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Output file VIETNAM NATIONAL HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES BY VŨ HỒNG QUANG A Study of Correlative Conjunctions as Cohesive Devices (with re[.]
VIETNAM NATIONAL -HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BY: VŨ HỒNG QUANG A Study of Correlative Conjunctions as Cohesive Devices (with reference to the Upper-secondary English textbooks) Nghiên cứu liên từ t-ơng liên nh- ph-ơng tiện liên kết văn (liên hệ với sách giáo khoa Tiếng Anh Trung học phổ thông) MA MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60 22 15 HANOI-20009 z VIETNAM NATIONAL -HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES BY: VŨ HỒNG QUANG A Study of Correlative Conjunctions as Cohesive Devices (with reference to the Upper-secondary English textbooks) Nghiên cứu liên từ t-ơng liên nh- ph-ơng tiện liên kết văn (liên hệ với sách giáo khoa Tiếng Anh Trung học phổ thông) MA MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60 22 15 SUPERVISOR: Assoc Prof TRẦN HỮU MẠNH HANOI-2009 z iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Declaration i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii Table of content iv CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims and objectives 1.3 Scopes of the study 1.4 Methodology CHAPTER THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 Discourse and Text 2.2 Textuality, cohesion and coherence 2.2.1 Textuality 2.2.2 Cohesion 10 2.2.2.1 Substitution and ellipsis 10 2.2.2.2 Conjunction 11 2.2.2.3 Reference 12 2.2.2.4 Lexical cohesion 13 2.2.3 Cohesion and Coherence 14 2.3 Segmenting Texts into Units 16 2.3.1 Using the sentence as the unit of segmentation 16 2.3.2 Using the T-unit as the unit of segmentation 17 2.3.3 Using the proposition as the unit of segmentation 18 2.3.4 Using the F-unit as the unit of segmentation 18 2.4 Semantic relations 20 CHAPTER SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC RELATIONS OF 24 CORRELATIVE CONJUNCTIONS 3.1 Introduction 24 3.2 The syntax of correlative conjunctions 25 z v 2.1 Correlatives and their conjunctions 25 3.2.2 Correlative with phrasal coordination 25 3.2.3 Correlative with sentential coordination 27 3.2.4 Correlative with conjunction phrases of different syntax 28 2.5 Correlatives are focus particles 29 3.2.5 Correlative conjunctions of “not only … (but)” are used to link two 31 sentences 3.3 Semantic relations of Correlative conjunctions 32 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 37 4.1 Summary 37 4.2 Some implications for teaching and learning correlative conjunctions 37 4.3 Some implications for materials 38 4.4 Some Implications for Translation 41 4.5 Conclusion 42 REFERENCE 43 z CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale ‖In the world of human beings, you won't find a language by itself - the Dutch language strolling the canals, or the English language having a nice cup of tea, or the German language racing madly along the autobahn You only find discourse.‖ Robert de Beaugrande (1997: 36) It is unimaginable of a world without language We get through our days exchanging various oral and written language (or, talk and text) We live by language or discourse, not in discrete audio or visual units but in connected sound waves and orthographic forms to which we assign meaning on the basis of our past experience with them and on the basis of the situations in which these waves and forms are used Discourse analysis is concerned with the contexts in and the processes through which we use oral and written language to specific audiences, for specific purposes, in specific settings We might one cannot understand language fully without looking at language use My research focuses on correlative conjunctions in English I attempt to make my description both semantic and syntactic There are at least three reasons why I believe it is important to focus on correlative conjunctions Firstly, the correlative conjunctions will enrich our potential for interpreting the linguistic phenomena in English Secondly, although there has been some research in exploring conjunctions in general, little attention has been given to the study of correlative conjunctions Thirdly, our students have some difficulties in understanding and using correlative conjunctions 1.2 Aims: The study is descriptive in nature and aims at finding correlative conjunction use is to connect discourse segmental units with reference to the Upper-secondary English textbook 1.3 Scope of the study: The study concerns the contrastive analysis of correlative conjunctions which are taught in the Upper-secondary English textbook such as both … and, either … or, neither… nor, not only … but also in English The data for the study are from novels in English, textbooks, and other sources z 1.4 Methods of data collection and analysis This study will be text-based It will focus on the data of written English A large archive of texts of different types, including written speech, news reports, literature, legal texts, academic texts, will be collected Then correlative conjunctions will be extracted from these texts and a corpus will be established The data were collected by choosing from novels by famous English writers in the 20 th centuries, mostly won the Nobel Prize, from textbooks, and other sources The data collected will be analysed to find the bounding of correlative conjunctions in terms of syntax and semantics z CHAPTER THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 Discourse and Text The text/ discourse dichotomy originated in the early 1970s with the explosion of Textlinguistics on the European Continent (esp in Germany) and Discourse Analysis in Britain A trivial definition that might be proposed for each of these two disciplines is that Textlinguistics is concerned with the analysis of text, and Discourse Analysis with that of discourse However, what appear to be straightforward definitions hide an intrinsic problem, namely, the confusion between the notion of text and the notion of discourse + the notion of discourse has usually been defined in relation to that of text, whose first definition already date back to the mid 1960s The confusion between the two notions has been due to the different meanings and the relationship that linguists have attached to the two terms Thus, some linguists have mostly used and defined only one of the terms For example, the term ―text‖ only is preferably used by Hartmann (1964), Schmidt (1973), Halliday & Hasan (1976), whereas the term ―discourse‖ only is preferred by Longacre (1983), Brown and Yule (1983) At times they may have mentioned the other terms but leaving it undefined Some other linguists have used both terms in either of the following three ways: (1) interchangeably; (2) by considering discourse as a type of text; (3) or in opposition In the later case, the discourse/ text dichotomy has mostly been identified with a spoken/ written, process/ product and/ or language use/ abstraction of such use opposition As consequence, firstly, discourse has been identified with spoken language and text with written language Secondly, text has been considered the product of the process of writing, whereas the more dynamic notion of discourse has been identified with the process of text production and comprehension And thirdly, text has been viewed as the theoretical nation underlying the structure of the verbal communication The notions of text and discourse not have stable, uniform identity, their nature varying not only according to the scholar but especially according to the theoretical framework from within which the scholar approaches the definition of the terms Thus, z it is possible to systematise the definitions of text according to four frameworks: linguistic, communicative-pragmatic, cognitive and semiotic and the notion of discourse has been mostly defined from a communicative-pragmatic, tagmemic, cognitive and generative framework * Starting with the notion of text, there are four major frameworks within which the definition of the notion has been attempted 1- Within a linguistic framework text has been viewed as a mere succession of sentences, i.e, of signs between certain punctuation markers Still within the same framework, text has also been defined as a semantic composition For this definition the sentence continues to be the key component to such an extent that many linguists have defined text or discourse in opposition to sentence (cf Beaugrande, 1979; Wirrer, 1979; Albadaleijo Mayordomo, 1981) The idea of wholeness underlying the conception of text as a semantic composition has been understood mainly in two ways *Wirrer (1979) and Albadalejo Mayordomo (1981): conceive the property of wholeness as the result of applying the coherence component to a set of sentences *Hartman (1964), Koch (1965) wholeness is the outcome of certain intersentential or cohesive relationships In line with Koch‘s condition of wholeness, Grames (1966) stresses that a text consists of a series of intersentential relationships which the lexical choice is just one of them It appears to be an anticipation of Harweg‘s (1968) conception of text and of the notions of textual cohesion and coherence as used by Halliday &Hasan (1967) A special notion of text, which function as a bridge between the conception of text as a semantic composition maintained within a linguistic framework and that of a purely communicative unit held within a communicative framework, is the one represented by Halliday (1973) and Halliday & Hasan (1976), who view text as a functional-semantic concept belonging to the textual function of language Their systemic-functional (SF) approach to the study of language ―means, first of all, investigating how language is used; trying to find out what are the purpose that language serves for us‖ (Halliday, 1973:7) Apart from the ideational and interpersonal functions of language, Halliday also recognises a textual function which is ―concerned with the creation of text‖ (Halliday, 1973:107) z Even though in a relatively vague manner, Haliday (ibid.) only defines text, which appears to be a structural unit related to the situation Its structural property, which is a common principle to definitions produced within a linguistic framework, refers to a cohesive tie between sentences and to ―its meaning as a message‖, which is synonymous to an FSP analysis of the sentence into a theme-rheme organisation The introduction into the notion of text of an element of contextual or situational relation constitutes the bridge between a linguistic and a communicative conception of the term As far as the notion of discourse is concerned, it appears to be an instance of language use in a particular situation, of which the text is its structural unit Within the systemic-functional model it is not until Hasan (1977) that the notion of text becomes a communicative unit defined as ―a verbal social event‖ (Hasan, 1977:233) and characterised, firstly, by its property of texture (i.e., ―linguistics cohesion within the passage‖ (Hasan, 1977:228)), which constitutes a means of differentiating it from a random chain of sentences; secondly, by its structure, which serves to ―distinguish between complete and incomplete texts on the one hand, and between different generic form on the other‖ (id.:229); and last but not least, by its contextual relation Following Halliday‘s social perspective on language analysis, Hasan emphasises the role that context plays in the structure organisation (structure formula) of each ―genre of text- i.e type of discourse‖ (ibid.).(Note: Hasan (1977) uses ―text‖ and ―discourse‖ interchangeably) The notion of context of situation in Hasan (1977) is explained through that of text genre or register Register is related to systematic variation in language, this variation depending on the selection of different linguistic as well as contextual varianles Field, tenor and mode of discourse are the variables that constitute the contextual construct (CC) The definition of text as a verbal social event is directly related to the three types of roles which the interactants adopt in a communicative situation and which are integrated in the variable tenor These roles are: (1) textual, which classifies the interactants into speaker and hearer (2) Social, which establishes a hierarchical or non-hierarchical relationship between the interactants according to their social status; and (3) Participatory, which identifies the initiator and the respondent of the communication z Hasan‘s (1977) conception of text as a social event would undergo an evolution from a primarily linguistic-centred approach which defined text as a semantic unit occurring in a situational context and whose sentences are tied by a relationship of cohesion, towards a more communicative-centred position located within a social-semiotic approach to language study Though text continues to be essentially a semantic unit, it is no longer viewed as a mere product but also a process - Hasan‘s (1977) and Halliday &Hasan‘s (1985) conception of text has directly led into the second framework of approach to the notion, namely, the communicative-pragmatic framework For linguists within a communicative-pragmatic framework text is no longer a succession of sentences but of ―propositions‖ or semantic units referring to events, actions or states which contribute to a communicative situation or interaction A proposition may consist of a single word (e.g greeting, farewell, addressing form), of an elliptical sentence (e.g verbless sentence) (note: the term ―elliptical‖ is used in Halliday (1985)), or it may coincide with a sentence boundary Indeed, as happens within the linguistic framework, the sentence continues to be the most complex unit that structures information contained in a communicative activity But, in contrast to the previous framework, a sentence is not only a component of a text but it may also be a complete text on its own One of the most outstanding textlinguists to urge for a pragmatic approach to the notion of text is van Dijk (1977), who equates the text/ discourse opposition with a theoretical notion vs observation dichotomy A grammar, in his view, should not only describe an expression in terms of its internal structure and the meaning assigned to it, but also in terms of the condition that render the expression acceptable in a particular communicative context This principle should apply not only to sentences but also to discourse Similarly, Beugrande &Dressler (1981) also consider the pragmatic condition of acceptability to be, along with some others, a key feature of any text Beaugrande &Dressler‘s (1981) communicative approach to text analysis provides an innovation to Textlinguistics, namely, a comprehensive description of the pragmatic components that transform a text into a verbal interaction located in a specific situational context, with interlocutors observing certain conversational principles necessary to fulfilment of the intended goal of the encounter In this framework, text is equated with an interactional process - A third framework which also uses the unit of text as object of study is the cognitive Cognitive text models work with the concept of text or discourse as a natural unit of z ... you won''t find a language by itself - the Dutch language strolling the canals, or the English language having a nice cup of tea, or the German language racing madly along the autobahn You only... segmental units with reference to the Upper- secondary English textbook 1.3 Scope of the study: The study concerns the contrastive analysis of correlative conjunctions which are taught in the Upper- secondary. .. non-hierarchical relationship between the interactants according to their social status; and (3 ) Participatory, which identifies the initiator and the respondent of the communication z Hasan‘s (1 977)