A discourse analysis of coffee advertisements in english and vietnamese

THE UNIVERSITY OF DANANGUNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES LÊ HOÀNG UYÊN MY A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF COFFEE ADVERTISEMENTS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE Major: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS Code: 8

THE UNIVERSITY OF DANANG

UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES

LÊ HOÀNG UYÊN MY

A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF COFFEE ADVERTISEMENTS

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

Major: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

Code: 822.02.01

MASTER THESIS IN LINGUISTICS AND CULTURAL STUDIES

OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES

Da Nang, 2020

THE UNIVERSITY OF DANANG

UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES

LÊ HOÀNG UYÊN MY

A DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF

COFFEE ADVERTISEMENTS

IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

Major: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

Code: 822 02 01

MASTER THESIS IN LINGUISTICS AND CULTURAL STUDIES

OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES

SUPERVISOR: Dr HUỲNH NGỌC MAI KHA

Da Nang, 2020

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

Except for the references in the thesis, this thesis contains no material publishedelsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for

or been awarded another degree or diploma

No other person‘s work has been used without due acknowledgements in the thesis.This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in anyother tertiary institution

Da Nang, October 2019

Lê Hoàng Uyên My

meta-in English and fifty-five ones meta-in Vietnamese were pmeta-inpometa-inted meta-in order to determmeta-inethe common features that result in producing the systemic constructs of the CoffeeAdvertisements discourse The Systemic Functional Linguistics analysis shows thatDeclarative Mood is preferred over Interrogatives and Imperatives in English andVietnamese Coffee Advertisements The research also points out that both Englishand Vietnamese Coffee Advertisements dominate Material and Relational clause asmajor processes The implication arises from this study, based on which suggestionsare made for teaching, learning and advertising.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i

ABSTRACT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

LIST OF TABLES vii

LIST OF FIGURES ix

Chapter One INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 RATIONALE 1

1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES 2

1.2.1 Aims 2

1.2.2 Objectives 2

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 2

1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 3

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 3

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY 3

Chapter Two LITERATUREREVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 5

2.1 LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 6

2.2.1 Discourse Analysis 6

2.2.1.1 Concepts of discourse 6

2.2.1.2 Features of discourse 6

2.2.1.3 Discourse and context 7

2.2.2 An overview of Functional Grammar 7

2.2.3 Meta-functions 8

2.2.3.1 Clause as exchange 9

2.2.3.2 Clause as representation 20

2.3 SUMMARY 33

Chapter Three RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES 34

3.1 METHODOLOGY 34

3.2 RESEARCH PROCEDURE 34

3.2.1 Data Collection 35

3.2.2 Collecting samples 36

3.2.3 Data analysis 37

3.3 RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY 38

3.4 SUMMARY 39

Chapter Four FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 40

4.1 CLAUSE AS EXCHANGE IN THE COFFEE ADVETISEMENTS IN

ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 40

4.1.1 Clause as exchange in the Coffee Advertisements in English 40

4.1.1.1 Analysis of Mood 40

4.1.1.2 Analysis of Modal Auxiliary 46

4.1.1.3 Analysis of Pronoun System 48

4.1.1.4 Analysis of Tense 50

4.1.2 Clause as exchange in the Coffee Advertisements in Vietnamese 51 4.1.2.1 Analysis of Mood 51

4.1.2.2 Analysis of Modal auxiliary 54

4.1.2.3 Analysis of Pronoun System 55

4.1.2.4 Analysis of Tense 56

4.1.3 Similarities and differences in Interpersonal meaning of the Coffee Advertisements in English and Vietnamese 57

4.2 CLAUSE AS REPRESENTATION IN THE COFFEE ADVERTISEMENTS 59 IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 59

4.2.1 Clause as representation in the Coffee Advertisements in English 59 4.2.1.1 Process types 59

4.2.1.2 Circumstantial elements 70

4.2.2 Clause as representation in the Coffee Advertisements in Vietnamese 71

4.2.2.1 Process types 72

4.2.2.2 Circumstantial elements 77

4.2.3 Similarities and differences in Ideational meaning of the Coffee Advertisements in English and Vietnamese 78

4.3 SUMMARY 82

Chapter Five CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 83

5.1 CONCLUSIONS 83

5.2 IMPLICATIONS 86

5.3 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 87

5.4 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCHES 87

REFERENCES 88 DATA SOURCES

QUYẾT ĐỊNH GIAO ĐỀ TÀI LUẬN VĂN (Bản sao)

11 SFL Systemic Functional Linguistics

12 VCAs Vietnamese Coffee Advertisements

LIST OF TABLES

2.3 Relationships between speaker/ writer and listener(s)/ reader(s) 12

2.10 English Personal pronouns and grammatical roles in the clause 19

2.12 Clause as Process, Participants and Circumstances 22

2.15 Examples of verbs serving as Process in Mental clauses 262.16 Inner and outer experience construed by different types of

2.17 Subject - Complement; Token - Value and Carrier - Attribute 29

4.1 The Mood categories as realizations of speech functional categories 404.2 Mood of the clause, speech functions and speech roles 424.3 Relative frequencies of Mood selection in relation to speech

function English data)

43

4.4 The frequency of Modal auxiliary (from English data) 474.5 The frequency of Personal pronouns (from English data) 484.6 Relative frequencies of Mood selection in relation to speech

function (from Vietnamese data)

52

4.7 The frequency of Modal auxiliary (from Vietnamese data) 544.8 The frequency of Personal pronouns (from Vietnamese data) 554.9 The similarities and differences in the ECAs and the VCAs in

terms of Interpersonal function

59

4.10 Creative and Transformative in Material clauses (From English

4.11 Actor and Goal in Material clauses (From English data) 63

4.13 Creative and Transformative in Material clauses (From

Vietnamese data)

744.14 Actor and Goal in Material clauses (from Vietnamese data) 74

4.16 Process distribution in the ECAs and the VCAs 784.17 Actor and Goal in Material process in the ECAs and the VCAs 804.18 Circumstantial elements in the ECAs and the VCAs 80

LIST OF FIGURES

4.3 Relative frequencies of Mood selection in the fifty-five VCAs 52

4.5 Distribution of Mood choices in Coffee Advertisements in

English and Vietnamese

4.7 The frequency of Attributive and Identifying in Relational

clauses (From English data)

65

4.8 Perception, Emotion, Cognition and Desideration in Mental

clauses (from English data)

4.10 The frequency of Attributive and Identifying in Relational

clauses (From Vietnamese data)

73

4.11 Perception, Emotion, Cognition and Desideration in Mental

clauses (from Vietnamese data)

75

4.12 The difference in Process distribution between the ECAs and

the VCAs

794.13 The difference in Circumstances between the ECAs and the

Chapter One INTRODUCTION

This first chapter states the rationale of the study, together with the aims,objectives, scope, methods and the significance of the whole study Above all, it is inthis chapter that the research questions are set out to work as the guidelines for thewhole research

1.1 RATIONALE

In our daily life, communication, which is an interactive process by means oflanguage, plays a vital role in every activity of human Therefore, it is very necessaryfor us to investigate the meanings realized through spoken and written language that

we use every day in terms of grammar and meanings For the last decades, studyingthe meanings lying behind the cover of language has been given much attention bylinguists all over the world

The utterances we produce are dictated by our individual experiences, ourperception of the world, or the circumstances, and are based on linguistic choices As

a result, this is not a simple work due to the complex meanings of the speaker(s) orwriter(s) in their ways of using language as well as the various interpretations of thelistener(s) or reader(s), especially in writing Unlike oral communication, in writing,there is no face-to-face interaction between the writer(s) and the reader(s) So, it isimportant for linguists to find out the way that writers use language to express theiridea and attitude toward the issue mentioned as well as the way that theycommunicate with readers through language

Nowadays, advertising language has become an important part in the societybecause it is highly informative and has been widely accepted by the public For thisreason, I decided to carry out the study on the Coffee Advertisements in terms ofFunctional Grammar analysis, with the aim to investigate how advertiserscommunicate with their customers by means of language It is obvious that language

is a crucial part of advertisements, which helps consumers be well- informed aboutproducts as well as make decision on their choice Therefore, the use of language

should be paid attention to create a good advertisement However, still little researchhas been written about this topic, particularly in the Coffee Advertisements in Englishand Vietnamese

Due to this fact, it is necessary to clarify the essence of language in the CoffeeAdvertisements An investigation into Systemic Functional Grammar of the CoffeeAdvertisements in English and Vietnamese language will be a contribution to thepresent knowledge of the field; and the findings of a contrastive analysis betweenEnglish and Vietnamese will be beneficial for both Vietnamese and English learners

1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

1.2.1 Aims

This study aims to examine the functional aspects of the CoffeeAdvertisements in English and Vietnamese to provide the Vietnamese teachers andstudents of English with an insightful knowledge concerning how language functionsand organized in the advertisements in English and Vietnamese

1.2.2 Objectives

To achieve the aim of the study, the following objectives are intended:

- To find out the functional aspects of the Coffee Advertisements in English

and Vietnamese in view of Systemic Functional Grammar and Discourse Analysis

- To discover the similarities and differences of the Coffee Advertisements in

English and Vietnamese in terms of the meta-functions of Systemic FunctionalGrammar and Discourse Analysis

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

To achieve the aims and objectives mentioned above, the study seeks theinformation for the following research questions:

1 What is the Interpersonal function of the Coffee Advertisements in terms

of the analysis of clause as exchange in English and Vietnamese?

2 What is the Ideational function of the Coffee Advertisements in terms ofthe analysis of clause as representation in English and Vietnamese?

3 What are the similarities and differences of the Coffee Advertisements inEnglish and Vietnamese in terms of the meta-functions of SystemicFunctional Grammar and Discourse Analysis?

1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study was limited to the analysis of the meta-functions of SystemicFunctional Grammar of the Coffee Advertisements in English and Vietnamese such

as Ideational function, Interpersonal function and Discourse analysis In more detail,clause as representation of Ideational function and clause as exchange ofInterpersonal function in the Coffee Advertisements would be looked into SuchTextual functions as theme, rheme would not be examined and they were put beyondthe scope of this study

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study adopted Hallidayan Functional Grammar as the theoretical basis toinvestigate the advertising language in the English and Vietnamese CoffeeAdvertisements in written discourse Functional Grammar was no longer a strangefield to grammarians and linguistic researchers all over the world It has been studied

by many Vietnamese linguists and researchers for many recent years Hopefully, theresearch would be a contribution to the teaching and learning English andVietnamese, especially, helping language users have a better insight into thelinguistic features at the Systemic Functional level for language performance Inaddition, the findings of the research would provide learners with knowledge orunderstanding about the similarities and differences of language choice in Englishand in Vietnamese advertisements

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

The study is presented in the following parts:

Chapter 1: Introduction

The introduction chapter introduces background and rationale of this study,and summarizes research questions and outline of this paper

Chapter 2: Literature Review and Theoretical Background

Chapter 2 is theoretical background which clarifies some important concepts

in the study In this chapter, some of the previous researches relating to functionalgrammar analysis were presented

Chapter 3: Research Methods and Procedures

Methodology and procedures of this study is introduced in chapter 3, whichdescribes data collection and data analysis in detail

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussions

Chapter 4 focuses on the results and discussion In this chapter, answers toresearch questions raised in the Introduction section are provided though quantitativeanalysis

Chapter 5: Conclusions and Implications

Conclusions are drawn to general findings of this study, limitations of thisstudy stated and suggestions put forward for the future research

Chapter Two LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

In this chapter, I review some of the previous researches relating to SystemicFunctional Grammar perspective in English and Vietnamese, in order to gain anoverall view in this research area, and to pinpoint what further research needs to beconducted This chapter is arranged as follows: 2.1 Literature Review 2.2 TheoreticalBackground 2.3 Summary I will represent Discourse Analysis in 2.2.1 and SystemicFunctional Grammar in 2.2.2 and Meta-functions in 2.2.3

2.1 LITERATURE REVIEW

The study —Transitivity Analysis of Hiroko’s Character in Burnt Shadows” byRashid (2016) is an experiment in the application of Transitivity as a tool ofgrammatical analysis developed in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to uncoverthe process of construction of Hiroko’s central character in this novel Not only is thisinvestigation significant to literary stylistics but it also stretches Transitivity analysis

to the extreme limits of applying to study specific aspects of a character’s ‘dynamism’through comparison and contrast in fiction

—Processes” is also explored by Khumairoh (2017) in her master thesis Theresearcher analyzed how processes are used in a narrative text titled —The goose girl”

to denote the most dominant process type It is concluded that the most frequentprocess type is material process on the grounds that material processes are used toreveal what happens in the world

On the basis of Hallidayan Functional Grammar, Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Mai (2015)

carried out the research on analyzing Interpersonal meaning in „The World is Flat’ by

Thomas L Friedman, which has a significant effect on the view of traditional grammar

in particular The research finds out the way the writer establishes relationship with thereaders and expresses his attitude and opinion through Interpersonal function Inaddition, it also investigates the expressions of Interpersonal meaning in the

Vietnamese version „Thế Giới Phẳng’ by Nguyễn Hồng Quang.

Besides that, Đặng Thị Cẩm Ngọc in her study An investigation into linguistic

features of material processes in “Perfect spy” by Larry Berman versus its Vietnamese translational version by Đỗ Hùng provides us with detailed description

one of the three main processes of Ideational meaning, that is Material process, based

on the basic theory of Hallidayan Functional Grammar

However, there is still little concern about the analysis concerning SystemicFunctional Grammar in advertising language in English and Vietnamese Accordingly,

a study of the Coffee Advertisements in English and Vietnamese becomes a new itemfor language learners

2.2.1.2 Features of discourse

- Every discourse has a specific target

- Every discourse must be completed both in form and in content

- Every discourse has its unity

- Language use may be categorized according to register (the type of activityengaged in through language), level of formality, attitudes to the other participants or

to the communication, relationships between participants and the situational context

2.2.1.3 Discourse and context

Context plays a very important role in Discourse Analysis A discourse and itscontext are in close relationship: the discourse elaborates its context and the context

helps interpret the meaning of utterances in the discourse The knowledge of context is

a premise of the analysis of a discourse When we study and analyze a discourse, weshould bear in mind that no context, no discourse and we should not neglect the relatedcontext of a discourse

2.2.2 An overview of Functional Grammar

Functional Grammar is a theory of grammar concerned with the social andpragmatic functions of language, relating these to both formal syntactic properties andprosodic properties This is a grammar which is considered as the resource for creatingmeanings by means of wording Function is considered to be —a fundamentalproperty of language itself” (Halliday, 1985, p.17) The functional description of thelanguage involves identifying all the various functions that are incorporated into thegrammar and all the structures which serve to express some meaning in the language.According to Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p.23) —a language is a resource formaking meaning, and meaning resides in systemic pattern of choice” Due to thelanguage system, people have the available options to choose when using language inorder to fulfill a communicative purpose In other words, the grammar of a language ismanipulated to suit the occasion

The Mood system is taken as follow to present a ‘network of systems’ of

(Halliday, 1973, p.23)

Figure 2.1 The Mood System Network

The above figure shows that a clause is either major or minor in status If it ismajor, its structure includes a Predicator and it is either Indicative or Imperative If theclause is Indicative, it is either Declarative or Interrogative The structure of aDeclarative clause is Subject followed by Finite (S+F) If the clause is Interrogative, it

is either a Yes/No type or Wh-type A Yes/ No type has the structure of Finitefollowed by Subject (F+S); a Wh- one has a Wh-element in its structure Here, we findthat each system contributes to the formation of the structure The structural operationsare explained as realizing systemic choices —So, when we analyze a text, we showthe functional organization of its structure, and we show what meaningful choiceshave been made, each one seen in the context of what might have been meant but wasnot”(Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p.24).

For Halliday, the object of language is text, not sentence, and the referencefeature is its usage, not the grammaticality He believes that the general characteristic

of language is not syntax but functions which are performed systematically

Unlike traditional grammar which assumes that sentence only has one structure(through the system of sentence elements such as Subject, Predicate, Complement,Adverbial complement, etc.) to carry out different functions, Functional Grammarbelieves that every sentence has three configurations and each of them has its ownspecific meta-function The first configuration expresses the Ideational meta-function

in which sentence is analyzed as Process, Participant and Circumstance The secondone manifests the Interpersonal meta-function where the organization of a sentenceincludes Mood and Residue The third one shows the Textual meta-function where thesentence is organized into theme and rheme

2.2.3 Meta-functions

Halliday (2014) argues that three main kinds of meanings are usedsimultaneously in the structure of language: Ideational, Interpersonal, and Textual.These three elements are also known as meta-functions which are about differentaspects of the world, and are concerned with different modes of meaning of clauses

We use language to enact our personal and social relationships (Interpersonal function), to construe our experience of the world and our consciousness (Ideational orExperiential meta-function), and to organize discourse and create continuity and flow

meta-in our texts (Textual meta-function)

Meta-functions are groups of semantic systems that make meanings of arelated kind The three meta-functions are mapped onto the structure of the clause;

therefore, a clause can be analyzed from three perspectives.

Kees Hengeveld of the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) at the NinthInternational Conference on Functional Grammar in 2000 proposes that there are threelevels of analysis for each discourse unit to be analyzed: Interpersonal,Representational and Expression level (Mackenzie, 2004) Ruqaiya Hasan argues themeta-functions —are not hierarchized; they have equal status, and each is manifested

in every act of language use: in fact, an important task for grammatics is to describehow the three meta-functions are woven together into the same linguistic unit” (Hasan,2009) According to Eggins, each meta-function has its own systems of choices, eachchoice resulting in a structure However, realizations of these 3 meta-functions occursimultaneously, allowing language to create different meanings at the same time(Suzzanne, 2004) Table 2.1 shows the three metafunctions simultaneously existing in

a clause and the components of each type

Table 2.1 Structure of a clause

(1) Starbucks®

rich, flavorful taste

Ideational meta-function Participant Process: Relational Participant

In this study, only Ideational meta-function and Interpersonal meta-functionare presented Textual meta-function is beyond the scope of the study

2.2.3.1 Clause as exchange

Whenever we use language to interact, one thing we are doing with it isestablishing a relationship between the speaker or writer and the listener(s) orreader(s) While construing, language is also enacting: enacting our personal andsocial relationships with other people around us

Interpersonal meaning is defined as —meaning as a form of action: the speaker

or writer doing something to the listener or reader by means of language.” (Halliday,

1994, p.53) When speaking or writing, the speaker or writer is not only doingsomething himself, he is also requiring something from the listener(s) or reader(s) For

(2) Speaker: Give me that book!

Listener: All right, I will.

In this example, the speaker is taking on the role of a person requesting thelistener to give him the book and simultaneously requiring the speaker to take on therole of the supplier of what is requested

The Interpersonal meta-function of language is concerned with clause as anexchange in which four speech functions are exchanged in rhetorical interaction:statements, questions, offers and commands Halliday indicates that there are twofundamental types of speech role: Giving and Demanding Giving means inviting toreceive and Demanding means inviting to give (Halliday, 1994) Therefore, the act ofspeaking or writing might be called an interact or an exchange between the speaker orwriter and the listener(s) or reader(s) in which Giving implies receiving andDemanding implies giving The commodity to be exchanged here might be Good-&-Service (G-&-S) or Information

- When you say something to me in order to ask me to do something for you

i.e (3) Close the door! or accept what you have offered i.e (4) Would you like some

coffee?, the commodity exchanged is typically non-verbal: what is being demanded is

an action or an object, and language is brought in to help the process along This is anexchange of G-&-S

- When you say something to me with the aim of getting me to tell you

something i.e (5) Where did you go?, to affirm or acknowledge what you have said i.e (6) Tomorrow morning Mary will be in Los Angeles, the exchanged commodity is

verbal: what is being demanded is Information, and it has no existence except in theform of language

As a result, there are four speech functions from these two variables whentaken together: Offer, Command, Statement and Question These correspond to a set ofdesired responses Table 2.2 shows the speech functions and their desired responses

Table 2.2 Speech functions and desired responses

Discretionary alternative

Giving

G-&-S

Offer(7) Would you like a drin k?

When communicating, through the choice of words and sentence structures,the speaker or writer is establishing some relationship with the listener(s) or reader(s).The relationships between the speaker/ writer and the listener(s)/ reader(s) could be asthose shown in table 2.3

Table 2.3 Relationships between speaker/ writer and listener(s)/ reader(s)

Speech functions Speaker/ Writer Listener(s)/ Reader(s)

Statement Provider of Information Recipient of InformationQuestion Recipient of Information Provider of InformationCommand Recipient of G-&-S Provider of G-&-S

Offer Provider of G-&-S Recipient of G-&-S

Interpersonal meta-function embodies all uses of language in order to express

social and personal relations, personalities, personal feelings, and the speaker‘sintrusion into speech situation and speech act Halliday further explains the term that

—In the clause, the Interpersonal element is represented by Mood and Modality.”(Halliday, 1973, p.41) Beside Mood, it is also embodied by the Personal pronounsystem, Modality and Tense The next parts will briefly sketch these three elements toexplain how to realize the Interpersonal meaning in text

a Mood

When using language to communicate, people are activating different speechfunctions They are represented by what is called the Mood structure, a fundamentalelement of every clause It is the selection by the speaker of a particular role in thespeech situation, and his determination of the choice of roles for the addresses(Halliday, 1973) According to Halliday, —Mood structures express interactionalmeanings: what the clause is doing, as a verbal exchange between speaker/ writer andaudience.” (Halliday, 1994, p.158)

The Mood element consists of two parts: the Subject, which is a nominal group,and the Finite operator, which is part of a verbal group

- The Subject may be any nominal group that the speaker gives responsibility

to for the validity of the clause After its first occurrence, it is replaced by the Personalpronoun corresponding to it

- The Finite element is one of the small numbers of verbal operators expressing

Tense (e.g is, has), Modality (e.g can, must) and Polarity (associated with affirmative

and negative) Note, however, that in some instances the Finite element and the lexical

verb are ‘fused" into a single word, for example continues in (11) Heavy soaking rain

continues across Kansas This happens when the verb is in simple past or simple

present (tense), active (voice), positive (polarity) and neutral (contrast): we say gave, not did give; give(s) not do(es) give.

The Subject and Finite element are linked together and they combine eachother to form Mood of the clause The rest of the clause is called the Residue Anexample of Mood and Residue of a clause is given in the following example,

(12)

S F P O

The Mood element can be

Mood realizes the selection of Mood in the clause through the sequentialarrangement of the Subject and Finite Mood in the clause might be Indicative orImperative; if Indicative, it is either Declarative or Interrogative; if Interrogative, it iseither Polar Interrogative (Yes/ No type) or Content Interrogative (‘Wh-" type)(Halliday, 1994, p.44) The Mood types in the clause are shown in table 2.4

Table 2.4 Mood and the Subject - Finite order

Indicative

Declarative

S + F

(14) Brash Bluffs [S] is [F] made from Sumatra FT

beans from the northeast corner of Indonesia.

Interrogative

F + S

- Yes/ No type: (15) Do [F] you [S] bleed black?

- Wh-type: (16) What machines are [F] Death

Cups [S] compatible with?

S + F (in case the Wh-element is S)

(17) What [S] is [F] going into each cup of coffee?

(20) Let us [S] have another cup of coffee!

No Mood element (21) Enjoy!

Each type of Mood of the clause has its own role in expressing different speechfunctions A Declarative clause has the function of representing the act or state as an

objective fact It realizes statement which indicates something as a single declaration,

or a report of facts or opinions In an exchange, people when using a Declarative areoften those who take the speech role of Giving Information

The typical function of an Interrogative clause is to ask a question, i.e.demanding information, and from the speaker‘s point of view, asking a question is anindication that he wants to be told something There are two main types of questions:one expresses what the speaker wants to know (the Polarity ‘yes or no?’), the otherexpresses that what the speaker wants to know is the identity of some element in thecontent - a missing piece of information (the Wh-question)

An Imperative clause has got some basic messages: ‘I want you to do/ not to

do something’, or ‘I want us to do/ not to do something’ It inherently realizes acommand and expresses the speech role of demanding G-&-S This type of clause mayhave a Mood element consisting of Finite plus Subject, or Finite only, or Subject only,

or no Mood at all (as shown in table 2.4) An Imperative clause usually doesn’t have aSubject, because it addresses to the speaker himself and/ or the listener(s), who the

speaker understands to be the Subject (we or you).

Table 2.5 shows the association between speech functions and their typicaltypes of Mood in clause

Table 2.5 Speech functions and typical Mood in clause

up of Mood expressions (including particles or expletives such as à, ư, đi, hãy, lắm,

thay, hay, etc., semi-lexical expressions such as ai, gì, bao giờ, etc., interjections such

as ôi, úi chà, etc.); Subject is not an element of the Mood block These Mood expressions combine with other Modality factors (đã, sẽ, đang, muốn, có lẽ, đấy, ạ,

cũng, etc.) to form the Mood block The rest of the sentence is the Residue which

combines with the Mood block creating the Mood structure of sentence Table 2.6shows the Mood structure of the sentence in Vietnamese

Table 2.6 Vietnamese Mood structure

Mood Block (Mood expression + Modality factor)

Residue (The rest of the sentence)

The attitude, viewpoint of the speaker or

writer The event which is being talkedabout

The list of Vietnamese Mood types and examples are shown in table 2.7

Table 2.7 Mood types in Vietnamese

1 Declarative No Mood

expression

(22) Vinacafé CLASSIC mang nét đặc trưng

của cà phê phin truyền thống Việt Nam

Residue

2 Interrogative

à, ư, ạ, a, hả, hử,

hở, chứ/chớ, nhỉ,

ai, gì,ào, ao,

-âu, hay, etc.

(24) Hãy thưởng thức ngay các món

nước đá xay độc đáo mang hương vị tự nhiên tại Highlands Coffee

Moodexpression

Residue

Mood expressions do not have a fixed position in the clause In anInterrogative clause, they might take the final or middle position in the clause, or they

might be Interrogative framework (khuôn nghi vấn) (such as có không, có phen

không') As for the Mood expressions realizing imperatives, "hãy, đừng, chớ’ typically

stand before the imperative content part while the other imperative expressions stand

after it (such as đi, thôi, nào) in the clause Imperative clauses in Vietnamese might not contain any Mood expressions, for example, (25) Anh kia đứng lại! with the stress is

put onto the words carrying the imperative content

Table 2.8 Mood structures in Vietnamese

(28) Có phải cái áo này của anh không?

ResidueMood Expression

Imperative

b Modality

Modality refers to the resources in the language system for expressing thewriter or speaker‘s attitude toward the truth, validity or obligation of the utterance.Modality is traditionally defined by Bybee et al as —the grammaticization ofspeakers’ (subjective) attitudes and opinions” (1994, p.176) with regard to apredication‘s reality or factuality, obligation, probability, possibility, necessity,desirability, credibility, etc Jian states that Modality is a semantic system expressingthe speaker’s judgement or evaluation which covers the field between —yes” and —no” (Jian Xu, 2009) Palmer points out that Modality is a —crosslanguagegrammatical category” which, just like tense or aspect, is concerned with the event orsituation being reported by the utterance (Palmer, 2001) However, while tense andaspect refer directly to a characteristic of the event (its time and nature), Modalityrefers to the status of the proposition The grammatical (morphological, syntactic andlexical) markers of Modality vary across languages and can be subdivided into threecategories: individual suffixes, clitics and particles, inflection and Modal verbs DeHaan shows that forms of the grammaticalized expression of Modality could be Modalauxiliary verbs, Mood (realis Mood: indicative or irrealis Mood: subjunctive, optative,imperative and conditional), Modal affixes (necessitative, permissive) or lexicalmeans, such as Modal adverbs and adjectives, Modal tags and Modal particles (De

Haan, 2006) According to Halliday, Modality means the speaker‘s judgement of theprobabilities, or the obligations involved in what he is saying (Halliday, 1994) It alsohelps to create the speaker‘s request or judgement of the listener(s) or reader(s), on the

status of what being said or written (it could be, couldn’t it be?, you mustn’t do that,

must you do that?) The resource for expressing Modality includes Modal verbs and/

or Modal adjuncts This study mainly focuses on Modal verbs

Modal verbs give additional information about the function of the main verbthat follows it They have a great variety of communicative functions For example,

„must’ expresses a strong obligation, a logical conclusion or a certainty, while „must not’ expresses a prohibition Each Modal verb also has its negative form List of

Modal verbs is given in the table below

Table 2.9 English Modal verbs

Positive can, may, could,

mustn‘t, oughtn‘t to,can‘t, couldn‘t,(mayn‘t, mightn‘t,hasn‘t/ hadn‘t to)

As for Modal verbs, Diệp Quang Ban indicates t hat they have syntacticrelation with the Subject and do not play the role of Predicator (Diệp Quang Ban,2004) They can adopt in front of them or after them the Modal adverbs indicating

time (vẫn, còn, sẽ, đang, đã, mới, rồi, etc.), as in 'Phong vẫn cần phải học\ They stand

in front of lexical verbs in the clause and have the same Subject with them Diepsuggests six common groups of Modal verbs in Vietnamese in terms of their meaningand function as follows (Diệp Quang Ban, 2004, p.494):

- Modal verbs referring to necessity: cần, phải, nên i.e (31) Phong cần phải

học.

- Modal verbs referring to determination: chực, dám, đang tâm, đành, định, nỡ,

toan, muốn, mong, cầu mong, etc i.e (32) Nam chỉ toan đứng dậy ra về.

- Modal verbs referring to possibility: có thể, chẳng thể, chưa thể, không thể

i.e (33) Sinh nhật Phong cậu có thể đến không?

- Modal verbs referring to enjoyment: bị, chịu, được, mắc, phải i.e (34) Phong

được đi du học ở Mỹ.

- Modal verbs referring to physiological needs: buồn i.e (35) Nam buồn ngủ

rồi đấy.

- Modal verbs referring to the beginning, the continuing and the ending: bắt

đầu, tiếp tục, hết, thôi, etc i.e (36) Chúng ta sẽ bắt đầu học vào tuần tới.

c Personal Pronoun

Halliday also mentions that Interpersonal meaning is embodied in the Personalpronoun system (Halliday, 1994) This is one method of assigning certain roles to the

two (or more) people involved in the text It is the encoding of ‘the one speaking’ (I,

we), ‘the one(s) spoken to’ (you) and the other(s) in the situation (he, she, it, they) in

text There is also the generalized Personal pronoun (one) The choice of pronouns in a

text will affect the degree of distance or closeness between the speaker/ writer andlistener(s)/ reader(s) It indicates the attempt of the speaker/ writer in engaging hislistener(s)/ reader(s) or invoking their participation For instance, the inclusive

pronoun ‘we ’ can create a closer relationship between the speaker/ writer and

listener(s)/ reader(s) and imply that they have some information in common that could

be shared with each other

English Personal pronouns carry different grammatical roles in the clause andare divided into groups as follows:

Table 2.10 English Personal pronouns and grammatical roles in the clause

Reflexive myself, ourselves, yourself, himself, herself, itself,

themselvesPossessive determiner my, our, your, his, her, its, their

Possessive pronoun mine, ours, yours, hers, its, theirs

In Vietnamese, Personal pronouns do not only play the role of assigning,projecting and enacting speech roles for the participants in a dialogue; they alsomanifest the social relationship (the politeness, the intimacy) between the speaker orwriter and the listener(s) or reader(s) or the attitude and feeling of the speaker or writer

toward the listener(s) or reader(s) Groups of Personal pronouns in Vietnamese aredivided as follows:

- True pronouns: table 2.11

Table 2.11 True pronouns in Vietnamese

First person

tôi (could be formal) chúng tôi (exclusive)

ta, tớ (neutral, non-formal) ta, chúng ta (inclusive), chúng tớ(exclusive)tao (familiar, superior to

mình (intimate) mình, chúng mình (inclusive)Second person

mày or mi (familiar, superior to

inferior)

chúng, mày, tụi mày, bay, chúngbay, bọn bay, bọn miThird person

nó, hắn, y (familiar, superior to

inferior)

chúng, chúng nó, bọn nó, họ,bọn họ, bọn chúng nó, bọn hắn

- Kinship terms: ông, bà, bố, mẹ, chú, bác, cô, dì, con, cháu, bạn, đồng chí,

ngài, etc i.e (37) Cậu cho cháu gói quà.

- Social status terms (usually used second person pronouns): giám đốc, quý vị,

quý khách, etc i.e (38) Xin mời quý vị nâng cốc.

- Reflexive pronoun: mình can combine which tự or chính to emphasize the

reflexive meaning i.e (39) Anh ta tự trách mình.

- Reciprocal pronoun: nhau i.e (40) Chúng ta hiểu rõ hoàn cảnh của nhau

mà.

2.2.3.2 Clause as representation

Clause as representation enables us to use language to talk about the naturalworld in the broadest sense, including our own consciousness, to describe events,states, and their entities In Halliday‘s analysis of English (Halliday, 1994, p.106161),Ideational meaning is accounted for in clauses by the transitivity system Thetransitivity system is comprised of choices of Process type and the configuration ofpossible Participants, Process and Circumstances which are associated with a

particular Process type The transitivity system indicates Ideational meta-functionthrough clause as representation In this meta-function, a clause is analyzed intoProcess, Participants and Circumstances, with different participant types for differentProcess types Halliday found that there are six different Process types, such asMaterial Process, Relational Process, Mental Process, Existential Process, BehavioralProcess and Verbal Process Based on such the six Processes with different transitivity,linguistics provides us with choices in order that the speaker/ writer can expressdifferent types of experience about the world.

a Transitivity

In SFG, transitivity is defined to be concerned with not only the transmission ofworld-view, but how meaning is represented in the clause as well Besides, it plays arole in showing how speakers/ writers encode in language their mental picture ofreality and how they account for their experience of the world around them.Transitivity was developed as the concept of transitive or intransitive verb (Halliday,

1976, p.159) whether the verb takes an object or not, but in SFG, it functions to linkgrammar to the meta-function of the clause, deals with the —transmission of ideas” —representing process” or —experiences”: actions, events, processes of consciousnessand relation

Figure 2.2 Transitivity structure

From the diagram above, it is clear that Process is the —embryo” of the clause withoutwhich there is no clause Supporting this —embryo” to develop is the Participants(made of Subjects and Objects) At the periphery of the embryonic structure is theCircumstances (made of adjuncts and adverbs)

b Process, Participant and Circumstance

One of the functions of a clause is to represent experience: to describe the events andstates of the real and (unreal) world

In the SFL model, a representation of experience consists of:

- Processes defined by Halliday (2004, p.106) is a term referring in general to

‘going-on’ (verbs) like doing, happening, seeing, feeling, thinking as well as being andhaving In functional model of grammar, the one obligatory constituent of a clause isthe Process, which can be typically expressed or realized by the verbal group

- Participants are the entities involved in the Process; as a necessary part of theProcess All Participants can take on the Subject functions i.e Actor, Sayer, Sensor,etc Participants are realized by nominal group

- Circumstances are the principal types of Circumstantial elements in Englishwhich specify the when, where, why and how of the Process and can be realized byadverbial group or prepositional phrase

These three elements form part of the clause, while Participants and Process areessential to clause realizations, Circumstances are considered as peripheral in natureand , thus, employed to provide additional meaning for the clause without arequirement These are organized in configurations that provide the models orschemata for construing our experience of what goes on Table 2.12 presents thetransitivity structure of clause

Table 2.12 Clause as Process, Participants and Circumstances

Thus, in the concept of transitivity found in Halliday‘s introduction, three

abovementioned components are what Halliday calls a Transitivity Process

c Process types

(Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p 172)

Having Identity Having

Attribute

Existing

World of Abstract Relations

Symbolizing

World of Consciousness

Happening (Being created)

Physical World

Creating Changing

Behaving

Seeing Thinking

SEHAVIOU^

Figure 2.3 The grammar of experience: types of Process in English

According to Halliday (1994), the transitivity system of English includes six Processtypes, namely Material, Relational, Mental, Existential, Behavioral and Verbal, whichare illustrated in the above figure

- Material process: process of doing

Material process is a process of doing, happening and about action The Processusually consists of Verb, Actor (logical subject) and Goal (noun or pronoun) Materialprocess expresses the notion that some entity ‘does’ something which may be done

‘to’ some other entity (Halliday, 2004, p.181) They may be realized in either theactive or passive voice as well as tending to adopt the present continuous tense(Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p.225)

In a Material clause, there is always one Participant - Actor, which is the doer of theaction The Process may extend to another Participant, the Goal, the Participant insome Material processes to which the doing is done Traditionally, the term transitive

is used for verbs which require a Goal (42), and intransitive is used for the verbs which

do not take a Goal Participant (43)

(42) We [Actor] have carefully roasted [Process] these beans [Goal].

(43) It [Actor] has gone [Process].

The Process is not one of —doing” but one of —happening”, so we may askeither —what did X do?”, —what did X do to Y?”, with X referring to the Actor while

Y standing for Goal or —what happened to Y?”, with Y referring to Goal (Halliday &Matthiessen, 2004, p.181) Consequently, if there is a Goal in the Process, as well as

an Actor, the representation may come in either of two forms: operative (active), i.e

(44) We have created the recipe, or receptive (passive) (45) This Starbucks® Blonde

Roast coffee is aptly named.

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Goal Process: ReceptiveBesides, there is an extra element called Circumstance providing additionalinformation on the —when, where, how, and why” of the Process The Circumstantialelement is realized, either in adverbial phrases or in prepositional phrases, asillustrated:

Table 2.13 Material clause with Circumstance

(46) The Tanzanian

in the northern and southern parts of Tanzania

In addition to the two parts mentioned above, there are a number of otherParticipant roles that may be involved in the Process of a —Material” clause; theseare: Scope, Recipient, and Client (Halliday, 2004, p.190)

The third semantic role introduced by Halliday (2004, p.190) is Beneficiarywhich is otherwise considered as almost adopting the role of secondary Goal TheBeneficiary is defined as the Participant —to whom or for whom the Process takesplace” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p 345) For instance, (Table 2.14)

Table 2.14 Material clause with Recipient

Actor Process:Material Beneficiary(Recipient) GoalNominal group Verbal group Nominal group Nominal group

A Beneficiary can also be realized by a prepositional phrase with to or for (Halliday,

2004, p 190), whether it appears explicitly or not in the clause For example,

(48) The South America blend high-quality coffee beans are roasted in

a small batch to deliver the fresh espresso coffee to you [Indirect Object;

Beneficiary - Recipient]

(49) This artisan roast has been carefully crafted for the world’s most

powerful guitarist, Zakk Wylde [Indirect Object; Beneficiary - Client] The

general rule is that if the preposition for is or can be used, the Participant

role is a Client as (49) On the other hand, if the preposition to is or can be used, as in

(48) above, the corresponding role is a Recipient

The semantic role Scope (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p.190) is mentioned as thefourth Participant occurring in a Material clause Scope is often considered similar to aGoal; however, Scope can be distinguished on the basis of a number of probes thatwork only for the former Let us look at the difference between them through thefollowing examples,

(50) He plays the piano [Direct Object; Scope].

(51) He broke the piano [Direct Object; Goal].

We find that the nouns „piano’ in (50) and (51) have the same syntactic function,

traditionally, they are Objects However, in terms of semantic function, there is a great

difference between (50) and (51) In (50), the „piano’ isn’t passively affected by the verb „play’, but through the action of the verb „play’, it performs its function as a piano as well as limiting the nature of ‘play’ activity Whereas in (51), the ‘piano’ is under completely passive influence of the verb ‘break’, and because of this action, the

‘piano’ is no longer itself.

- Mental process: process of thinking

While Material clauses are related to our experience of the material world, Mentalclauses are concerned with our experience of the world of our own consciousness.Mental process is a process of thinking involving: perception, affection and cognition.Mental process has two Participants: Sensor and Phenomenon Sensor refers to theperson who perceives and Phenomenon is something that is perceived by the Sensor.Phenomenon includes concrete person or objects, abstract things, happened events and

so on For example,

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Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p.208) claims that there are four different subtypes ofsensing: Perceptive, Cognitive, Desiderative and Emotive Examples of verbs serving

in the different types of Mental clause are given in the following table

Table 2.15 Examples of verbs serving as Process in Mental clauses

Perceptive perceive, sense, see, notice, glimpse,hear, overhear, feel, taste, smell (assail)

Cognitive

think, believe, suppose, expect,consider, know, understand, realize,appreciate, imagine, dream, pretend,guess, reckon, conjecture,hypothesize, wonder, doubt,remember, recall, forget, fear (think

fearfully)

strike, occur to, convince,remind, escape, puzzle,intrigue, surprise

“Like” type “Please” type

Desiderative

want, wish, would like, desire, hope(for), long for, yearn for, intend, plan,decide, resolve, determine, agree,

relish, marvel

allure, attract, please,displease, disgust, offend,repel, revolt, gladden,delight, gratify, sadden,depress, pain, alarm,startle, frighten, scare,horrify, shock, comfort,reassure, encourage,amuse, entertain, divert,interest, fascinate, bore,weary, worry(Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014, p.210)

- Relational process: process of being

It is the third of the three initial and major Process types considered by Halliday andMatthiessen (2004, 2014) in the transitivity network As we have known, Materialclauses are concerned with our experience of the material world and Mental clausesare concerned with our experience of our own consciousness Both this outerexperience and inner experience may be construed by Relational clauses; but theymodel this experience as —being” rather than as —doing” or —sensing” In otherwords, they serve to establish a relationship between two entities, to characterize and

to identify (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p.211)

Unlike Material process, which denotes our doings and/ or happenings, and Mentalprocess, which mainly focuses on our thoughts, emotions, perceptions and desires,Relational process construes the experience of being and becoming The

following is inner and outer experience construed by differenttypes of Process.

Table 2.16 Inner and outer experience construed by different types of Processes

Material

-She‘s walking (into the diningroom); she‘s getting amahogany table; she‘semptying the bottle

Mental

[sensing]

She rejoices, she fears stupidity;

his behavior amuses her, stupidity

Relational process is defined as a process of being, realized by the verb be in the

simple present or past and appear to have two inherent Participants

Actually, Relational process is a rich and varied type of Process, which covers themany different ways that —being” is expressed (Eggins, 1994) However, in thisanalysis, we only refer to two simple types, they are Attributive process andIdentifying process

In the Attributive process, the Participants are Attribute and Carrier, whilst in the latterare termed Identified (the element that is identified) and Identifier (the element thatdoes the identifying) Yet, Token and Value are alternative terminology used in SFG

to refer to the Participants of a Relational identifying clause Table 2.17 illustrates thetwo types of Relational Process

Table 2.17 Subject - Complement; Token - Value and Carrier - Attribute

Identifier

(b)

Carrier Process: Relational

(Attributive)

Attribute

Both Relational Attributive and Relational Identifying clauses are comprised

of three subcategories termed: relational intensive; relational possessive, andrelational circumstantial

- Behavioral process: process of behaving

Behavioral process is a process of physical and psychological behavior, such

as breathe, dream, smile, laugh, cry, and cough It is recognized at the boundary

between Material and Mental process (Halliday & Matthiessen2014, p.301) It is theleast distinct of all the six Process types because it has no clearly definedcharacteristics of its own; rather, it is partly like the Material and partly like theMental As with Material clauses, Behavioral process also consists of one integralsecond Participant, labelled the Behaver, who is usually a conscious entity Although

a second Participant, namely Behavior (i.e a restatement of the process and, thus,similar to the Scope of a Material process) or Phenomenon (any entity that does notreiterate the process) (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p.251), may appear in aBehavioral clause, most frequently, their realization consists of solely a Behaver andthe Process itself, as illustrated:

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