14 TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I Introduction 1 1 Rationale 1 2 Aims of the study 2 3 Scopes of the study 2 4 Methods of the study 2 5 Organization of the study 3 PART II LITERATURE REVIEW 13 2 1 An overview of traditional grammar 13 2 2 An overview of systemic functional grammar 14 PART III The STUDY 24 3 1 Sentence in functional grammar 24 3 2 Clause in systemic functional grammar 24 PART IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 52 4 1 In terms of the structures 52 4 2 In terms of the classifications 53 4 3 In t.
1 TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I – INTRODUCTION Rationale: The world grammar means different things to different people To the ordinary citizens, it connotes the correctness or incorrectness of the language that she or he speaks To a school students, it means an analytical terminological study of sentences Knowledge of grammar helps the students in the correction of mistakes and improvement of written work A person can’t learn a foreign language accurately only through a process of unconscious assimilation Grammar is a sure ground of reference when linguistic habits fail us So grammar is indispensable for the students The researches of grammar in different approaches of the development have led to many types of grammar: traditional, systemic functional, cognitive grammar and so on Of the grammatical approaches, traditional grammar (TG) considers sentence as the highest ranking unit in the grammatical system of a language, and the study of grammar is primarily concentrated around the study of sentence Because of its earlier foundation, traditional grammar has largely influenced on linguistics in general and on language teaching in particular in several parts of the world, including Vietnam For a long time, sentence has been the main content of grammar teaching at schools As a result, the concept of sentence has become very familiar to many people Until recently, there has witnessed the flourish of systemic functional grammar (SFG) during the late 20th century and its great influence on language research and teaching Among the units recognized for study in functional grammar, clause represents as a crucial one Clause description has been found not only in English but also in Vietnamese although the studies on Vietnamese clause are found in a small number Since functional grammar is still new in Vietnam, the term clause has often been confused and misunderstood, even some linguists argue that the term sentence should be used instead of the clause Therefore, the questions to ask would be “What does the clause really mean?”, “Is it completely the same as the sentence in traditional grammar?” The thesis aims at exploring the notion of sentence in traditional grammar and clause in functional grammar, at the same time making comparison between them to see in what ways they are similar and different Aims of the Study: The aims of the study are: - To point out how the sentence is conceptualized and described in traditional grammar - To point out how the clause is conceptualized and described in functional grammar - To compare and comment on the similarities and differences between the two approaches in conceptual and descriptive terms 3 Scopes of the study This study focuses on a comparison between the sentence in TG and the clause in SFG Methods of the study To fulfill the aims of the study, the main methods used for study are generalized, descriptive and comparative The generalization will be used to provide an overlook on TG and SFG The descriptive and comparative are primarily concerned with the description and the comparison of the sentence and the clause in two approaches Organization of the Study: the study is divided into five main parts as follows: Part I- Introduction Part II- Literature review Part III- The study Part IV- Findings and discussion Part V- Conclusion References PART II – LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 An overview of traditional grammar: The study of grammar was initiated by the ancient Greeks, who engaged in philosophical speculation about languages and described language structure This grammatical tradition was passed on to the Romans, who adopted the terminology and categories in Greek grammar to describe Latin This type of grammar was then received and continued in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance by the European society, and lasted until the rise of modern linguistics in the twentieth century This study of grammar is known as traditional grammar By traditional, grammar is usually used to refer to the grammar written by classical Greek scholars, the Roman grammars largely derived from the Greek tradition, the speculative work of the medieval and the prescriptive approach in the 18 th century The label is also applied to the grammars largely presented in school textbooks for both native and foreign language teaching that take the terminology from this tradition Because of its pedagogical implication, traditional grammar is also labeled as “school grammar” or “pedagogical grammar” In addition, after that European scholars generally knew, in addition to their own languages and Latin, the languages of their nearest neighbors This access to several languages sets scholars to discovering that languages can be compared with one another This discovery was the origin of later comparative philosophy In the 18th century, the scholars developed systemic analyses to compare Sanskrit with German, Greek, Latin, etc This writing of grammar is known as Indo-European grammar – a method of comparing and relating the forms of speech in numerous languages (in terms of TG) 2.2 An overview of systemic functional grammar: In the history of grammatical study, there have always existed two opposite variables in the way grammars are written: functional and formal Although there are many cross-currents with insights borrowed from one to the other, they are ideologically fairly different Functional grammar is the name given to any of a range of functionally– based approaches to the scientific study of language such as the grammar model of the Prague school, The Copenhagen school, or the grammar model developed by Simon Dik A modern approach to combining accurate descriptions of the grammatical patterns of language with their function in context is that of systemic functional grammar, an approach originally developed by Michael A.K Halliday in the 1960s and now pursued in all continents Systemic functional grammar is related to the older functional traditions of European schools of linguistics as British Contextualism and the Prague schools Functional grammar considers language a communicative tool and grammar is analyzed to discover how it is organized to allow speakers and writers to make and exchange meanings Functional grammar focuses on the appropriate form for a particular communicative purpose in a particular context Therefore, it is necessary to have a research in terms of a comparison of sentence in TG and a clause in SFG PART III- THE STUDY 3.1 Sentence in traditional grammar In traditional grammar, sentence can be defined in various ways, the sentence is taken as a crucial grammatical unit Study of syntax, which means study of sentence, is primarily concerned with definition of sentence, classification of sentence types and identification of sentence elements In the twentieth century, language teaching continues to be formed on the word as the minimal unit and the sentence as the maximal A typical work on grammar is traditionally divided into two parts, the first of which deals with parts of speech and the rest is often devoted to describing the sentence In addition, sentence is the highest ranking unit of grammar “A sentence is a group of words, usually containing a verb (finite or non-finite) , that expresses a thought in the form of a statement, question, instruction, or exclamation and starts with a capital letter when written.”-(Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press.) Apart from the concepts related to parts of speech, traditional grammar developed a great deal of grammatical terminologies, including the terminology that refers to grammatical units (words, phrases, clauses, sentences), the terminology that refers to clause elements (subject, predicate, object, direct object, indirect object, complement, adverbial, transitivity, intransitivity, intensive, etc.), and the one that refers to categories such as gender, number, person, tense, mood, case, inflection, aspect, voice, relative, subordinate, dependent, independent and so on These sets of terminology are familiar in current linguistic theories In short, traditional grammar is a label applied loosely to the range of attitudes and methods found in the period of grammatical study before the advent of linguistic science The term “traditional grammar” is generally pejoratively used by modern linguists, identifying an unscientific approach to grammatical study in which languages were analyzed in terms of Latin, with insufficient regard for empirical facts In current background, despite the fact that modern linguists reject it, traditional grammar is still the backbone of the grammar instruction given to the general population In terms of traditional grammar, sentence appears to be a very significant unit to study 3.2 Sentence in systemic functional grammar Halliday, in Introduction to Functional Grammar, explains that his grammar is functional because the conceptual framework on which it is based is a functional one rather than a formal one For Halliday, a language is “a system of meaning” because when people use language, their language acts are the expressions of meaning From this point of view, the grammar becomes a study of how meanings are built up through the wording The basic principle in Halliday’s functional grammar is that it approaches the language from a semantic point of view; more precisely, it examines the semantic functions of the language forms The basic functions (metafunctions, such as ideational, interpersonal and textual function) around which Halliday’s theory is built, exist in all languages since these reflect the fundamental role of the human language in general When we communicate and use a language as a means of communication, we rely on both our experience of reality and the world as well as on the experience of previous generations throughout history The other important objective of using the language is that we want to say something to someone, to another person, and we can this if we continuously refer our message to the context in which the participants of the particular discourse are involved Although different languages can realize these functions in different ways, there are universal features of all languages From this view, language is a resource for making meaning; so, ‘grammar is a resource for creating meaning in the form of wording’ (Halliday & Matthiessen, forth coming) Functional grammar considers language a communicative tool and grammar is analyzed to discover how it is organized to allow speakers and writers to make and exchange meanings Functional grammar focuses on the appropriate form for a particular communicative purpose in a particular context Despite of its important status, in traditional grammar, clause is taken as part of the complex or compound sentence, or it is “subsumed under the notion of simple sentence” In systemic functional grammar, clause is considered the fundamental unit of grammatical organization because it is at the rank of the clause that we can begin to talk about how things exist, how things happen and how people feel in the world around us It is also at the rank of the clause that we usually use language to interact with others Another reason to give clause the important status in systemic functional grammar is that it can be approached from different angles: strata, rank, and metafunction In other words, it can be recognized and defined “from above” (semantic dimension), “from around” (lexcio grammatical dimension) and “from below” (morphological and phonological dimension) For more details, see Halliday and Matthiessen (forthcoming) PART IV- FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 In terms of the structures: 4.1.1 In traditional grammar: It is difficult to give a precise and satisfactory definition of sentence, some linguists, instead of giving a definition of sentence, cautiously summarize sentence’s features as follows: - The sentence is the largest unit of grammatical organization - The sentence is a minimal unit of communication - The sentence is constructed by means or certain grammatical rules - The sentence expresses a relatively complete thought and the speaker’s attitude, evaluation, and feelings - The sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop From this summary, we can see that the sentence can be regarded from different aspects of language: communication, structure, semantic and orthography Traditionally, the structure of a simple sentence includes two principal parts: subject and predicate However, providing an adequate definition of the notion of a subject is difficult, and depends on a range of grammatical properties that may vary from language to language For this reason, many current grammatical theories avoid using the term, except for purely descriptive purposes, or define it in terms of occupying a particular position in the clause However, many traditional grammarians try to make definition of subject, and the most common definition is that the subject is what (whom) the sentence is about, while the predicate tells something about the subject The division of the sentence into two parts is the primary way to define the sentence Subject and predicate are the first set of components accepted by grammarians as the criterion to define and analyze the sentence However, the analysis of the sentence does not stop at these two basic components but goes further to more delicate elements According to Quirk et al (1972), the division of subject and predicate states the general rules about the construction of sentences; it is the elementary construction At a more delicate level, a sentence may alternatively be seen as comprising five units called element of clause structure: subject, verb, complement, object and adverbial, abbreviated as S, V, C, O, A They S make V him O the chairman every year C A + Subject: A subject (i) is a noun phrase or a clause with nominal function (ii) occurs before the verb phrase in declarative clauses and immediately after operator in question (iii) has the number and person concord, where applicable with the verb phrase + Object (direct or indirect): An object (i) like a subject, is a noun phrase or clause with nominal function (ii) normally follows the subject and the verb phrase (iii) by the passive transformation, assumes the status of subject + Complement: (subject or object) A complement (i) is a noun phrase, an adjective phrase, or a clause with nominal function (ii) follows the subject, verb phrase and (if one is present) object (iii) does not become subject through the passive transformation + Adverbial: An adverbial (i) is an adverb, adverb phrase, adverbial clause, noun phrase, or prepositional phrase (ii) is generally mobile, i.e is capable of occurring in more than one position in the clause (iii) is generally optional, i.e may be added or removed from a sentence without affecting its acceptability (Quirk et al., 1985: 348-349) 4.1.2 In systemic functional grammar: According to Halliday (1994), the fundamental types of speech role, which lie behind all the more specific types that we may eventually be able to recognize, are just two: giving and demanding The speaker either gives something to the listener or demands something from him (a piece of information, for example) An act of speaking, therefore, is something that might be more appropriately be called an “interact” – an exchange of giving and demanding Language is used to exchange either the commodity of information or the commodity of goods-and-services Giving and demanding information is concerned with verbal exchange in which the speaker’s purpose is primarily carried out through language The speaker either makes a statement to give information (I got up early this morning) or asks a question to demand it (What is your job?); i.e what is given or demanded is information; language is the end as well as the means, and what is expected from the listener is the verbal answer On the other hand, giving and demanding goodsand-services can conclude material object or actions that are given or demanded exchange in addition to verbal responses Therefore, a positive in response to goods-andservices exchange may be expected non-verbal (Kiss me! Look up the word in the dictionary!; Close the window !) The two variables of speech role (giving and demanding), and the variables of commodity (information and goods and services), when taken together, define the four basic speech functions: giving information, demanding information, giving goods-andservices and demanding goods-and-services The usual labels for these functions are: statement, question, offer, and command Table below shows these options, with examples illustrated (i) giving (a) information Statement declarative (b) goods-&- services Offer various I like fish + I’ll give you a hand + Would you like this (ii) demanding Question book? Command interrogative + Give me a hand +Wh- Where’s Bob? + Bring me a cup of coffee imperative +Yes/No – Are you happy? These basic models are closely associated with particular grammatical structures: statements are most naturally expressed by declarative clauses, questions by interrogative clauses, command by imperative clauses, which are the three main choices in the Mood system of the clause The semantic function of a clause in the exchange of information is a proposition and the semantic function of a clause in the exchange of goods-&-services is a proposal These semantic categories are realized by grammatical MOOD options Grammatically, when the clause is regarded as a representation of experience, the Transitivity of the clause can be analyzed as configuration of three components: participants, process and circumstance Similarly, when the clause is regarded as an exchange, the general interpersonal organization is made up of two major components: Mood and Residue She has Mood given birth to twins Residue 4.2 In terms of the classifications: 4.2.1 In traditional grammar: From the point of view of structure, sentences are classified into simple sentence, compound sentence and complex sentence: 10 + A simple sentence consists of a single independent clause with no dependent clause + A compound sentence consists of a multiple independent clauses These clauses are joined together using conjunctions or punctuation + A complex sentence consists of one dependent clause with at least one independent clause Sentences are also classified into major sentence and minor sentence: +A major sentence is a regular type of sentence; it has a subject and a predicate We are going to leave here +A minor sentence is an irregular type of sentence It does not follow the grammatical rules (Hello!; How you do?) Sentences can also be classified into complete sentence and elliptical sentence, which are distinguished by the presence or absence of certain elements in the sentence In elliptical sentence, some part is ellipsed but can be restored from the context Are you free this morning? (complete sentence) Free this morning? (elliptical sentence) This way of classification bases on the structural relations between the elements of the simple sentence A simple sentence is the most basic type from which all other types of sentences are built up It is the largest unit to which the rules of grammar apply Delahunty and Garvey (1994) define the simple sentence as “a grammatically unified structure that contains a subject and a predicate” In much similar way, Vietnamese linguist D Q Ban (1996) defines simple sentence as one consisting of only one cluster of a subject and predicate and this cluster simultaneously plays such a role as the ‘core’ of sentence Traditionally, there are seven simple sentence patterns in English The patterns differ on the basis of what type of complement structure they have within the predicate + Pattern one: no verb complement (SVA) My father S is Vintens in New York Aplace + Pattern two: direct object verb complement (SVO) 10 11 Peter kicked S the ball Vmonotrans Od + Pattern three: indirect and direct object verb complement (SVOO) Mary’s husband gave S her Vcomplex trans a diamond ring Oi Od + Pattern four: predicate verb complement (SVC) Mary is S a doctor Vintens Cs + Pattern five: (SVOA) Mary took S the children Vcomplex trans to the zoo Od Aplace + Pattern six: (SVOA) They elected him S Vcomplex trans the leader Od Co + Pattern seven: (SV) The child S laughed Vintrans 4.2.2 In systemic functional grammar: Functionally, clause can be classified into these types: Clause as Message: clause as message is a clause which has meaning as a message, a quantum of information, in the clause as a message, there are theme and rheme Clause as an exchange clause as exchange is a clause which has meaning as an exchange, a transaction between speaker and listener In clause as exchange, there are mood and residu Clause as Representation clause as a representation is a clause which has meaning as a representation, the actor is the active participant in that process - A process unfolding through time - The participants involved in the process - Circumstances associated with the process They are aslso analyzed from three dimensions: Transitivity, Mood and Theme 4.3 In terms of the functions: 11 12 Another difference between the clause and the sentence is the multifunctionality in the clause.We mentioned three metafunctions and we also emphasized that they are simultaneous in the clause Because the clause is studied in the context, there is metafunctional resonance between three strata of the language: lexicogrammar (where the clause is located), semantics and context The clause is related to the whole language system, with the components strata above it Therefore, we have the tripartite relation: Transitivity – Experiential Metafunction – Field; Mood – Interpersonal Metafunction – Tenor; Theme – Textual Metafunction – Mode There always exist three “fibres of meaning” running through the clause The criteria of semantics and lexicogrammar for identification of the clause are strictly related In TG, on the other hand, ‘there seems to be no relation between grammar and semantics’ When sentence is analyzed, there is often only one structure recognized by the syntactically related elements (subject, verb, adverbial, ect.) These differences lead to a conclusion that the clause in SFG is more broadly and more coherently described 4.4 In terms of the meanings: We have discussed the three lines of meaning and three types of structure in the clause We have also mentioned that they are not separated from each other but simultaneous The view from different perspectives helps to illuminate different but equally important aspect of the meaning construction, and, when combined, each perspective throws light on the others Take an example of subject, which is one of the basic concepts to traditional grammar It is difficult to find a definitive account of what the role of subject means Traditionally, the definition of subject is ‘what the sentence is about’ or ‘the topic of the sentence’ Delahunty & Garvey (1994) point out two problems with the traditional definition: (1) it does not hold true in all circumstances and (2) it distracts us from grammar into discourse The traditional definition does not hold true because in many sentences, the subject cannot qualify as the topic For example, it, no one, there, I in the sentences below are obviously not ‘what the sentence is about’ It is nice to talk to you No one understands me There will be more rain tomorrow 12 13 For Elma, I don’t know who’s dating him these days Subject, in Halliday’s grammar, is a part of Mood Halliday divides the clause into two parts: the Mood and the Residue In a clause, there is one part which carries the syntactic burden of the exchange - the Mood element The rest of the clause remains unchanged, and therefore be called the Residue In SFG, the criterion to define the subject is obviously consistent The mood structures are characterized by the presence or absence of a subject element and by the relative positions of the Subject and the Finite Halliday (1994) distinguishes three kinds of Subject: psychological subject, grammatical subject and logical subject, and he labels them as Theme, Subject, and Actor respectively They are related in a systemic way In the clause, an element often carries more than one function In addition, an important principle of analysis is the “exhaustive” principle; i.e there is not “spare floating” element without function in the clause This principle recovers the limitation of the traditional analysis, the case of “there”, for example In SFG, “there” functions as subject, and together with Finite, forms the Mood of the clause Another example aspect which can be taken into comparison is Mood Mood, in TG, is understood with narrow meaning The classification of the sentence into statement, question, and imperative is often based on institutive and subjective criteria In Halliday’s grammar, English Mood, which includes the elements of Subject and Finite, is the component to define Mood of the clause Halliday has often argued forcefully against looking at language only in terms of “constituents” – that is, breaking clauses into groups and then groups into words, and assigning each “bit” an identifiable meaning As a rule, interpersonal meanings are not inherently tied to specific constituents but spread over the whole clause; and they may be reinforced by being expressed at the several points in the clause PART IV- CONCLUSION It can’t be deniend from the study that the superiority of the clause described in SFG and the partiality of the sentence described in TG have been proved through the comparison between them We want to reiterate that although there have been different models of description of language, the systemic functional model is considered to be one of the most comprehensive and satisfactory, since it is able to bring out the functional 13 14 uses of language and can be used to describe any languages in the world However, our purpose is not to deny or criticize the simple sentence in TG In fact, the analysis of sentence based on subject-predicate structure has commonly applied in language learning and teaching Traditional sentence, regarded from educational perspective, may bring many advantages, but in research it reveals certain limitations Clause – a multidimensionally regarded unit, helps to compensate the gaps of traditional grammar, and therefore enhancing more comprehensive and meaningful grammar study The study has not only contributed to enlightening a perspective on a scientific issue but also helped in educational implication FG can help to decide what language to teach: it can provide the basic for educational decisions about what the university student needs to know about successful communication in their field This applies equally to students as of the mother tongue and of a foreign language The overall view of language from the SFG perspective has fuelled the communicative language teaching movement, and, in many cases, insights on specific areas such as cohesion, modality and Theme choice, have in fact been adapted for practical use in the classroom in many Englishspeaking countries, especially in Australia With regard to the situation in Vietnam, where the sentence is still a dominant content of grammar teaching, inclusion of clause in grammar curriculum is likely to bring much improvement in language teaching and learning, in both mother tongue and foreign languages This study has been concerned with the comparison between the simple sentence in TG and the clause simplex in SFG Our comparison of the two units has just been at the most generating extent Because of the limitation of space and time, there still have some problems that need to be more thoroughly reseached Besides, the issues below, beyond and above the clause and sentence have not been discussed We hope there will be study of comparison between sentence and clause in other aspects, especially in Vietnamese so that the picture of sentence and clause will become clearer We also hope Falculty of English of Ha Noi Open university will create more opportunities for students to study more about sentence and clause and put them 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and so on Of the grammatical approaches, traditional grammar (TG) considers sentence as the... the same as the sentence in traditional grammar? ” The thesis aims at exploring the notion of sentence in traditional grammar and clause in functional grammar, at the same time making comparison