Aim of the study and research questions
The aim of this study is to investigate how Jack London uses grammatical cohesive devices to develop his story
In order to achieve the above aim, three research questions are raised for exploration:
- What is grammatical cohesion as conceptualized in systemic functional linguistics?
- How does Jack London use grammatical cohesive devices to develop the story ―All Gold Canyon‖?
- What implications and suggestions should be made for teachers and students of English in teaching and learning writing paragraphs and essays?
Scope of the study
In this study, I do not have an ambition to cover all aspects of functional grammar and all relations providing links in a text Only issues related to grammatical cohesion such as framework, elements and features are taken for study The ground for investigation in this study is the system of cohesion and grammatical cohesion developed by Halliday and Hasan (1976) The illustration of text analysis is the chosen story ―All Gold Canyon‖ by Jack London.
Methods of the study
The study is undertaken with a view to examine how grammatical cohesion is used to develop a text Given the scope of this study, the quantitative and qualitative methods will be employed That is to say, this study will focus on the collection and analysis of the study as data to explain a particular phenomenon Counting and measuring would be common forms for this method These statistical results will be followed by qualitative method which is used to gain an understanding of the underlying reasons and the effectiveness of the application of grammatical cohesive devices in Jack London’s ―All Gold Canyon‖ as well The base for procedures and conventions applied in the study is the theoretical framework of Halliday’s
The study consists of three main parts: introduction, development and conclusion
The introduction presents the rationale of study, the aim and the scope of the study It also presents the methods employed for analysis and the outline of the study structure
The development is subdivided into two chapters Chapter 1 provides the theoretical background of the study in which the main concepts of systemic functional grammar are reviewed to establish the framework for analysis and discussion in Chapter 2
Chapter 2 analyzes the short story ―All Gold Canyon‖ using Halliday and Hasans’
(1976) grammatical cohesion system as the theoretical framework
The conclusion summarizes what has been studied, points out the limitations of the study, presents educational implications, and makes some suggestions for future research
PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 - THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
This chapter is concerned with the examination of some systemic functional concepts which are relevant for the analysis and discussion in Chapter 2 I will start with an overview of systemic functional linguistics Then I will look at the system of cohesion in English, presenting in some detail the sub-types of grammatical cohesion
2 Overview of systemic functional linguistics
For a long time, grammar has been a branch of linguistics which has attracted much attention from many scholars in the world They aim to give satisfactory explanations on the nature of language from their points of view Chomsky’s theory views grammar as a set of rules which allow or disallow certain sentence structures
Ultimately, more so than traditional grammar, formal grammar concentrates on structure, that is the way in which classes of words and phrases are combined
Through this period of teaching both types of grammar some linguists, were thinking to generate one more developed grammar which is functional systemic grammar (Halliday et al, cited in Cope, 1993) Unlike the former ones, SFG is more sociological in orientation, such that it is more concerned with relating grammar to its function within society
From its early birth, functional theories of grammar are those approaches to the study of language that see the functions of language and its elements to be the key to understand linguistic processes and structures Functional theories of language propose that since language is fundamentally a tool, it is reasonable to assume that its structures are best analyzed and understood with reference to the functions they carry out Functional theories of grammar differ from former theories of grammar, in that the latter seeks to define the different elements of language and describe the way they relate to each other as systems of formal rules or operations Meanwhile, the former defines the functions performed by language and then relates these functions to the linguistic elements that carry them out This means that functional theories of grammar tend to pay attention to the way language is actually used in communicative context
To begin with, in order to see how different things in a text ―hang together‖ to make a text, it is important to define the notion of the text and texture
―Language is a means of conveying and obtaining information‖ (Valeika and Buitkiene, 2006: 7) To achieve this, the units of language must perform appropriate functions All languages are formed of words and sentences These sentences must be bound together to make a text A text is the text if there is mutual dependence between sentences Text can be defined as ―any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length that forms a unified whole‖ (Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 1) In order to create a text as a unified whole, it is necessary to know what makes text coherent
―In its deep structure, the text is a sequence of mutually related clauses, which after the application of appropriate textualizing operations, are turned into text sentences‖
(Valeika and Buitkiene, 2006) Furthermore in order to create mutually connected sentences the meaning that is semantic relation of the words is important as words and context are inseparable Therefore, the meaning and logical relation of words and sentences are important when creating a coherent text
A text distinguishes from non-text by its texture Texture ―is the property that ensures that the text ―hangs together‖‖ (Halliday and Hasan, 1976) A text without texture would be a group of unrelated sentences The most important feature of the texture is the cohesive relation called a tie that is a semantic link between two elements Ties ―create links across sentence boundaries and pair and chain together items that are related‖ (McCarthy, 1991: 27) So the basic idea here is that, ties link sentences and therefore creates cohesion That is to mean, cohesion shows if there is the connection between sentences in the text
Cohesion is a crucial standard of textuality Cohesion has been defined in a number of ways, among which Halliday and Hasan (1976) provided the most comprehensive one It is defined as the ―set of semantic configuration that is typically associated with a particular class of context of situation, and defines the substance of the text.‖ According to Halliday and Hasan, the function of cohesion is to relate one part to another part of the same text Consequently, it lends continuity to the text By providing this kind of text continuity, cohesion enables the readers or listeners to supply all the components of the picture to its interpretation Halliday and Hasan (1976) identified five types of cohesion: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion The first four ones present grammatical cohesive devices, whereas the last one stands for lexical relation
In creating a coherent text, cohesion is expressed partly through the grammar and partly through vocabulary According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), the classification of cohesion is based on the linguistic form The type of cohesion depends either on semantic relation in the linguistic system or on lexico-grammatical relations In other words, the cohesive relation can be interpreted as being either lexicogrammatical or semantic It can be made clearer in the following description:
Nature of cohesive relation Type of cohesion
Relatedness of form Relatedness of reference Semantic connection
Substitution and ellipsis; lexical collocation Reference; lexical reiteration
Reference, substitution and ellipsis belong to grammatical; lexical cohesion, as the name implies, lexical Conjunction is on the borderline of the grammatical and the lexical; the set of conjunctive element can probably be interpreted grammatically in terms of systems, and some conjunctive expressions involve lexical selection
However, it is better to put it in the group of grammatical cohesion as it is mainly grammatical with a lexical component inside Thus, we can refer to grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion as follows:
Grammatical cohesion Lexical cohesion Reference
Figure 2: Grammatical and Lexical Cohesion
In Halliday and Hasan’s point of view, lexical cohesion deals with the meaning in text ―This is the cohesive effect achieved by the selection of vocabulary‖ (Halliday and Hasan, 1976) It concerns the way in which lexical items relate to each other and the role played by certain basic semantic relations between words to make textual continuity The two basic categories of lexical cohesion are reiteration and collocation
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1 Introduction
Overview of systemic functional linguistics
For a long time, grammar has been a branch of linguistics which has attracted much attention from many scholars in the world They aim to give satisfactory explanations on the nature of language from their points of view Chomsky’s theory views grammar as a set of rules which allow or disallow certain sentence structures
Ultimately, more so than traditional grammar, formal grammar concentrates on structure, that is the way in which classes of words and phrases are combined
Through this period of teaching both types of grammar some linguists, were thinking to generate one more developed grammar which is functional systemic grammar (Halliday et al, cited in Cope, 1993) Unlike the former ones, SFG is more sociological in orientation, such that it is more concerned with relating grammar to its function within society
From its early birth, functional theories of grammar are those approaches to the study of language that see the functions of language and its elements to be the key to understand linguistic processes and structures Functional theories of language propose that since language is fundamentally a tool, it is reasonable to assume that its structures are best analyzed and understood with reference to the functions they carry out Functional theories of grammar differ from former theories of grammar, in that the latter seeks to define the different elements of language and describe the way they relate to each other as systems of formal rules or operations Meanwhile, the former defines the functions performed by language and then relates these functions to the linguistic elements that carry them out This means that functional theories of grammar tend to pay attention to the way language is actually used in communicative context.
Cohesion
To begin with, in order to see how different things in a text ―hang together‖ to make a text, it is important to define the notion of the text and texture
―Language is a means of conveying and obtaining information‖ (Valeika and Buitkiene, 2006: 7) To achieve this, the units of language must perform appropriate functions All languages are formed of words and sentences These sentences must be bound together to make a text A text is the text if there is mutual dependence between sentences Text can be defined as ―any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length that forms a unified whole‖ (Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 1) In order to create a text as a unified whole, it is necessary to know what makes text coherent
―In its deep structure, the text is a sequence of mutually related clauses, which after the application of appropriate textualizing operations, are turned into text sentences‖
(Valeika and Buitkiene, 2006) Furthermore in order to create mutually connected sentences the meaning that is semantic relation of the words is important as words and context are inseparable Therefore, the meaning and logical relation of words and sentences are important when creating a coherent text
A text distinguishes from non-text by its texture Texture ―is the property that ensures that the text ―hangs together‖‖ (Halliday and Hasan, 1976) A text without texture would be a group of unrelated sentences The most important feature of the texture is the cohesive relation called a tie that is a semantic link between two elements Ties ―create links across sentence boundaries and pair and chain together items that are related‖ (McCarthy, 1991: 27) So the basic idea here is that, ties link sentences and therefore creates cohesion That is to mean, cohesion shows if there is the connection between sentences in the text
Cohesion is a crucial standard of textuality Cohesion has been defined in a number of ways, among which Halliday and Hasan (1976) provided the most comprehensive one It is defined as the ―set of semantic configuration that is typically associated with a particular class of context of situation, and defines the substance of the text.‖ According to Halliday and Hasan, the function of cohesion is to relate one part to another part of the same text Consequently, it lends continuity to the text By providing this kind of text continuity, cohesion enables the readers or listeners to supply all the components of the picture to its interpretation Halliday and Hasan (1976) identified five types of cohesion: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion The first four ones present grammatical cohesive devices, whereas the last one stands for lexical relation
In creating a coherent text, cohesion is expressed partly through the grammar and partly through vocabulary According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), the classification of cohesion is based on the linguistic form The type of cohesion depends either on semantic relation in the linguistic system or on lexico-grammatical relations In other words, the cohesive relation can be interpreted as being either lexicogrammatical or semantic It can be made clearer in the following description:
Nature of cohesive relation Type of cohesion
Relatedness of form Relatedness of reference Semantic connection
Substitution and ellipsis; lexical collocation Reference; lexical reiteration
Reference, substitution and ellipsis belong to grammatical; lexical cohesion, as the name implies, lexical Conjunction is on the borderline of the grammatical and the lexical; the set of conjunctive element can probably be interpreted grammatically in terms of systems, and some conjunctive expressions involve lexical selection
However, it is better to put it in the group of grammatical cohesion as it is mainly grammatical with a lexical component inside Thus, we can refer to grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion as follows:
Grammatical cohesion Lexical cohesion Reference
Figure 2: Grammatical and Lexical Cohesion
In Halliday and Hasan’s point of view, lexical cohesion deals with the meaning in text ―This is the cohesive effect achieved by the selection of vocabulary‖ (Halliday and Hasan, 1976) It concerns the way in which lexical items relate to each other and the role played by certain basic semantic relations between words to make textual continuity The two basic categories of lexical cohesion are reiteration and collocation
Reiteration is ―the repetition of a lexical item, or the occurrence of a synonym of some kind, in the context of reference; that is, where the two occurrences have the same referent‖ (Halliday and Hasan, 1976) To make it clearer, Mc Carthy (1991) also state that ―reiteration means either restating an item in a later part of discourse by direct repetition or else reasserting its meaning by exploiting lexical relation‖
The authors classify reiteration into four sub-types: the same word, a synonym/near- synonym, a superordinate, and a general word For example, ―a boy‖ can be replaced in the following sentences with ―the boy‖ (the same word), ―the lad‖ (a synonym/near-synonym), ―the child‖ (a superordinate), and ―the idiot‖ (a general word) (Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 279)
Collocation refers to the semantic and structural relation among words, which native speakers can use subconsciously for comprehension or production of a text
From the viewpoints of Halliday and Hasan (1976), ―word combination‖ or ―word co-occurrence‖ is known as collocation There are two sub-types of collocation: grammatical collocation and lexical collocation
As mentioned, grammatical cohesion is the specific aspect that the researcher takes into consideration in this study As a result, a closer look into four sub-types of grammatical devices will be taken in hope to give an insightful analysis in the next
What distinguishes this special type is the particular nature of the information that is to be retrieved, and the cohesion lies in the continuity of reference, by which the same thing comes into the discourse for the second time According to Halliday and Hasan (1976: 32), reference is a semantic relation and ―since the relationship is on the semantic level, the reference item is in no way constrain to match the grammatical class of the item it refers to‖ The two authors also identified situational and textual reference very clearly by contrasting exophora (or exophoric reference) and endophora (endoforic reference) as follows:
[to preceding text] [to following text] anaphora cataphora
Reference items can be exophoric or endophoric, and if it is endophoric, it may be anaphoric or cataphoric An exophoric item does not name anything and does not give a significantly greater amount of information It signals that the reference must be made to the context of situation It does not bind two elements into text, it takes us outside the text for interpretation Only endophoric reference is cohesive and it contributes to the integration of the passage with another to form coherent text
Endophoric reference can be divided into two areas: anaphoric and cataphoric
Anaphoric refers to any reference that points ―backwards‖ to previously mentioned information in text Whereas, cataphoric reference points the reader or listener
―forward‖ It draws us further into the text in order to interpret
Eg: John is a big man He loves children anaphoric
Thinking about her work, No is so proud cataphoric
Functionally speaking, there are three main types of cohesive reference They are personal, demonstrative and comparative references Let us look at the examples of each type as follow:
Mikhail Gorbachev didn’t have to change the world He could have chosen to rule personal reference much as his predecessors did
Recognizing that his country had to change, Gorbachev could have become a cautious modernizer in the Chinese fashion, promoting economic reform and sponsoring new technology while holding firm against political change This did not demonstrative reference happen
A: Would you like these seats ? B: No, as a matter of fact, I’d like the other seats comparative reference
Halliday and Hasan (1976) state that substitution takes place when one feature replaces a previous word or expression In Bloor and Bloor (1995: 96), the two linguistics also claim that substitution is used when ―a speaker or writer wishes to avoid the repetition of a lexical item and is able to draw on one of the grammatical resources of the language to replace the item For instance: “I left my pen at home, do you have one?” In this example, ―one” is replaced or substitution for “pen” The three types of classification for substitution: nominal, verbal and clausal reflect its grammatical function In nominal substitution, the most typical substitution words either, neither, some and none can behave in the same way In verbal substitution, the most common substitute is the verb “do” It operates as a head of a verbal group in which it can be occupied by the lexical verb Finally, in clausal substitution, what is presupposed is not an element within the clause but an entire clause The common linguistic items realized are “so” or “not”
The context of the chosen text
The data of this analysis is a short story ―All Gold Canyon‖ by Jack London The author was born as a poor boy in 1876 in San Francisco and died ―rich‖ and famous in 1916, during World War I Throughout his life, London was a prolific American author who is celebrated for his powerful depiction of nature and the human struggle for survival His novels and short stories have influenced many writers after him, and his writings about nature have made him a respected figure of this time
Because of Jack London’s vigorous, muscular style of writing he remains one of the most widely read American authors in the world Between 1900 and 1916 he completed more than 50 fiction and non-fiction books, hundreds of short stories and numerous articles Several of the books and many of the short stories are classics and still popular; some have been translated into as many as 70 languages Among the best known are Call of the Wild, White Fang, The Sea Wolf, Martin Eden and John Barleycorn
The story ―All Gold Canyon‖ was written in 1905 and first published in The New Century magazine In ―All Gold Canyon‖, London not only notices for the first time in his career that greed and desire are in conflict with the ecosystem, but he begins to develop an ethical concern for nature The story is the tale of human greed, gold and death The story begins with a beautiful picture of a place in nature London lyrically describes the beauty and tranquility of the valley in the first seven paragraphs In the valley, animals, plants, and their physical environment are in perfect harmony
However, the tranquility of the place is shattered by the destruction of a resource- oriented pocket-miner named Bill, who despoils and destroys the valley in search of gold Man's greed for gold leads to the destruction of the slope and even human's death At the end of the story, London describes a fight between Bill and another gold-hunter and this fight ends with the death of the strange man
2 Grammatical cohesive devices in the story "All Gold Canyon"
According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), grammatical cohesive devices include reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction These cohesive devices will be analyzed in details basing on the framework built by Halliday and Hasan (1976)
All cohesive items in each type in the story will be collected, classified and then significant characteristics of the story will be drawn out basing on the frequency of use of different types of grammatical cohesion
From the data collected (see Appendix I, II, III, IV), it can be seen that the total of grammatical cohesive devices used in the story "All Gold Canyon" are 2198 ties, in which reference accounts for the largest part with 1627 ties, presenting for 74%
Conjunction comes second with 542 ties or 24% Substitution and ellipsis explain for the smallest percentage with only 1% of each type The distribution of grammatical cohesive devices in this story can be illustrated in the diagram below:
Diagram 1: The percentage of grammatical cohesion in the story
Grammatical cohesive devices in the story ―All Gold Canyon‖
2.1 Reference 2.1.1 Anaphoric, cataphoric and exophoric reference
Basing on the statistics collected from the data, reference is known as the largest part of grammatical cohesion Reference, in other words, is the most important part in creating cohesion in particular or creating text in general The table below shows the percentage of anaphoric, cataphoric and exophoric reference in the story
Table 1: The percentage of anaphoric, cataphoric and exophoric reference
Obviously, anaphoric reference takes up the largest part with 79.8% Anaphoric reference is found in the whole story, but falls on mainly on personal pronouns and determiners such as he, him, his, that and definite article the Surprisingly, exophoric reference ranks second with 170 ties accounting for 10.5% Exophoric reference does not refer readers backward or forward to connect the text It is understood basing on background knowledge of readers or listeners Because in this story, Jack London describes the beauty of a place in nature in seven first paragraphs, exophoric reference tends to be employed in high rate here Standing in the last position is cataphoric reference with 9.7% Interestingly, among 158 items in this group, the definite article the is restored 123 times (see Appendix I)
2.1.2 Realization of different types of reference
Although a text can be analyzed in terms of anaphoric, cataphoric and exophoric reference, this classification is mainly related to grammatical features of a text and it helps to deal with grammatical exercise However, in this study, a narrative is studied in light of literature, the analysis of anaphoric, cataphoric and exophoric reference is inappropriate Instead, reference items in the narrative "All Gold Canyon" should be dealt with in respect of three types classified by Halliday and Hasan (1976) namely personal, demonstrative and comparative Personal reference is expressed through the category of person and it includes personal pronouns and personal determiners Demonstrative reference expresses the relation of location on a scale of proximity while comparative reference is indirect reference expressed through using identity or similarity In this story, Jack London applies the different types of reference unevenly While personal and demonstrative reference occur frequently, comparatives is hardly used Personal reference ranks first with 825 ties, representing for 51%, demonstrative ranks second with 775 ties, accounting for 48% and comparative reference ranks last with only 24 ties or 1% The frequency of use of reference in the story will be presented in the table below:
Table 2: The percentage of different types of reference
The table shows that the writer links the text by personal and demonstrative reference instead of comparative one The high frequency of occurrence of personal and demonstrative reference can illustrate features of narrating instead of comparing or discussing in the story "All Gold Canyon"
According to Halliday and Hasan (1976: 43) the category of personals includes the three classes: personal pronouns, possessive determiners and possessive pronouns
The number of members in each category can function as the structural roles and help identify the relations among people and objects in the texts
Totally, in the story, Jack London uses 825 personal reference ties including the first, the second and third personal pronouns and determiners The first person pronouns and determiners which are illustrated as I, my, me in the story occupy 57 items accounting for 6, 9%; the second person pronouns and determiners presented as you, your, yours take up 41 items presenting for 4.9%; and the third person pronouns and determiners described as he/ his/ him/ himself/ they/ them/ their/ themselves/ it/ its/ itself/ that include 727 ties, making up 88,2% (see Appendix I)
The details of the distribution of personal reference are illustrated as follows:
Pronouns Numbers of examples Percentage (%)
Table 3: The distribution of personal reference in the story
Basing on the way the writer takes advantage of personal reference, relations between or among characters in the story can be guessed It is common that the first person pronouns and determiners are commonly used in speeches, dialogues and inner monologues; hence texts employing these cohesive devices tend to be speaker-orientated, that is, they often focus on expressing speaker's point of view
In this story, the first person pronouns and determiners are restored to express some inner monologues of a man named Bill, the main character Two examples below are two inner monologues of the main character, Bill:
(1) "My!" he said, "but I've got an appetite I could scoff iron-filings an' horseshoe nails an' thank you kindly, ma'am, for a second helpin'."
(2) "Now what d'ye think of that, by damn? I clean forgot my dinner again! If I don't watch out, I'll sure be degeneratin' into a two-meal-a-day crank."
In these two examples, the first person pronouns I and determiner my are not used in dialogues but in inner monologues The main character, Bill talks to himself or talks to surrounding entities as though they were human beings and were his friends In this story, Jack London takes advantage of the first person pronouns to express the thoughts and feelings of the main character
Because the main character talks to himself and talks to other entities surrounding him; the second person pronouns you and determiner yours are employed to refer to these inanimate objects or to the main character himself The inanimate entities which the second person pronouns and determiners refer to in this story are sweet hills, dandelions, holly hocks, the dead man and the Canyon which the main character names Mr Pocket Look at these following examples:
(3) "Jumping dandelions and happy hollyhocks, but that smells good to me!
Talk about your attar o' roses an' cologne factories! They ain't in it!"
(4) "Hey, you, Mr Pocket!" he called down into the Canyon "Stand out from under! I'm a-comin', Mr Pocket! I'm a-comin'!"
In example 3, the author exploits anaphoric reference to connect the texts Personal determiner your can be referred backward to jumping dandelions and happy hollyhocks which are flowers in the canyon In example 4, personal pronoun you can be understood by referring forward to Mr Pocket which is the name the main character gives the canyon The main character talks to inanimate entities surrounding him as if they could understand him By this way, Jack London can express the feelings, the mood and the nature of the main character, Bill
Specially, in many paragraphs, the main character, Bill, talks to himself as a way to express his thoughts and feelings The main character is both speakers and listeners; hence, both the first and the second personal pronouns and determiners refer to the main character, Bill Consider these examples:
(5) "Mebbe they'll bite in the early morning," he muttered, as he made his first cast into the pool And a moment later he was gleefully crying: "What' d I tell you, eh? What' d I tell you?"
(6) "Slow an' certain, Bill;(…)," he crooned "Short-cuts to fortune ain't in your line, an' it's about time you know it Get wise, Bill; get wise
While the first and second person pronouns are defined as roles in the speech situations, the third person pronouns refer solely to the text and this group is considered inherently cohesive (Halliday and Hasan, 1976) In this text, the third person pronouns including he/ his/ him/ himself/ her/ they/ them/ their/ it/ its/ itself/ that account for 727 cases with 88,2% Among 727 cases of this, 492 cases (67,7%) refer to a man who is a pocket-miner named Bill The high frequency use of the third person pronouns referring to this man proves that he is the main character or the focus of the story At the end of the story, the third person pronouns also refer to another man, a man with a revolver; however, the use of these pronouns is not frequent In several paragraphs, this man is referred to 61 times, taking up only 12.4% However, the second person pronouns do not refer to the man with a revolver in the whole text This phenomenon shows that there are no dialogues or conversations between two men in this story Examining two examples:
(7) The man brought up the rear He threw off pack and saddle, (…) He unpacked his food and got out frying-pan and coffee-pot He gathered an armful of dry wood, and with a few stones made a place for his fire
(8) Above, revolver in hand, a man was peering down over the edge of the hole He peered for a long time at the prone and motionless body beneath him After a while the stranger sat down on the edge of the hole so that he could see into it, and rested the revolver on his knee
Suggestions for English learners in writing skill
As analyzed above, grammatical cohesion has an exceedingly essential role in creating a text; as a consequence, it is advisable for English learners to acquire basic knowledge of cohesion and apply it in writing skill After the short story "All Gold Canyon" by Jack London has been analyzed, some suggestions are drawn out for English learners in writing a narrative discourse
In the first place, due to the importance of grammatical cohesion in creating a text, students' awareness of different types of grammatical cohesion including reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction should be raised Cohesion should be taught for English learners as a separate subject or taught in writing skill With sufficient knowledge of grammatical cohesion, English learners are able to create a cohesive and logical piece of writing Moreover, exercises on grammatical cohesion should
In the second place, the use of different types of personal reference should be considered in writing Normally, in a narrative discourse, there are several characters and the writer cannot repeat the name of these characters again and again in the whole story For this reason, the writer exploits personal reference as a way to avoid repetition and to hang the text together However, a narrative discourse often includes more than one character and these characters often appear chaotically in the whole text Hence, the overuse of personal reference, especially the person pronouns, may make the text be misunderstood or misinterpreted For instance, if there are several women in the story and the writer takes advantage of personal pronouns such as she, her, hers too many times in the text, readers may be confused which pronouns refer to which characters and then may misinterpret the meaning
In the third place, among four groups of cohesion, substitution and ellipsis are found least frequently used in this story with less than 1% in each group Therefore, it seems that the two types of cohesive devices do not have any value in written discourse although they are the most dominant types of cohesion in spoken discourse Interestingly, in this story, substitution and ellipsis both occur in the monologues of the main character These features can help English learners in organizing their narrative discourse In writing narrative discourse, English learners should avoid using substitution and ellipsis because they can make their texts imprecise or ambiguous In addition, the overuse of substitution and ellipsis in narrative discourse may lead to the misunderstanding or misinterpreting the content of the story
Last but not least, learners of English are advisable to apply conjunction in their writing To use conjunction appropriately and correctly, learners of English need to obtain basic knowledge of four types of conjunction It is necessary for them to acquire different conjuncts in each type of conjunction and learn the way to use these conjuncts correctly By using diverse conjunctive devices, the text will become not only cohesive but also logical and easy to understand.
Limitations and suggestions for further studies
This study is carried out with the hope to find out the use of grammatical cohesive devices in the story "All Gold Canyon" by Jack London However, this study emerges some limitations Firstly, because the text is a piece of literary writing, the grammatical cohesion cannot convey most of cohesion in it In fact, in this story, Jack London restores more lexical cohesive devices than grammatical ones
Secondly, due to the limitation of the paper size, examples on each types of grammatical cohesion cannot be explored in details Lastly, suggestions of cohesion in other skills such as speaking, listening have not been stated
Due to the scope of study, all the issues related to the study cannot be covered In the future, I do hope to extend the topic to:
- the study of lexical cohesive devices in the story "All Gold Canyon" by Jack London
- other discourse features of the story "All Gold Canyon" by Jack London in terms of transitivity, expansion and projection, just name a few
In short, this study aims to find out grammatical cohesive devices in the story "All Gold Canyon" by Jack London and some suggestions for reading and writing skills for English learners Within the scope of a minor M.A thesis and the limited knowledge of the author, mistakes are inevitable However, I do hope that it can bring some contribution for English teachers and learners in dealing with this kind of discourse
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16 Valeika, L and Buitkiene, J 2006 Functional English syntax Vilnius:
17 Yule, G 1996 Pragmatics Oxford: Oxford University Press
1 Diệp Quang Ban (1998) Văn bản và liên kết trong Tiếng Việt Hà Nội:
Nhà xuất bản Giáo dục
2 Hoàng Văn Vân (2002/2005) Ngữ pháp kinh nghiệm của cú Tiếng Việt
Hà Nội: Nhà xuất bản Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội
3 Nguyễn Hòa (2003) Phân tích diễn ngôn: Một số vấn đề lý luận và phương pháp Hà Nội: Nhà xuất bản Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội
I (32) The man (Bill) Personal pronoun +
Me (18) The man (Bill) Personal pronoun +
My (7) The man (Bill) Personal determiner +
You (4) Sweet hills Personal Pronoun +
Your (2) Sweet hills Personal determiner +
Your (2) Sweet hills Personal determiner +
You (14) The man (Bill) Personal Pronoun +
You (1) The man (Bill) Personal Pronoun +
Your (1) The man (Bill) Personal determiner +
Yours (2) The man (Bill) Personal determiner +
Your (1) Holly hocks Personal determiner +
You (6) The dead man Personal Pronoun +
They (1) The buck's ears Personal Pronoun +
They (4) The man's eyes Personal Pronoun + They (2) The man's fingers Personal Pronoun + They (1) The man's preparations Personal Pronoun + Them (1) The man's eyes Personal Pronoun + Their (1) Golden specks Personal determiner +
Them (2) Golden specks Personal Pronoun +
Them (1) Golden herbs Personal Pronoun +
Them (2) the fragments Personal Pronoun +
Them (1) vines and boughs Personal Pronoun +
Their (1) The walls Personal determiner +
Their (1) The leaves Personal determiner +
Their (1) The lines Personal determiner +
Their (1) the sides Personal determiner +
Their (1) The converging sides Personal determiner +
He (4) The red-coated, many- antlered buck
His (7) The red-coated, many- antlered buck
Him (2) The red-coated, many- antlered buck
He (29) The man with a revolver
Him (7) The man with a revolver
His (25) The man with a revolver
He (264) The man (Bill) Personal pronoun + Him (43) The man (Bill) Personal pronoun + His (178) The man (Bill) Personal determiner +
Himself (7) The man (Bill) Personal Pronoun +
Her (1) The stream Personal determiner +
Itself (1) The madrone Personal Pronoun +
Its (2) The madrone Personal determiner +
It (2) The air Personal Pronoun +
It (3) The little stream Personal Pronoun + Its (1) The little stream Personal determiner +
It (1) Singsong voice Personal Pronoun +
It (1) The man's voice Personal Pronoun +
It (1) The man's face Personal Pronoun +
Itself (1) The man's face Personal Pronoun +
Its (1) The pool Personal determiner +
It (1) A practiced eye Personal Pronoun +
It (1) A shovelful of dirt Personal Pronoun +
It (3) The pan Personal Pronoun +
It (3) This layer Personal Pronoun +
It (2) A small portion Personal Pronoun +
It (3) A golden speck Personal Pronoun +
It (3) Gold-pan Personal Pronoun +
It (1) The real thing Personal Pronoun +
Its (1) The spirit of the place Personal determiner +
It (1) The green screen Personal Pronoun +
Its (2) A second horse Personal determiner +
It (1) A second horse Personal Pronoun +
It (1) a pan with dirt Personal Pronoun +
It (1) the apex of the "V" Personal Pronoun +
Its (1) The sun Personal determiner +
It (1) The Canyon Personal Pronoun +
Itself (1) the backbone of the
It (1) the purple haze of the hills
Its (1) the Canyon Personal determiner +
Itself (1) the false footing Personal Pronoun +
It (1) a placer mine Personal Pronoun +
Itself (1) a placer mine Personal Pronoun +
It (3) a piece of rotten quartz Personal Pronoun +
It (1) half rock Personal Pronoun +
It (1) The other half Personal Pronoun +
It (1) a treasure-hole Personal Pronoun +
It (3) the heart of the gold Personal Pronoun +
It (1) the mysterious force Personal Pronoun +
It (5) The gold Personal Pronoun +
Itself (1) his body Personal Pronoun +
It (2) the hole Personal Pronoun +
Its (1) the cigarette Personal determiner +
It (1) the cigarette Personal Pronoun +
It (1) other's body Personal Pronoun +
It (1) the revolver Personal Pronoun +
It (1) the face of the dead man
Its (1) his treasure Personal determiner +
It (1) his head Personal Pronoun +
It (1) a crease through his scalp
It (3) The body Personal Pronoun +
Its (1) the hole Personal determiner +
Its (2) The animal Personal determiner +
It (1) The animal Personal Pronoun +
Here (2) the green heart of the Demonstrative +
Here (1) the apex Demonstrative adverb +
Here (1) on my pasture Demonstrative adverb +
There (8) the Canyon Demonstrative adverb +
There (1) the Canyon Demonstrative adverb +
There (1) the hillside Demonstrative adverb +
There (1) the stream Demonstrative adverb +
There (1) his cheek Demonstrative adverb +
There (1) cross-cut Demonstrative adverb +
There (10) a treasure-hole Demonstrative adverb +
The larger and the lighter (1) particles Comparative adjective + larger (1) a pin-point Comparative adjective + farther (1) the stream Comparative adverb + greater (1) clashing of steel-shod feet on rock
Comparative adjective + higher (1) pitch Comparative adjective +
Higher (1) the hill Comparative adjective +
Later (1) he made his first cast into the pool
Comparative adverb + deeper (1) the gold dipped Comparative adjective +
Higher (1) he went up the hill Comparative adjective + deeper (1) it 'll pitch Comparative adjective + deeper and deeper (1) a few yards above him Comparative adjective + deeper and deeper (1) he sank the hole Comparative adjective +
Table of References in the Story "All Gold Canyon"
Nearer (1) the time when he must stand up
More (1) a single speck of gold Comparative adjective +
More (1) trout Comparative adjective + more (1) distinctly Comparative adjective + more (1) drowsed and whispered Comparative adjective + as indetermina te and colorless as
As far as (1) he could see Comparative adjective + as lightly and airily as
APPENDIX II Table of Conjunctions in the Story "All Gold Canyon"
APPENDIX III Table of Substitutions in the Story "All Gold Canyon"
That (smoke of life an' snakes of purgatory)
That (I clean forgot my dinner again) +
That (he was slow and awkward with his left-hand movements)
This (a third pan contained no gold at all) +
This (there was his pick, a handy weapon on occasion)
+ do (come right up an' snatch you out bald- headed)
It (Short-cuts to fortune ain't in your line) +
APPENDIX IV Table of Ellipses in the Story "All Gold Canyon"
Eighteen (golden specks) + twenty-one (golden specks) + twenty-six (golden specks) +
Would (shoot me in the back) +
APPENDIX V The Story "All Gold Canyon" by Jack London
It was the green heart of the Canyon, where the walls swerved back from the rigid plan and relieved their harshness of line by making a little sheltered nook and filling it to the brim with sweetness and roundness and softness Here all things rested
Even the narrow stream ceased its turbulent down-rush long enough to form a quiet pool Knee-deep in the water, with drooping head and half-shut eyes, drowsed a red- coated, many-antlered buck
On one side, beginning at the very lip of the pool, was a tiny meadow, a cool, resilient surface of green that extended to the base of the frowning wall Beyond the pool a gentle slope of earth ran up and up to meet the opposing wall Fine grass covered the slope grass that was spangled with flowers, with here and there patches of color, orange and purple and golden Below, the Canyon was shut in
There was no view The walls leaned together abruptly and the Canyon ended in a chaos of rocks, moss-covered and hidden by a green screen of vines and creepers and boughs of trees Up the Canyon rose far hills and peaks, the big foot-hills, pine- covered and remote And far beyond, like clouds upon the border of the sky, towered minarets of white, where the Sierra's eternal snows flashed austerely the blazes of the sun
There was no dust in the Canyon The leaves and flowers were clean and virginal
The grass was young velvet Over the pool three cottonwoods sent their snowy fluffs fluttering down the quiet air On the slope the blossoms of the wine-wooded manzanita filled the air with springtime odors, while the leaves, wise with experience, were already beginning their vertical twist against the coming aridity of summer In the open spaces on the slope, beyond the farthest shadow-reach of the manzanita, poised the mariposa lilies, like so many flights of jewelled moths suddenly arrested and on the verge of trembling into flight again Here and there that woods harlequin, the madrone, permitting itself to be caught in the act of changing its pea-green trunk to madder-red, breathed its fragrance into the air from great clusters of waxen bells Creamy white were these bells, shaped like lilies-of-the- valley, with the sweetness of perfume that is of the springtime
There was not a sigh of wind The air was drowsy with its weight of perfume It was a sweetness that would have been cloying had the air been heavy and humid But the air was sharp and thin It was as starlight transmuted into atmosphere, shot through and warmed by sunshine, and flower-drenched with sweetness
An occasional butterfly drifted in and out through the patches of light and shade
And from all about rose the low and sleepy hum of mountain bees feasting Sybarites that jostled one another good-naturedly at the board, nor found time for rough discourtesy So quietly did the little stream drip and ripple its way through the Canyon that it spoke only in faint and occasional gurgles The voice of the stream was as a drowsy whisper, ever interrupted by dozings and silences, ever lifted again in the awakenings
The motion of all things was a drifting in the heart of the Canyon Sunshine and butterflies drifted in and out among the trees The hum of the bees and the whisper of the stream were a drifting of sound And the drifting sound and drifting color seemed to weave together in the making of a delicate and intangible fabric which was the spirit of the place It was a spirit of peace that was not of death, but of smooth- pulsing life, of quietude that was not silence, of movement that was not action, of repose that was quick with existence without being violent with struggle and travail
The spirit of the place was the spirit of the peace of the living, somnolent with the easement and content of prosperity, and undisturbed by rumors of far wars
The red-coated, many-antlered buck acknowledged the lordship of the spirit of the place and dozed knee-deep in the cool, shaded pool There seemed no flies to vex him and he was languid with rest Sometimes his ears moved when the stream awoke and whispered; but they moved lazily, with foreknowledge that it was merely the stream grown garrulous at discovery that it had slept
But there came a time when the buck's ears lifted and tensed with swift eagerness for sound His head was turned down the Canyon His sensitive, quivering nostrils scented the air His eyes could not pierce the green screen through which the stream rippled away, but to his ears came the voice of a man It was a steady, monotonous, singsong voice Once the buck heard the harsh clash of metal upon rock At the sound he snorted with a sudden start that jerked him through the air from water to meadow, and his feet sank into the young velvet, while he pricked his ears and again scented the air Then he stole across the tiny meadow, pausing once and again to listen, and faded away out of the Canyon like a wraith, soft-footed and without sound
The clash of steel-shod soles against the rocks began to be heard, and the man's voice grew louder It was raised in a sort of chant and became distinct with nearness, so that the words could be heard:
"Tu'n around an' tu'n your face Untoe them sweet hills of grace (D' pow'rs of sin your am scornin'!)
Look about an' look aroun', Fling you sin-pack on d' groun' (You will meet wid d' Lord in d' mornin'!)."