(Luận văn thạc sĩ) a functional analysis of martin luther king’s speech “beyond vietnam a time to break silence”

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY TRẦN THỊ TỐ NGA A FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF MARTIN LUTHER KING‟S SPEECH “BEYOND VIETNAM: A TIME TO BREAK SILENCE” h MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH Binh Dinh, 2020 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN TRẦN THỊ TỐ NGA PHÂN TÍCH BÀI PHÁT BIỂU “BEYOND VIETNAM: A TIME TO BREAK SILENCE” CỦA MARTIN LUTHER KING THEO NGỮ PHÁP CHỨC NĂNG h Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số: 22 02 01 Người hướng dẫn: PGS.TS Trần Văn Phước i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in the whole or part from the thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma No other person‟s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the thesis This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any tertiary institution Binh Dinh, 2020 Tran Thi To Nga h ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First and foremost, I would like to express my thanks to all the lectures who have the given the foundation for this thesis and all the staff of the Postgraduate Department at Quy Nhon University for their encouragement, kindness and administrative assistance My deepest gratitude and appreciation goes to my supervisor Trần Văn Phước, Assoc Prof Dr for his invaluable guidance My thanks are also due to I am immensely grateful to my aunt, Nhuan Tri, for her help and kindness Many, many thanks to all the teachers at Ton Duc Thang High School in Duc Co District, Gia Lai Povince for creating the best conditions to me I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to my coworkers and friends, whose kindness and support to my study were great h I would like to show my sincerce thanks to many people who have given me great help during the time I managed to complete this thesis Last but not least, I feel deeply indebted to my family, especially my parents for always by my side whenever I got troubles iii ABSTRACT This Thesis entitled: A functional analysis of Martin Luther King‟s speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” is conducted to aim at examing the metafunctions of Martin Luther King‟s speech by analyzing its topic, content and attitudes This work identified the Tenor/Interpersonal metafunction, Field/Experiential metafunction, Mode/ Textual metafunction and thematic progressions were applied In terms of Interpersonal metafunction, most of the clauses are declarative, the main role of the speech is to declare the facts that America‟s government neglecting their poverty program to interfere to Vietnam war, which leads to the tragic consequences forward not only lives but resources of both Vietnamese and American In King‟s speech, the Modality becomes prominent through a range of modal auxiliary verbs to indicate the necessity and urgency of a protest against the war From the Experiential metafunction h analysis, it can be concluded that the material processes dominate in six kinds of processes The central purpose of King is to mainly convey information about the actions of breaking the rules and the cruel actios of America‟s government in Vietnam Morever, King mentions about the positive changes of life after conducting a new revolution Regarding to Textual metafunction, it helps listeners to integrate in the King‟s messages Topical theme accounts for the highest percentage and multiple themes play a vital role to latch a sentence explicitly on to the preceding context Last but not least, is the analysis of thematic progression, it is found that the speech also tends to employ the constant theme pattern because it is easy for the speaker to develop the topic and for the audience to be accepted Thanks to thematic progression patterns the related problems of ending Vietnam war are mentioned throughout the speech Hopefully, the reasearch is helpful to those whose are studying political languages as well as learning how to make a successful speech iv ABBREVIATIONS King: Martin Luther King E: Example SFG: Systemic Functional Grammar TH: Theme RH: Rheme h v LIST OF TABLES Table Title Number Page Number 2.1 Six processes of Halliday's theory 14 2.2 The principle categories of relational clause 17 2.3 A summary of all the types of process and their general category meaning 18 2.4 Marked and unmarked themes 23 4.1 Frequency and percentage of mood structures 33 4.2 Frequency and percentage of each type of modality 37 4.3 Frequency and percentage of each process 41 4.4 Frequency and percentage of topical, interpersonal and textual theme 49 h 4.5 4.6 4.7 Frequecy and percentage of simple and multiple themes Frequency and percentage of marked and unmarked theme Frequency and percentage of thematic progression patterns 52 55 59 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Title Number 2.1 Giving or demanding, goods-&- services or information Page Number 10 2.2 Theme- rheme structure in English clause 20 2.3 Simple theme and multiple theme in English clauses 22 2.4 Unmarked theme in English clauses 25 2.5 Marked theme in English clauses 25 2.6 The constant pattern of thematic progression 26 2.7 The zig-zag pattern of thematic progression 27 2.8a The multiple rheme pattern of thematic progression 27 2.8b The multiple rheme pattern of thematic progression 28 4.1 The constant pattern of thematic progression h 60 4.2 The zig-zag pattern of thematic progression 61 4.3 The multiple rheme pattern of thematic progression 63 vii TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii ABSTRACT iii ABBREVIATIONS iv LIST OF TABLES v LIST OF FIGURES vi TABLE OF CONTENTS vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Objectives of the study h 1.4 Research questions 1.5 Scope of the study 1.6 Significance of the study 1.7 Organization of the thesis CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Review of previous studies related to the research 2.2 Theoretical background 2.2.1 Definition of Speech and Text 2.2.2 Systemic Functional Grammar 2.2.3 Three Metafunctions 2.2.3.1 Interpersonal meaning of the text 10 2.2.3.2 Experiential meaning of the text 13 2.2.3.3 Textual meaning of the text 18 viii 2.2.3.4 Thematic progression patterns 25 2.2.4 Martin Luther King 28 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 31 3.1 Research methods 31 3.1.1 Data collection 31 3.1.2 Data collection and coding procedure 31 3.1.3 Data analysis 32 3.1.3.1 Text analysis method 32 3.2 Summary 33 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 34 4.1 Interpersonal function in Martin Luther King‟s speech 34 h 4.1.1 Mood Structures 34 4.1.1.1 Frequency of mood structures 34 4.1.1.2 Description and lexico-grammatical realizations of moods 34 4.1.1.3 The usage of mood structures to express the interpersonal function 38 4.1.2 Modality 38 4.1.2.1 Frequency of Modality 38 4.1.2.2 Description and lexico-grammatical realizations of modality 39 4.1.2.3 The usage of modality to introduce the interpersonal function 41 4.1.3 Summary 42