A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF INTERPERSONAL MEANING IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE FABLES FROM MULTIMODAL PERSPECTIVE

PHAN THỊ HỒNG THẮMA COMPARATIVE STUDY OF INTERPERSONAL MEANING IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE FABLES FROM MULTIMODAL PERSPECTIVE MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH Binh Dinh - 2019... MINISTRY OF EDUCA

PHAN THỊ HỒNG THẮM

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF INTERPERSONAL MEANING IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE FABLES

FROM MULTIMODAL PERSPECTIVE

MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH

Binh Dinh - 2019

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

PHAN THỊ HỒNG THẮM

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF INTERPERSONAL MEANING IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE FABLES

FROM MULTIMODAL PERSPECTIVE

Field: English Linguistics Code: 8 22 02 01

Supervisor: VÕ DUY ĐỨC, Ph.D

PHAN THỊ HỒNG THẮM

NGHIÊN CỨU SO SÁNH NGHĨA LIÊN NHÂN TRONG TRUYỆN NGỤ NGÔN TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT TỪ

PHƯƠNG DIỆN ĐA PHƯƠNG THỨC

Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh

Mã số: 8 22 02 01

Người hướng dẫn: TS VÕ DUY ĐỨC

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby verify that the thesis titled “A comparative study of interpersonal meaning in English and Vietnamese fables from multimodal perspective” is my own work No other person’s work has been used without

acknowledgement in the thesis This thesis contains no material which waspreviously published or written by another person, except where reference hasbeen made in the text I have not submitted this thesis for the award of anydegree, diploma in any university or any other institution

Quy Nhon city, 2019

PHAN THI HONG THAM

materials related to multimodal genre, for his continuous support, patience,enthusiasm and immense knowledge His guidance helps me in all the time ofwriting this thesis, without which this thesis could not be carried out.

I would send my sincere thanks all the lecturers in the English mastercourse for their perceptive judgments and discerning analysis, for theirvaluable lectures which provide important materials for this thesis

I am also grateful for source of materials and helpful suggestions onfabled genre in my thesis of my friends, who inspired me to do this thesis

Lastly, my sincere thanks go to my parents, my husband and my son fortheir love, helping and supporting me spiritually throughout the time thisstudy is carried out

in each language) In this study, a combination of variety methods such asqualitative, quantitative, descriptive, comparative, analytic and syntheticmethods was employed to find out the correlations between fables in Englishand Vietnamese in terms of how Interpersonal meanings are verbally andvisually conveyed The findings of this study show some major similarities inemploying evaluative languages in the fables Specifically, negative Affect isused more commonly than positive Affect and positive Appreciation is usedmore often than negative one Moreover, the findings show that the image-producers in both EFs and VFs tend to focus on the contact of Offer Inaddition, for Horizontal angle, the image-producer wants to employ moreOblique than Frontal angle in both EFs and VFs Some differences weredrawn out from the findings The first difference is that the Affect is the mostfrequently used in EFs while Appreciation ranks first in VFs The nextdifference lies in the use of Judgement resources Vietnamese writers tend toemploy more negative Judgment while English writers tend to do theopposite Lastly, for Visual results, the image- producer in EFs tends toemploy Long Shot of Social Distance rather than Close shot and Mediumshot; while in VFs, the largest percentage is illustrated by Medium shot Theresults of this thesis make some pratical contribution to teaching and learningEnglish in Vietnam.

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

There is no denying the fact that fables are popular and absolutelypivotal in children's literature since they teach children lessons withinteresting animal characters Fables are one type of folk literature withstories containing characters as either animals or humans Especially, fablesplay a crucial role in our society as well as contain moral lessons or valuesabout life According to Bonn (2010: 59-60) fable is “a prose or versenarrative intended to convey a moral Animals or inanimate objects withhuman characteristics often serve as characters in fables” Fables describewhat is morally right or wrong, the world of animals or humans, mostly in thepast, speaks of the moral lessons which are still relevant in present life andtells a variety of subject matters like the explanations of phenomena in reallife or the teasing of bad habits of humans Regarding this feature, Bartens(2004) states that moral values are the basic standard of good and evil whichgoverns or rules individual behaviors and choices Indeed, moral value dealswith a set of principle which is applied to evaluate the right or wrong in life

In literary works, moral value is seen as a lesson which might inspire thereaders to be positive or to believe in better changes Each story is a morallesson and through the words and behaviors of characters, we can drawcertain philosophies of life, in this case, fables in English and Vietnamese.Among fables of various themes, images are also the attractiveness of fables

It is irrefutable that photos are effective tools for attracting readers,especially for children Moreover, the combination of words and photos in

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those fables assists comprehension of the stories So, understanding anddiscovering the relationship between visual meaning and verbal meaning havebecome the interest of many researchers To the best of my knowledge, noresearch has been done on fables from multimodal perspective For all these

reasons, we decided to do the research entitled: “A comparative study of Interpersonal meaning in English and Vietnamese fables from

multimodal perspective”.

1.2 Significance of the Study

The study is designed to examine Interpersonal and Attitudinalmeanings in fables in English and Vietnamese Analyzing evaluative language

in EFs and VFs plays a crucial role in teaching and learning language since it

is helpful and effective for teachers and learners of English who use languageand images to analyze the highlights of the visual, especially for teaching thelessons of the literature of English and Vietnamese In addition, the findings

of the study are also of great importance to Vietnamese learners of English inunderstanding and having profound lessons through the entertaining fables.They are also expected to contribute to the process of teaching and learningEnglish in our country

1.3 Aims and Objectives

1.3.1 Aims

The study aims at examining the interpersonal meaning in fables inEnglish and Vietnamese from verbal and visual perspectives in order to helpVietnamese learners of English understand the importance of the fables andthe distinctive characteristics of these evaluative meanings The findings ofthe study hope to draw what the writers do to attract readers and to comparethe Attitudinal and Interpersonal meanings in fables in English andVietnamese

1.3.2 Objectives

The study attempts to achieve the following objectives:

- Identify different Attitudinal values and Interpersonal features used infables in English and Vietnamese based on Appraisal theory developed byMartin & White (2005) and Grammar of Visual Design of Kress and vanLeeuwen (2006)

- Compare the Attitudinal and Interpersonal meanings in fables in English and Vietnamese

- Find out the similarities and differences between English andVietnamese fables in terms of how those meanings are conveyed in thestories

1.4 Research Questions

To accomplish the objectives mentioned above, the study tries to

answer the following questions:

1 How do the images in English and Vietnamese fables carry

interactional meanings?

2 How are Attitudinal resources used in the English and

Vietnamese

fables?

3 What are the differences and similarities between English and

Vietnamese fables from verbal and visual perspectives?

1.5 Scope of the Study

The study focuses on analyzing the Attitude - one sub-system ofAppraisal and Interpersonal meaning through 25 fables in English and 25fables in Vietnamese In term of Appraisal theory, the attitude is classified intoAffect, Judgment and Appreciation which deal with how writers negotiatetheir attitude with the readers, how they express their feeling towardsomething or someone, and the way in which values are constructed In terms

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of Visual meaning, within the limited time, the study just focuses onInteractional meaning of these photos in the stories to find out the differencesand similarities between English and Vietnamese fables from visualperspectives

1.6 Organization of the Study

The study is organized into five chapters as follows:

Chapter 1, Introduction, which presents the rationale, the significance

of the study, the aims and objectives of the study, the scope of the study,research questions and organization on the study

Chapter 2, Literature Review, presents some theoretical concepts of

Appraisal and Grammar of Visual Design Besides, it reviews some previousstudies as well as the comments of these studies

Chapter 3, Methodology, describes method and procedure to carry out

the study It includes research method, research procedure for carrying on thestudy, description of samples, and the procedure of data collection and dataanalysis

Chapter 4, Findings and Discussions, presents the work of description

of characteristics of Attitudinal and Interpersonal meanings used in fables inEnglish and Vietnamese, and then deals with the relationship betweenAttitudinal meanings and Interpersonal meanings in those fables

Chapter 5, Conclusions and Implications, summarizes the major

findings, shows conclusions, suggests some implications for teachers andlearners of English, especially reading skill Moreover, some suggested ideasare mentioned for further research

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Fables

According to The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (6th edition), afable is “ a brief allegorical narrative, in verse or prose, which illustrates amoral thesis or satirizing human beings; the characters of a fable are usuallyanimals who talk and like people while retaining their animal traits.” Fable isalso defined as “a traditional short story that teaches a moral lesson, especiallyone with animals as characters” (Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary,2000) In other words, fables are stories that teach a moral lesson through theuse of animals as the main characters Fables are narrations intended toenforce a useful truth; especially one in which animals speak and act likehuman beings Fables are well liked in children's literature because they teachchildren lessons which are interesting with the animal characters They havebecome beloved bedtime stories that are read to children all over the world.According to Miller (2017), the characters in fables are typically animals thatcan think, talk, behave like humans and face problems people face every day.They are typical, with human strengths and weaknesses including a guilelesscat, a wise rabbit or a crafty fox Remarkably, fables take off the need forcomplex personalities, and this admits children to focus on its moral theme byusing simple characters Because most fables are intended for children, theirstructure is simple and straightforward The beginning of a fable introducesthe main characters, which usually includes a hero and a villain Thebeginning also tells about a key event that leads to a conflict that the maincharacter must overcome At the end, the main character is

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victorious These three parts combine to teach children a moral lesson abouteveryday life In term of language, fables are written using simple language,often with simple words and short sentences so they can be easily read andunderstood by children of all ages They may be written as a prose in thesame manner as other stories The dialogue within a fable often posesquestions that are used to help the story along to its moral ending

Aesop, the oldest of fables, is well-known by famous fables, TheTortoise and the Hair, The Fox and the Grapes No one knows who Aesop wasand it is unknown whether or not Aesop was a real person but is viewed asone of the fathers of fables Aesop’s fables are among the most widely readand recited fables According to the Children’s Literature network, scholarshave traced the origins of fables even further back than Aesop's time, all theway back to 1800 B.C According to the website Wikipedia, fables had afurther long tradition through the Middle Ages, and became part of Europeanhigh literature During the 17th century, the French fabulist Jean de LaFontaine (1621–1695) saw the soul of the fable in the moral, a rule ofbehavior Starting with the Aesopian pattern, La Fontaine set out to satirize thecourt, the church, the rising bourgeoisie, indeed the entire human scene of histime In England, the tradition of fables was continued in the 17th and 18thcentury by John Dryden and Jone Gay There have been many writings offables such as “Fables of our times” by James Thurber's (1940) and “AnimalFarm” by George Orwell (1945) In United States, Marianne Moore wrotepoems quite similar to fables, “The fables of La Fontaine” (1954)

There have been a lot of studies on fables carried out by researchers andlinguists Teupe (2013) explains the difference between animals in fairy talesand animals in fables She briefly introduces the genre of Animal Tales,because it is similar to fairy tales and fables Moreover, she expounds the

function of talking animals in fairy tales and fables Peter (2012) conducts astudy to compare the human presence in the text of Robert Henryson’s Fablesand William Caxton’s The History of Reynard the Fox The principal methodused is the gathering of specific instances of human presence in the two texts,and the categorising or coding of such instances From this, the finding showsthe resulting categories of human presence used to generate a theoryconcerning the functions of the human presence within the texts In Vietnam,Pham Minh Hanh (1991) explores the types of fables in Viet Nam Acomparative method is employed to find out similarities and differencesbetween fables and other genres such as fairy tales, animal stories, jokes Thisthesis examines basic characteristics as well as content, artistic measures andgoals of fables Nguyen Thi Oanh (2015) investigates the main characteristics

of folk tales including fables, legends, and fairy tales The results of thisinvestigation show that comprehending the basic characteristics of folk tales isnecessary to help teachers not only understand the genres introduced in theelementary curriculum but also to perfect the analysis of the work to improvethe quality of teaching and learning folk tales in the elementary curriculum.However, no research has been done on fables from visual and attitudinalperspectives based on the two theories namely Appraisal theory develop byMartin & While (2005) and the theory of Grammar of Visual Design of Kressand Leeuwen (2006) The following will present these theories

2.2 Appraisal theory

According to White (2001:1) Appraisal is “an approach to exploring,describing and explaining the way language is used to evaluate, to adoptstances, to construct textual personas and to manage interpersonalpositionings and relationship” In other words, what Appraisal basicallyillustrates is how the speakers/ writers use their own language to express their

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attitudes, emotions and evaluate human beings' behaviors and things as well

as how they express their opinions in relation to other readers Martin & Rose(2003) also confirm that Appraisal concerned with evaluation, and Appraisal

is also a system of interpersonal meanings Geoff Thompson (2004) alsoasserts that Appraisal is the indication of what the speaker thinks thatsomething (a person, thing, action, event, situation, idea, etc) is good or bad.The good or bad scales can be seen as the simplest and most basic one, butthere are many of other scales of Appraisal, and its shows what kinds ofvalues are established in any particular genre

In the book The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English, Martin

& White (2005:34) state that “Appraisal is one of three major discoursesemantic resources construing interpersonal meaning” This study was based

on Martin and Whites' classification in terms of Appraisal According toMartin and White (2005), Appraisal is itself divided into three sub- systems,namely Attitude, Engagement, and Graduation Engagement deals withsourcing attitudes and the play of voices around opinions in discourse.Graduation attends to grading phenomena whereby feelings are amplified andcategories blurred Attitude is itself divided into three regions of feelings,

‘Affect’, ‘Judgment’, and ‘Appreciation’ “Affect deals with resources forconstruing emotional reactions” “Judgment is concerned with resources forassessing behavior according to various normative principles” “Appreciationlooks at resources for construing the value of things” (Martin & White,2005:35-36) The Appraisal system can also be demonstrated in Figure 2.1 asfollows

monogloss ENGAGEMENT

heterogloss

A

P

ATTITUDE P

Figure 2.1 An overview of Appraisal resources

(Martin & White, 2005:38)

2.2.1 Engagement

Engagement is concerned with a range of resources by which speakers/

writers adjust and negotiate the arguability of their utterance (White, 2001) In

addition, according to Martin and White (2005: 94), Engagement is the

linguistic resources for the authorial voice positions itself with respect to other

textual voices and alternative positions at stake in a given communicative

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context In broad term, there are two categories of this sub- system includingMonoglossic and Heteroglossic Table 2.1 illustrates the distinction betweentwo types of Engagement:

Table 2.1 The monoglossic and the heteroglossic

(Martin & White, 2005:100)

Monoglossic ( no recognition of

dialogistic alternatives)

The banks have been greedy.

As can be seen from Table 2.1, the example of monoglossic type points

to no recognition to other dialogistic positioning However, the examples ofheteroglossic indicates viewpoints and from the writer's and others' such as

There is the argument though that, In my view, Callers to talkback radio see, The chairman of consumers association has stated, There can be no denying, and Everyone knows.

In terms of Heteroglossic, Martin & White (2005) divide Heteroglossic

into some systems as follows The first one is contract It consists of Disclaim and Proclaim Disclaim is the textual voice position itself as at odds with, or

rejecting, some contrary position It can be recognized by some expressions

like no, didn’t, never, yet, although, amazingly, but… Proclaim presents the

proposition as highly warrantable It can be expressed through some

expressions such as naturally, of course, obviously, there can be no doubt that, as X has shown that,… Another system of engagement is Expand Two kinds of expand are Entertain and Attribute Entertain explicitly presents the

propositions as grounded in its own contingent, individual subjectivity, theauthorial voice represent the proposition as but one of a range of possibility

positions This sub- type can be described through some words like perhaps,

it seems, apparently, it’s possible, I believe that,… Attribute represents

proposition as grounded in the subjectivity of an external voice Some

structures such as X said, X believes, X claims that are used to illustrate

Attribute Along with Engagement, Appraisal theory also involves Graduationwhich is discussed in the next section

boundaries of semantic categories can be blurred or sharpened such as

exactly, sort of, kind of

Based on Martin & White (2005), force covers assessments as to degree

of intensity and as to amount Assessments of degree of intensity can operateover qualities, processes, or the verbal modalities; and we call these kinds of

assessments intensification Other assessments that provide for imprecise measuring of number, of the presence or mass of entities such as size, weight, distribution, proximity are called quantification Intensification

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divides into two broad lexico-grammatical classes – isolating and infusing,where a distinction is made with regards to whether the up- or down- scaling

is realized by an isolated item For example, ‘a bit’, ‘somewhat’, ‘very’,

‘slightly’: isolating; ‘the water flooded out of the tap’: infusing Quantification involves scaling with respect to amount (e.g size, weight, strength, number), and to extent (scope in time and space) (e.g many, little, huge, a few, vast)

There are two sub-categories of Focus, one amplifying thing, through

notions of authenticity (e.g true, real), and specificity (e.g kind of, exactly, nearly), and the other amplifying process (e.g try to find, fail to achieve).

These can be used to either sharpen or soften the focus According to Martinand White (2005: 139), sharpening is often associated with positive attitudinal

assessment (e.g a real father, a true friend), while softening often flags negative assessment (e.g They sort of play jazz, They are kind of crazy, It was

an apology of sorts) Focus is not scalable; however, under focus it is possible

to up-scale (sharpen) (e.g a real father, a true friend), or down-scale (soften) (e.g They are kind of crazy, They sort of play jazz.) Along with Appraisal

theory, Attitude is employed to analyze and evaluate the verbal in texts which

is discussed in the next section

2.2.3 Attitude

Attitude is one of the three sub-systems of Appraisal framework Martinand White (2005) stated that Attitude is concerned with our feelings, includingemotional reactions, judgements of behaviour and evaluation of things

Attitude is itself divided into three regions of feelings, ‘Affect’, ‘Judgment’, and ‘Appreciation’ Figure 2.2 summarizes the sub-types of Attitude.

Dis/inclination Dis/satisfaction

Attitude

Un/happiness Normality

Capacity

Veracity

Properiety Reaction

Composition

Appreciation

Valuation

Figure 2.2 Categories in the sub-system of Attitude

(Martin & White, 2005)

Through verbs of emotion: like, dislike, love, hate, frighten, interest, bore, reassure, please (e.g She likes him., He pleases her.)

Through adjectives: happy, sad, confident, worried, angry, pleased, excited, satisfied (e.g I am confident that you will get the job.)

Through adverbs: happily, sadly, angrily, disappointedly… (e.g Happily, the damage was only slight.)

Through nominalization: un/happiness, sadness, confidence, insecurity (e.g Her eyes shone with happiness.)

White (1998) states that Affect is concerned with registering positiveand negative feelings: do we feel happy or sad, confident or anxious,

interested or bored? For example, The captain was happy: positive Affect; The captain was sad: negative Affect.

Affect consists of two types: Authorial Affect and Observed Affect(Non- Authorial Affect).White (2001) states that Authorial Affects areemotional assessments which are entirely in the individual subjectivity of thespeaker/writer Non-authorial Affects are not the author’s emotions; they are

those of other human individuals or groups For example: No doubt the man want to sleep with her but they also respect, like, and trust her.

According to Martin and White (2005:49-50), Affect is divided into

four sub-categories: un/ happiness, in/ security, dis/ satisfaction, dis/ inclination.

Un/ happiness refers to “the mood of feeling happy or sad”

There are some words used to describe this feeling such as hug, love, cry, hate, rubbish, abhor, cheerful, adore.

In/ security deals with “feelings of peace and anxiety in relation

to our environs, including of course the people sharing them with

us” It can be described through words like twitching, cry out, uneasy, startled, declare, confident, commit, trusting.

Dis/ satisfaction covers “feelings of achievement andfrustration in relation to the activities in which we are engaged,including our roles as both participants and spectators” This can

be expressed through words like fidget, stale, scold, angry, fed

up with, busy, involved, compliment, satisfied.

Dis/ inclination includes fear and desire Some words are used

to illustrate this sub-type such as miss, long for, yearn for, wary, fearful, terrorised.

Table 2.2 (next page) illustrates the positive and negative Affect of allfour sub-types (Martin & White, 2005: 51)

2.2.3.2 Judgement

Judgement deals with attitudes towards behavior, which we admire orcriticize, praise or condemn (Martin and White, 2005:42) Under judgment, weare concerned with the system of legality/illegality, morality/immorality,politeness/impoliteness, competence, or psychological disposition (White, 2001)

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Table 2.2 Sub- categories of Affect

(Martin & White, 2005: 51)

and "propriety" (how ethical someone is) Table 2.3 and table 2.4 below illustrate the Judgement domain in detail.

Table 2.3 Judgement-social esteem

(Martin & White, 2005:53)

Thus Judgment can be categorized into explicit and implicit Judgment.Under explicit category, the evaluation is explicitly presented by means of alexical item carrying the Judgment value like skillfully, corruptly, lazily Withimplicit Judgment values are triggered by what can be viewed as simply

‘facts’, apparently unevaluated descriptions of some events or state of affairs;

however, these values have the capacity in the culture to evoke judgmental responses For example,

(a) ‘The children were rudely talking’(Explicit Judgment)

(b) ‘The children talked while he was presenting the

lesson’(Implicit

Judgment) (White, 2001)

It is remarkable that in (a), through using the adverb rudely, the writerexplicitly expresses a negative assessment of the children who were talking.Thus, the example (a) is regarded as explicit Judgment In contrast, there is noexplicit value of the writer's Judgment in the example (b), readers have anegative assessment on the student who talked while the teacher was presentthe lesson Nevertheless, the whole sentence may induce the children wereimpolite and rude by the writer So, the example (b) is regarded as implicitJudgment

2.2.3.3 Appreciation

Appreciation deals with resources for construing the value of things.Moreover, While (2001) states that Appreciation is concerned not with humanbehavior but with positive and negative evaluations of artefacts, states ofaffairs and entities (including human when viewed as entities rather thanvolitional actors) For instance,

‘To tell you the truth, Maturin, on a perfect vernal day like this, I find nothing so pleasant as sitting on a comfortable chair in the sun, with green,

green grass stretching away, the sound of bat and ball, and the sight of cricketers Particularly such cricketers as these: did you see how Maitland

glanced that ball away to leg? A very pretty stroke Do not you find watching

good cricket restful, absorbing, a balm to the anxious, harassed mind?' ' I do

not It seems to me, saving your presence, unspeakably tedious.' ' Perhaps

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some of the finer shades may escape you Well played, sir! Oh very well played indeed That was as pretty a late cut as I have ever seen - how they run, ah ha '

(Martin & White, 2005: 44)

As can be seen in the example above, the words perfect, pleasant, comfortable, pretty, good, restful, absorbing, balm, unspeakably tedious are

regarded as values of Appreciation

Appreciation can be divided into three sub-categories: 'reactions' tothings (Do they catch our attention; Do they please us?), their 'composition'(balance and complexity), and their 'value' (how innovative, authentic, timely,etc.) (Martin and White 2005: 56)

Table 2.5 (next page) demonstrates all three types of Appreciation interms of positive and negative evaluations

Among three types of Appraisal including Engagement, Attitude andGraduation, the study employed Attitude as a major framework for theanalysis of the verbal in the fables

2.2.4 Summary

In short, Appraisal theory deals with language of evaluation ofemotional responses, human behaviors and entities The sub-types ofAppraisal consist of three semantic domains of Attitude, Graduation andEngagement However, this thesis focuses on only one subsystem ofAppraisal- Attitude In order to have a total overview for visual resources inEnglish and Vietnamese fables, Grammar of Visual Design was used toanalyze how the images in English and Vietnamese fables carry includingInteractional meanings This theoretical framework is discussed in the nextsection

Table 2.5 Types of Appreciation

(Martin & White, 2005: 56)

2.3 Grammar of Visual Design

As for visual meanings, this study based on the theory of Grammar ofvisual design by Kress and Leeuwen (2006) The Kress and Leeuwen'sframework is originated in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) of Hallidayand Hasan (1985) The framework adopted the metafunctions from SFL,which is obviously introduced in "Reading Images: Grammar of VisualDesign" The framework is used as a tool for visual analysis to examine howvisual elements combine to make a meaningful whole (Kress and vanLeeuwen, 2006)

Kress and van Leeuwen (2006:19) state that “language and visualcommunication can both be used to realize the 'same' fundamental systems ofmeaning that constitute our cultures, but that each does so by means of itsown specific forms, does so differently, and independently” In other words,the combination of language and images is used to make meaning as well as

to articulate the grammar of visual communication but they are independent.This is to serve as the basis for a study into how visual and verbal messageswork together or in opposition and the different communicative function eachtype satisfies in the multimodal text

Based on the kinds of meanings in SFL, Kress and van Leeuwen (2006)indicate that the theoretical notion of metafunctions includes Ideational (orRepresentation), Interpersonal (or Interactive), and Compositional (orTextual) These metafunctions are presented in the following parts but onlyInterpersonal meaning is mentioned in more detail as it is the focus of thestudy

2.3.1 The Representational Meaning

Based on SFL system of transitivity, Representational meaning iscreated by processes and participants In other words, it refers to not only the

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represented participants (people, places and things) depicted in the images butalso how these participants relate to one another in meaningful ways InVisual Grammar, there are two internal relations of the visual images -Narrative process and Conceptual process Figure 2.3 presents the main types

of visual representational meaning (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006:59)

Figure 2.3 Main types of visual representational structure

(Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006:59)

2.3.1.1 Narrative process

According to Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), a vector is the mostsignificant indication to discriminate between two processes Vectors, as lines

of energy and direction such as eye-lines, bodies, limbs, or gestures indicating

a line force in a particular direction, is used to link participants to one another

or to the processes Basing on the basis of different vectors, the number andkinds of participants involved in the interaction, various narrative processesare identified such as Action processes, Reactional processes, Speech processand Mental process, Conversion processes Geometrical symbolismandCircumstances (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006: 63-72)

Action processes

In this process, there are two kinds of participants: the Actor and theGoal According to Kress and van Leeuwen (2006:63), "the Actor is theparticipant from which the vector emanates, or which itself, in whole or on

part, form the vector" They are often the most remarkable participants,through size, place in the composition, contrast against background, coloursaturation or conspicuousness, sharpness of focus, and the 'psychologicalsalience' While "the Goal is the participant at whom or which the vector isdirected, hence it is also the participant to whom or which the action isdone, or at whom or which the action is aimed." (Kress and van Leeuwen,2006:64)

Action processes can be either transactional or non-transactional.Transactional processes have two participants, an Actor and a Goal Sometransactional processes are bidirectional In this case, a vector connects twointeractors in a way that each participant is both an Actor and a Goalsimultaneously Non-transactional processes, however, have only oneparticipant that is usually an Actor

Reactional processes

According to Kress and van Leeuwen (2006: 67), "when the vector isformed by an eyeline, by the direction of the glance of one or more of therepresented participants, the process is reactional" In reactional processes,instead of Actors, the word Reactor is used, and instead of Goal, the termPhenomenon is used The Reactors is the participant who does the looking,must certainly be human or sometimes a human - like animal or a creaturewho has visible eyes and facial expression Whereas, the Phenomenon can

be another participant at whom the Reactor is looking or can also be awhole visual proposition Like actions, reactions can be either divided intotwo types - transactional or non-transactional ones basing on whether thereare the Phenomena or not (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006)

Speech process and Mental process

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In Speech and Mental processes, according to Kress and van Leeuwen(2006), there is a special kind of vector which can be perceived in comicstrips and is formed by speech or thought balloons In terms of Speech, theprocess presents dialogue balloons that connect drawings of these speakers

to their speech, called Speaker, but in the case of thought balloon, calledSensor

Conversion processes

Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) introduce that conversion creates a chain

of transactional process This style is the third kind of participant torepresent an image- text relation, "a participant which is the Goal withrespect to one participant and the Actor with respect to another." (Kress andvan Leeuwen , 2006:68)

Geometrical Symbolism

In this process, there is only a vector without including participants,which is an arrowhead and indicates directionality by means of an 'infinity'sign Figure 2.4 below shows the Geometrical Symbolism process (Kressand van Leeuwen, 2006:70)

Figure 2.4 Geometrical Symbolism process

(Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006:70)

Circumstances

Narrative images may contain secondary participants that are not related

to the main participants by means of vector but in other ways called

circumstances Circumstances of means are the tools with which theparticipants perform the actions Locative circumstances relate theparticipants to a specific setting Circumstance of accompaniment is theparticipant that has no vectorial relations with other participants.

2.3.1.2 Conceptual process

Compared with Narrative, Conceptual process represents "participants

in terms of their more generalized and more or less stable, and timelessessence, in terms of class, or structure or meaning." (Kress and van Leeuwen,2006: 79) It can be classified into three kinds of sub-processes:Classificational process, Analytical process, and Symbolic process

Classificational process

Classificational processes refer to the participants which are related to

each other in terms of a taxonomy, where there is "at least one set of

participants will play the role of Subordinates with respect to at least oneother participant, the Superordinate" (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006:79).The viewer could figure out Superordinate from the similar featuresvisually existing between subordinates, called Covert taxonomy In otherwords, this process presents the equal distance between participants andeach other when the participants are in the same size or the sameorientation

Analytical process

In Analytical process, participants are related in terms of a part- wholestructure There are two kinds of participants: Carrier and PossessiveAttributes Carrier is drawn as the whole while Possessive Attributes isshown as the parts (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006)

Symbolic process

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According to Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), Symbolic processes dealwith what a represented participant means or is In other words, symbolicprocesses refer to the meaning or identity of a participant When the Carrierthrough the participant that represents the meaning or identity itself, thistype is called Symbolic Attribute

2.3.2 The Interactive Meaning

As presented in the previous section, Representational meaning refers

to how semiotic systems exhibit participants in images and relations betweenthem Whereas, Interactive meaning focuses on the relationship between types

of participants In other words, Interactive meaning involves the interactionbetween the producer and the viewer of the image Kress and Van Leeuwen(2006) state that images involve two kinds of participants- the Representedparticipants and the Interactive participants The Represented participantsrefers to “the people, the places and things depicted in images", while theInteractive participants concern with "the people who communicate with eachother through images, the producers and viewers of images" (Kress and vanLeeuwen, 2006:114) The interactions are structured by three factors: Contact,Social Distance and Attitude Figure 2.5 (next page) summarizes the mainkinds of Interactive Meaning (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006: 149)

2.3.2.1 Contact

The gaze is the social interaction between the depicted people and theviewers According to Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), Visuals commonlyperform two image acts, Demand and Offer When images describe the acts of

"offer", they primarily offer information and when they describe the acts of

"demand", they demand the "goods and services" realizing a particular socialrelation In other words, the images show participants looking directly at theviewer, the images is shown as a "demand" In contrast, participants do notlook at the viewer, then the interaction between the participants and the

viewer does not occur, the images is describe as an "offer" Theaccomplishment of a visual Demand is that the participants make "eyecontact" with the viewers, then the represented participants "demand"something from the viewer Conversely, in some pictures, the participants donot make "eye contact", then they become the object of viewer's gaze.

Figure 2.5 Interactive Meaning in images

(Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006:149)The image in Figure 2.6 describes a contact of Offer in which therepresented participant does not look directly at the viewer The fisherman islooking at the fish which he is holding in his hand

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Figure 2.6 Contact of Offer

([EF 4] The fisherman and the little fish)

2.3.2.2 Social Distance

The Social Distance, between the depicted people and the viewers, isrelated to the size of frame It demonstrates intimacy by close up to long orshot gaze revealing increase or reduce level of intimacy including three basicchoices: close shot, medium shot and long shot The close shot shows headand shoulders of the subject, and the very close shot any less than that Themedium shot shows the whole body of the subject, approximately at theknees In the long shot, the human figure occupies about half the height of theframe (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006: 124)

The image shown in Figure 2.7 is a long shot which shows the wholefigure of the woodcutter with space around him We can see that thewoodcutter figure occupies about half the height of the frame

Figure 2.7 Picture taken from long shot

([VF 4] Thần Mercury và Bác Tiều Phu)

2.3.2.3 Attitude

In this section, there are two kinds of images: subjective images andobjective images, images with perspective which is related to relation betweenrepresented participants and the viewer through the section of an angle, a

"point of view" and images without perspective "In subjective images theviewer can see what there is to see only from a particular point of view Inobjective images, the image reveals everything there is to know about therepresented participants".(Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006:130) There are twotypes of angles used in pictures: Horizontal angle and Vertical angle

Horizontal Angle

Horizontal angle is the relation between the viewer and the representedparticipants Horizontal angles can be divided into Frontal angle and Obliqueangle The difference of the Frontal and the Oblique angle is shown asinvolvement and detachment separately In detail, the Frontal angle says

"What you see here is the part of our world, something we are involved with".The Oblique angle says "What you see here is not part of our world; it is their

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world, something we are not involved with" (Kress and van Leeuwen,2006:136) In other words, the Frontal angle shows involvement of the imageproducer and the viewer with the represented participants, while the Obliqueangle shows relationship of detachment Figure 2.8 shows an Oblique angle.What the viewer sees here is not part of the world of the representedparticipant

Figure 2.8 Oblique angle

([EF 3] The Rabbit and the Turtle)

Vertical Angle

Vertical angle refers to power between the viewers revealing high tolow gaze If a represented participant is seen from a high angle, the interactiveparticipant (the producer of the image or the viewer) has power over therepresented participant, then the represented participant is seen from the point

of view of power If the represented participant is seen from a low angle, thenthe relation between the interactive and represented participants is shown Ifthe photo is at eye level, then the powers of the represented and interactiveparticipants are equal (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006)

Figure 2.9 has the Vertical angle Here the viewer observes theparticipant from a high angle, which makes the participant (the raven) look

small, with the propensity toward reducing the individual This type of angleplaces the viewer in a position of more symbolic power than the raven in thefield.

Figure 2.9 High angle

([VF 12] Con quạ thông minh)

As presented in the previous chapters, Interactive meaning is a focalpoint of the study which deals with the social relations between representedparticipants and the viewer including Contact, Social Distance and Attitude

2.3.3 The Compositional Meaning

Textual is a combination of the two previous metafunctions: it bringswhat is represented (ideational) together with interactive components(interpersonal) In other words, it looks at the way in which the first twometafunctions merge together to form a meaningful whole through threeinterrelated systems: information value, salience, and framing (Kress & VanLeeuwen, 2006:177)

 Information value: “The placement of elements (participants andsyntagms that relate them to each other and to the viewer) endows them

 Framing: “The presence or absence of framing devices (realized byelements which create dividing lines, or by actual frame lines) disconnects

or connects elements of the image, signifying that they belong or do notbelong together in some sense”

In conclusion, Appraisal theory is an extension of the linguistic theories

of Systemic Functional Linguistics to investigate in details the way language

is used to evaluate, to adopt stances, to construct textual personas and tomanage interpersonal positionings and relationships (White, 2001) It isdivided into three sub-systems, namely Attitude, Engagement and Graduation.Nevertheless, the study only focuses on the Attitude which is used to as a tool

to investigate evaluative language in EFs and VFs With respect to VisualGrammar, it includes sub-system of Representational meaning, Interactivemeaning and Compositional meaning As previously mentioned,Representational meaning is concerned with not only the representedparticipants depicted in the images but also how these participants relate toone another in meaningful ways Besides, Interactive meaning involves theinteraction between the producer and the viewer of the image WhileCompositional meaning is a combination of the two previous metafunctions:

it brings what is represented (ideational) together with interactive components(interpersonal) However, only Interactive meaning is examined in this study