

Experience of rage realized by either prepositional phrases (e.g in a fury, with rage) or

adverbial groups (e.g angrily, furiously, and savagely) as in:

(3.13)

(Thackeray 1848)

(3.14)

Process: Behavioral

(Dostoevsky 1867) Particularly, 238 in 246 Circumstances in our collected data are realized by prepositional

phrases A prepositional phrase construing rage functioning as Circumstance can be replaced

by a verb or and an adjective serving as Process or Attributive For example:

(3.15) Glorvina cried with rage at the failure = Glorvina cried and raged at the failure (Process) (Thackeray 1848)

(3.16) You were in such a fury = You were furious (Attributive) (Thackeray 1848)

Table 5 and Figure 2 demonstrate the frequencies of functional realization of rage in the

English collected data

Table 5: Types and frequencies of functional realization of rage in investigated English novels

Functional Realization of Rage - English

Process Phenomenon Attributive Circumstance

75

208

196

261

10%

28%

27%

35%

Figure 2: Types and frequencies of functional realization of rage in investigated English novels

Process

10 %

Phenomenon 28%

Attributive 27%

Circumstance 35%

Functional realization of rage in English

The functional realization of rage could serve as a Process in mental clauses, as a Phenomenon in mental or behavioral ones, as an Attributive in relational ones and as Circumstance in 6 kinds of clauses (Mental, Material, Verbal, Behavioral, Relational and Existential) A close look at Figure 2 reveals that Circumstance (35%) accounted for over one-third of the percentage of functional realization of rage, Attributive came second with 27% while Process and metaphorical expressions make the smallest percentage 10% and 5%

respectively

3.2 The functional realization of rage in Vietnamese

This section explores how rage is construed in Vietnamese at lexico-grammatical and ideational metafunction level Types and frequencies of functional realization of rage in Vietnamese are discussed in the following sub-sections

Rage: Mental process

Rage is often realized by mental processes encoded by verbs such as bực (to get annoyed), bực bội (to get irritated), bực tức (to resent), cáu (to get furious), giận dữ (to get angry), nổi khùng (to get mad at), and others in Vietnamese For examples: