a study on theme-rheme and cohesive ties in the short story the last leaf” by o’henry nghiên cứu về tổ chức đề thuyết và các mối liên kết trong truyện ngắn chiếc lá cuối cùng của o’henry

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FALCULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ------ VŨ THỊ THANH NGA A STUDY ON THEME – RHEME AND COHESIV

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FALCULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

- -

VŨ THỊ THANH NGA

A STUDY ON THEME – RHEME AND COHESIVE TIES IN THE SHORT STORY “THE LAST LEAF” BY O’HENRY

NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ TỔ CHỨC ĐỀ THUYẾT VÀ CÁC MỐI LIÊN KẾT

TRONG TRUYỆN NGẮN CHIẾC LÁ CUỐI CÙNG CỦA O‟HENRY

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60.22.15

Hanoi – 2013

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FALCULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

- -

VŨ THỊ THANH NGA

A STUDY ON THEME – RHEME AND COHESIVE TIES IN THE SHORT STORY “THE LAST LEAF” BY O’HENRY

NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ TỔ CHỨC ĐỀ THUYẾT VÀ CÁC MỐI LIÊN KẾT

TRONG TRUYỆN NGẮN CHIẾC LÁ CUỐI CÙNG CỦA O‟HENRY

M.A Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 60.22.15

Supervisor: Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân

Hanoi – 2013

DECLARATION

I, hereby, certify the thesis entitled “A STUDY ON THEME – RHEME AND COHESIVE TIES IN THE SHORT STORY “THE LAST LEAF” BY O’HENRY” is the result of my own research for the Minor Degree of Master of Arts at the University of Language and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, and this thesis has not, wholly or partially, been submitted for any degree at any other universities or institutions

Hanoi, 2013

Vũ Thị Thanh Nga

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my deep gratitude towards my supervisor, Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân, for his constant and invaluable assistance without which my study would be far from finished

I greatly wish to acknowledge my thanks to Dr Đỗ Tuấn Minh whose research on Thematic Structure in English and Vietnamese has helped me much during my study

I am also greatly indebted to all my colleagues at Ben Tam High School who provided

me with valuable materials and enthusiastic support on the aspect of my research Finally, my sincere thanks go to my beloved family for their love, encouragement, and support while I was carrying out this research

Hanoi, August 2013

Vũ Thị Thanh Nga

ABSTRACT

This study is an attempt to apply systemic functional grammar to investigating a short story “The Last Leaf” by O‟Henry in terms of the theme – rheme structure and cohesive ties Based on the theory of systemic functional grammar as developed by Halliday, the study focuses on the analysis of O‟Henry‟s story “The Last Leaf” in terms of the textual metafunction which is represented via theme - rheme pattern, and cohesion (grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion) of the text The findings show that in terms of theme - rheme pattern, topical theme which forms unmarked one is the most striking feature of the text We can also realize how the author develops the text and creates a surprise ending which makes the story one of O‟Henry‟s masterpiece Moreover, grammatical cohesion represented by reference and conjunctive devices and lexical cohesion shown via repetition, synonyms, meronyms and antonyms make the text more cohesive and coherent The analysis proves that systemic functional grammar is the smartest choice for those whose concern is for the structure and meaning of a particular text

TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF MARKERS AND ABBREVIATIONS

LIST OF TABLES

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ……….….1

1.1 Rationale of the Study ……… 1

1.2 Aims of the Study ……….3

1.3 Scope of the Study ….……… 3

1.4 Method of the Study ……….3

1.5 Data Collection ……… 4

1.6 Design of the Study ……… 4

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND … ……….5

2.1 Introduction ……… ………….…5

2.2 The Linguistic System ……… 5

2.3 Metafunctions ……… ………….….6

2.3.1 Ideational Metafunction ……… 6

2.3.2 Interpersonal Metafunction ……… 7

2.3.3 Textual Metafunction ……… 8

2.4 Cohesion ……… 11

2.4.1 Concept of Cohesion……….…… 11

2.4.2 Types of Cohesion ……… …12

2.4.2.1 Grammatical Cohesion ……… 12

2.4.2.2 Lexical Cohesion……… ….16

2.5 Concluding Remarks ……… 18

III CHAPTER 3: THEME – RHEME AND COHESIVE TIES IN THE SHORT STORY “THE LAST LEAF” BY O’HENRY 3.1 Introduction ……… 19

3.2 The Context of the Chosen Text ……… 19

3.3 The Analysis of the text in terms of Theme – Rheme……… ………… 19

3.3.1 Topical Theme……… ……… 21

3.3.2 Interpersonal Theme………23

3.3.3 Textual Theme……… ……… 24

3.3.4 Marked and Unmarked Theme………25

3.4 The Cohesion of the Text ……… 29

3.4.1 Grammatical Cohesion ……… 29

3.4.2 Lexical Cohesion ………39

IV CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION ……… 42

4.1 Recapitulation ……… 42

4.2 Implications for the Study ……… 43

4.3 Suggestions for Further Study ……… 44

REFERENCES ……… 46 APPENDICES ……… I

LIST OF MARKERS AND ABBREVIATIONS

Collocation Personal Reference Demonstrative Reference Comparative Reference Anaphoric reference Exophoric reference Cataphoric reference

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Mood Type and Unmarked Theme Selection (Halliday, 2004: 78).………10

Table 2: Reference of the Text ……….30

Table 3: Substitution of the Text ………36

Table 4: Ellipsis of the Text ………37

Table 5: Conjunctive Devices of the Text ………… ………37

Table 6: Lexical Devices Summary ………39

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the Study

The theory of systemic functional linguistics was originally formulated by M.A.K Halliday in the early 1960s This is a new model and method of description of language known as Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) in which everything can be explained, ultimately, by reference to how language is used Different from formal grammar which focuses on written language and deals with rules of correct usage rather than with meaning and context of the text, functional grammar centers on both written and spoken language and emphasize how linguistic structures express meaning and views language as a communicative resource, not as grammatical rules It is considered “an effective tool of analysis, which solves the issues left out by traditional grammar” as it helps understand human language more deeply

Systemic Funtional Grammar is a system of meanings associated with three Metafunctions, each indicating how the language was structured to be used These three Metafuctions are related to 1) Interpersonal meanings, which focus on the social function of language, more specifically, the participants; 2) Ideational meanings, focusing on how language is used, that is, the verbal choices, and; 3) Textual meanings, which focus on how the message is organized, that is, what information is chosen to appear first (or last) in a sentence or text

It is the third metafuntion (Textual) that involves the concepts of Theme and Rheme which is one in two things of the basic for my research Theme has been studied by many grammarians such as Mathesius (1975); Halliday and Hasan (1976); Fries (1981); Firbas (1986); Halliday (1985, 1994); Downing (1990); Davies (1987), Eggins (1994); Matthiessen (1995); Thompson (1996) and many others Accoding to Halliday (1994:

34), Theme is “what the message is concerned with, the point of departure for what the speaker is going to say” “The Theme is what I, the speaker, choose to take as my point

of departure… Theme + Rheme is speaker – oriented” (Halliday, 1994: 299) For Halliday, the thematic organization of clauses is the most significant aspect for the development of a text By analyzing the thematic structure of a text it is possible to observe its nature and understand how the writer exposed his concerns with the organization of the message Eggin (1994: 273) also says that thematic meanings are related to the potential which the clause confers to its constituents to be differently organized in order to reach different purposes Based on these theories, many researchers have tried to analyze a text clause by clause to gain an insight into its texture and understand how the writer made clear to us the nature of his underlying concerns I would like to try myself to analyze the theme-rheme structure of the short story “The Last Leaf” by O‟Henry who is famous for short stories and their unexpected endings with the hope of exploring how the writer develop the text and what the purpose is

Cohesive ties of the text are also of great concern to me in this study Cohesion relates

to the “semantic ties” within text whereby a tie is made when there is some dependent link between items that combine to create meaning Using the short story “The Last Leaf” as a basis, the textual aspect of meaning through cohesion will be analyzed

As regards practical purposes, understanding the theme-rheme structure and how cohesion functions within text to create semantic links could be beneficial to students

of English as a second or foreign language to help “decode” meaning

For those reasons, I have decided to choose “A study on Theme-Rheme and

Cohesive Ties in the short story “The Last Leaf” by O’Henry” as the title of my

MA Thesis, using Halliday‟s functional grammar as a theoretical framework

1.2 Aims of the Study

The aim of this stury is to use systemic functional framework to explore how O‟Henry organized and developed his story “The Last Leaf” in terms of the theme – rheme patterns and cohesive ties To realize this aim, the following two questions are raised for exploration

1 How is the text organized and developed in terms of theme-rheme patterns?

2 How are the different cohesive ties of contexts hung together to make the text cohesive?

To answer these questions, I will review some fundamental concepts for the study: linguistic system, metafunctions and cohesion in chapter two In chapter three, I will analyze the theme-rheme patterns and the main cohesive ties in the story

1.3 Scope of the Study

As a minor thesis, not all aspects of functional grammar are explored but only some of them such as linguistic system, metafunctions and cohesion The focus of the study, however, does not lie in the theoretical findings but hopefully, on this fundamental theory, will enlighten the text analysis

1.4 Methods of the Study

With a view to analyzing theme-rheme and cohesive ties of an English text, descriptive and analytical methods are used The former is concerned with the description of the main areas of functional grammar and the latter deals with the analysis of the text for discussion

1.5 Data collection

The text is taken from one of the most famous short stories by O‟Henry “The Last Leaf” in his collection “The Trimmed Lamp and Other Stories” which was first published by Philips & Co in 1907 in New York

1.6 Design of the Study

This thesis is divided into four chapters as follows:

 Chapter one – Introduction – presents the rationale of the study, the aims of the study, scope of the study, methods of the study, data collection, and the research design

 Chapter two – Theoretical Background – supplies some fundamental and theoretical concepts for the study: linguistic system, metafunctions and cohesion analysis

 Chapter three – The Analysis of the short story “The Last Leaf” by O’Henry focuses on its thematic structure and cohesive ties

 Chapter four – Conclusion – summarizes the results of the study and offers some suggestions for teaching and learning as well as for further studies

CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDS 2.1 Introduction

This chapter will explore some basic concepts that are considered to set the theoretical orientation for the study: the linguistic system, metafunctions and cohesion Examples are taken from grammar books by such famous linguists as Halliday (1985, 1994), Halliday and Hasan (1976), Geoff Thomson (1996), Hoàng Văn Vân (2002, 2005 & 2006), and other researchers like Đỗ Tuấn Minh (2006), etc

2.2 The linguistic system

Language is viewed as systems of meaning potential in human interaction that are realized by various structures formed in certain contexts which are studied under register In systemic grammar, register is conceptualized in terms of three parameters: field, tenor and mode

- Field of discourse refers to what is happening, to the nature of the social action that

is taking place: what is it that the participants are engaged in, in which the language figures as some essential components?

- Tenor of discourse refers to who is taking part, to the nature of the participants,

their statuses and roles: what kind of role relationships of one kind or another, both the types of speech role that they are taking on in the dialogue and the whole cluster

of socially significant relationships in which they are involved?

- Mode of discourse refers to what part the language is playing, what it is that the

participants are expecting the language to do for them in that situation: the symbolic organization of the text, the status that it has, and its function in the context, including the channel (is it spoken or written or some combination of the two?) and

also the rhetorical mode, what is being achieved by the text in terms of such

categories as persuasive, expository, didactic and the like

(Halliday in Halliday & Hassan, 1989:12)

These three contextual variables are deemed to be the only aspects of the context of situation of a text that are linguistically relevant to accomplish a particular social goal

It will be embedded in the text by being realized in the semantic and grammatical structures of the text

2.3 Metafunctions

From the sociological point of view, Halliday (1970, 1985) developed a theory of the fundamental functions of language into three broad metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal and textual Each functional component corresponds to each parameter register as the working hypothesis: field - ideational; tenor - interpersonal; mode - textual The third one, textual metafunction, will receive more attention due to the purpose of this study

on the transfer of information and how language is used to get things done, to produce a

result in real-life terms Here lies the concept of System of Transitivity, that is, the

representations we have of world are shown through the language and can be perceived

by the verbal choices we make, the kinds of “processes” (including verbal, material,

behavioural, mental, relational and existential) chosen by the participants (actor, goal; senser, phenomenon; carrier, attribute; etc.) according to the circumstances

(cause, location, manner, etc.) they are involved with Below are some examples

questioning, greeting, persuading, and the like (Halliday, 1994)

Mood and Residue, two components of a clause, are often used to express the

interpersonal function The Mood shows what role the speaker selects in the speech

situation and what role he assigns to the addressee The mood element makes the clause “negotiable” and in English it consists of Finite, Subject and Modal Adjunct(s) The Finite makes a clause negotiable by coding it as positive or negative and by grounding it, either in terms of time or in terms of modality The Subject is the element

by reference to which the proposition can be affirmed or denied (Halliday, 1994: 76) Modal Adjuncts add meanings related to speaker‟s judgement or to the

positive/negative aspect of the Finite The Residue is “the remainder of the clause”

Actor Process: material Goal

Senser Process: mental Phenomenon

(Halliday, 1994: 74) which consists of three functional elements: Predicator,

Complement and Adjunct Here are some illustrations:

Predicator Complement Adjunct Mood Residue

2.3.3 Textual Metafunction

The textual metafunction is about the verbal world, especially the flow of information

in a text, and is concerned with clauses as messages The textual metafunction acts to organize the flow of interpersonal and ideational meanings as they unfold in a text The textual meta-function reflects the meanings according to the choices for placing the information in the sentences, that is, what he/she chooses to say/write first

(Theme) The textual meaning is described through the system of Theme Thematic

structure “gives the clause its character as a message” (Haliday, 1994: 37) and thus, creates „relevance‟ to the context

As a message structure, a clause consists of a Theme accompanied by a Rheme It is

useful to make a distinction between Theme and Rheme The Theme serves as the

point of departure of the message, which in English coincides with the initial

element(s) of the clause and the Rheme is the part from which the Theme is

developed Halliday (1994: 34) proposed a definition for Theme in the Systemic Functional model of discourse analysis where Theme is “what the message is concerned with: the point of departure for what the speaker is going to say”

According to Halliday (1994), it is the Theme Structure that supplies the clause with

its characteristic of message (the other structures are: Transitivity – representation, and

Mood – exchange) In other words, the clause is organized as message where one of its elements is called Theme and the other Rheme – the two parts together constitute a message The thematic organization of clauses is the most significant aspect for the development of a text By analyzing the thematic structure of a text, it is possible to observe its nature and understand how the writer exposed his concerns with the organization of the message

The Theme may be realized by a nominal group, a prepositional phrase, an adverbial group or even a clause in predicated theme The elements that go into the Theme are: the first experiential element in a clause (Participant/process/circumstance) and any element preceding the first experiencial element in the clause (modal/connective

adjuncts, conjunctions, finite, vocative) The Theme may be single or multiple, marked

or unmarked It is single when the thematic element is represented by just one

constituent – a nominal group, an adverbial group, or a prepositional phrase On the contrary, it is multiple when more than one element occur together in a clause in the position of Theme

There exist three types of theme: topical theme, textual theme and interpersonal one

Topical theme is the one that is conflated with an experiential element of the clause; it

may be participant, circumstance or process Textual theme shows the meaning

relevant to the context, both the co-text and context of situation It can be (i) continuity

adjuncts (continuatives) like “yes, no, well, now, etc.” (ii) structural adjuncts

(Structurals) like “and, or, either, then, so, but, suppose, given that, although, which,

who, where, etc.” and (iii) conjunctive adjuncts (Conjunctives) such as “that is, in

other words, briefly, actually, moreover, beside, as a result, in that case, despite, etc.”

Interpersonal theme indicates the kind of interaction between speakers or the

positions which they are taking The most common interpersonal Theme in English is

the Finite in interrogative clauses Others are modal adjuncts as “perhaps, always,

usually, of course, surely, in my opinion, honestly, kindly, wisely, etc.” and vocatives

An unmarked theme is one that is usual or typical and it often conflates with the Subject whereas a marked theme is one that is unusual In English, for instance, for a

declarative clause the standard structure is where the Theme is the subject of the clause But when the clause is organized differently, it presents a marked Theme, such as a conjunction According to Halliday (1994: 47), “the question which element of the clause is typically chosen as the Theme depends on the choice of Mood”

Table 1: Mood type and unmarked Theme selection (Halliday, 2004: 78)

declarative Nominal group functioning as Subject

Interrogative: yes/no First word (finite operator) of verbal group plus nominal

group functioning as Subject Interrogative :wh- Nominal group, adverbial group or prepositional phrase

functioning as interrogative (Wh-) element Imperative: “you” Verbal group functioning as Predicator, plus preceding don’t

if negative Imperative : “you and

me”

Let’s plus preceding don’t if negative

exclamative Nominal group or adverbial group functioning as exclamative

(Wh-) element

Followings are some examples to illustrate thematic structure:

(3a)

(3b)

(3c)

2.4 Cohesion

2.4.1 The Concept of Cohesion

The concept of cohesion in text is related to semantic ties or “relations of meanings that exist within the text, and that define it as a text” (Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 4) It occurs where the interpretation of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another, the one presupposes the other

Actualization of cohesion depends on both selection of some option from systematic

resources (reference, ellipsis, substitution, and conjunction) and the presence of some

other elements (repetition, synonym, antonym, meronymy and collocation) which

Theme Rheme Theme Rheme

Interpersonal Theme Topic Theme

Theme (unmarked) Rheme

Theme (Marked) Rheme

resolves the presupposition that this sets up We relatively refer to two types of cohesion: grammatical and lexical which will be explained in the following parts

2.4.2 Types of Cohesion

2.4.2.1 Grammatical Cohesion

In linguistics, grammar refers to the logical and structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given natural language Grammatical cohesion refers to the structural content of a text

refers to any reference that “points forward” to information that will be presented later

in the text Exophoric reference refers to any reference within the same nominal

group or phrase which follows the presupposed item For cohesion purposes, anaphoric reference is the most relevant as it “provides a link with a preceding portion of the text” (Halliday and Hasan 1976: 51); hence it is the most common usage For examples:

(4 a) Three blind mice, three blind mice

See how they run! See how they run!

(anaphoric reference)

(4 b) I would never have believed it They‟ve accepted the whole scheme

(cataphoric reference)

Functionally speaking, there are three main types of cohesive references: personal,

demonstrative, and comparative Personal reference keeps track of function through

the speech situation using noun pronouns like “he, him, she, her, etc.” and possessive

determiners like “mine, yours, his, hers, etc.” Demonstrative reference keeps track of

information through location using proximity references like “this, these, that, those,

here, there, then, the” Comparative reference keeps track of identity and similarity

through indirect references using adjectives like “same, equal, similar, different, else,

better, more” etc and adverbs like “so, such, similarly, otherwise, so, more”, etc

(Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 37-39) For instance:

(5 a) Can you hand Mary a program Hers has got lost

2.4.2.1.2 Substitution and ellipsis

Whereas referencing functions to link semantic meanings within text, substitution and ellipsis differs in that it operates as a linguistic link at the lexicogrammatical level In Bloor and Bloor (1995: 96), substitution and ellipsis are 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” The three types of classification for substitution and ellipsis: nominal, verbal and causal, reflect its grammatical function When something in text is being substituted, it follows that the substituted item maintains the same structural function as the presupposed item

In nominal substitution, the most typical substitution words are “one” and “ones” and

they substitute nouns Here is an illustration:

(6) These biscuits are stale – Get some fresh ones

In verbal Substitution, the most common substitute is the verb “do” and is sometimes

used in conjunction with “so” as in “do so” and substitute verbs Halliday and Hasan (1976: 125-126) point out that “do” often operates with the reference items “it” and

“that” but still have the main function as a verbal substitute because of its grammatical role

(7) Has anyone fed the cat? – Somebody must have done

In clausal Substitution, an entire clause is substituted and though it may seem to be

similar to either nominal or vebal substitution, the difference is the presupposed

anaphoric reference The linguistic items used as substitutes are “so, not” For

example:

(8) Has everyone gone home? – I hope not

Though substitution and ellipsis are similar in their function as the linguistic link for cohesion, ellipsis deffers in that it is “substitution by zero” (Halliday and Hasan, 1976:

142)

Nominal Ellipsis occurs within nominal group It is the ellipsis of a Head with

optional modification (premodifier / postmodifier) For example:

(9) Four other Oysters followed them and yet another four (Oysters)

Verbal Ellipsis appears within verbal group An elliptical group presupposes one or

more words from a previous verbal group For example:

(10) Have you been swimming? – Yes, I have (been swimming)

Clausal Ellipsis takes clause as the point of departure It relates to the question and

answer in a dialogue There may exist Yes / No Ellipsis or Wh – Ellipsis For instance:

(11) Is he at home? – Yes (He is at home.)

2.4.2.1.3 Conjunctive Cohesion

Another type of cohesion is conjunction that “constitutes a cohesive bond between two clauses” (Halliday, 1994: 180) Cohesive conjunction is the logical-semantic organization of propositions within a discourse It allows the speaker/ writer to set up relationships between ideas It is viewed in different ways, however, in this thesis; I would like to put an emphasis on Halliday‟s classification: Elaboration, Extension and Enhancement

In elaboration, “one clause elaborates on the meaning of another by further specifying

or describing it” (Halliday, 1994: 225) A clause can be elaborated by apposition (in

which some element is represented or restarted like “for example, in other words, to

illustrate….) or by clarification (in which some element is summarized, reinstated,

made more precise or clarified for purposes of discourse, for example, “actually, to sum

up, at least, in particular, etc.)

In Halliday‟s view when “one clause extends the meaning of another by adding

something new to it”, it is called extension It is displayed by (i) addition which

consists of positive (and, moreover,…), negative (nor), adversative(but, yet, on the

other hand, however…) and (ii) variation that is made up by replacive (on the

contrary, instead), subtractive (apart from that, except for that), and alternative

(alternatively)

Halliday (1994) also states that in enhancement, one clause enhances the meaning of

another by “qualifying it in one of a number of possible ways” There are four elements

that constitute enhancement: (i) spatio-temporal (then, next, before that, in the end, at

once, soon, meanwhile, etc.); (ii) manner (similarly, in a different way, thus, by such means, etc.); (iii) causal-conditional (so, therefore, in consequence, as a result, for that

purpose, though, nevertherless, etc); and (iv) matter (here, there, in that respect, in

other respects, etc.)

2.4.2.2.1.1 Repetition

Repetition refers to the same lexical item with the same meaning occuring more than

one in the same discourse

(12) I thought it would surely fall during the night I heart the wind It will fall

today and I shall die at the same time

Antonymy describes opposite or contrastive meaning between two word items

(14)He used to be thin Now, he is fat

2.4.2.2.1.4 Hyponym and co – hyponym

The main idea of hyponymy is “inclusion”; that is, a lower term (hyponym) is included

in an upper term (the superordinate)

(15)There are many kinds of fruit in the garden He likes apples and oranges

the best

In the example above, “apples, oranges”‟ are hyponyms of “fruit” and “apples” and

“oranges” are co-hyponyms

2.4.2.2.1.5 Superordinate and meronymy

Superordinate is known as co-occurence of the same or some higher level of generality Meronymy is where lexical items are in a “part-whole” relationship with each other Consequently, the relation between two parts is one of co-meronym

(16)Henry’s bought himself a new Jaguar He practically lives in the car

(17)The house is big He lives upstairs and she lives downstairs

In the examples above, “car” is superordinate of “Jaguar”; “upstairs, downstairs” are meronymy of “house”; “upstairs” and “downstairs” are co-meronymys

2.4.2.2.1.6 General word

General word is known as a class of general nouns which have generalised reference within the major noun classes, such as “human nouns”: people, person, man, woman, boy; “object nouns”: thing, object; “place nouns”: place

(18)There’s a boy climbing that tree The idiot’s going to fall if he doesn’t take

care

2.4.2.2.2 Collocation

Collocation pertains to lexical items that are likely to be found together within the same text Collocation occurs when a pair of words is not necessarily dependent upon

the same semantic relationship but rather they tend to occur within the same lexical environment (Halliday and Hasan, 1976) The closer lexical items are to each other

between sentences, the stronger the cohesive effect

2.5 Concluding Remarks

In this chapter, some fundamental concepts relevant to the purpose of the study have been discussed They are field, tenor and mode that make up the contextual system and also three functions of language that serve to express three largely independent sets of semantic choice: (i) the transitivity pattern shows representational meaning: what the clause is about, which is typically some process, with associated participants and circumstance; (ii) the mood pattern expresses interpersonal meaning: What the clause

is doing as a verbal exchange between speaker / writer and audience/ reader; and (iii) the theme pattern represents the organization of the message: how the clause relates to the surrounding discourse, and to the context of situation in which it is being produced Cohesion concepts and types are also taken into consideration in the study so as to provide a brief framework of systemic functional grammar for analysis The following chapter focuses on the analysis of theme-rheme and cohesive ties of the short story

“The Last Leaf” by O‟Henry based on the systemic functional approached mentioned before hand

CHAPTER 3 THEME – RHEME AND COHESIVE TIES IN THE SHORT

STORY “THE LAST LEAF” BY O’HENRY 3.1 Introduction

In this chapter, an effort is made to explore the thematic structure and cohesive ties of

a short story as a text, using the concepts which have been explored in the previous chapter as the theoretical framework The analysis will be carried out from the context

of the text chosen, the theme-rheme pattern to the grammatical and lexical cohesion analysis

3.2 The Context of the Chosen Text

The text is the short story “The Last Leaf” by O‟Henry published in 1907, in his

collection “The Trimmed Lamp and Other Stories” Set in Greenwich Village, which

was known in the late 19th to mid 20th centuries as an artists‟ haven, it depicts characters and themes typical of O‟Henry‟s works The author is O‟Henry, who is one

of the greatest American short story writers This story is one of 381 short stories he wrote in New York Most of them were about the lives of the common people there

“The Last Leaf” is one of the most famous short stories of O‟Henry, appearing in the New York World Sunday Magazine The targeted readers, therefore, are firstly New Yorkers and then people all over the world

It is an English text and it carries its own features in meaning and structure

3.3 The Analysis of the text in terms of theme - rheme

The thematic organization of the clauses (and clause complexes, where relevant) is the most significant factor in the development of the text As mentioned in chapter 2, the theme is the starting point of the message A part of the meaning of any clause lies in

which element is chosen as its Theme Examining the theme to find out the reason for that organization is hoped to reveal the ideological meaning underlying the text As

can be seen in Appendix I, there are 270 clauses which make up 178 clause

complexes in the text Of 250 clauses analyzed for theme, there exist all kinds of theme as pointed out by Halliday (1994): Topical theme, Textual theme and Interpersonal one

3.3.1 Topical Theme

Because the Theme is the starting point from which experiences unfolded in a clause,

it must include the whole of the first item in the experiential meanings Eggins (1994: 276) states that “When an element of the clause to which a Transititvity function can

be assigned occurs in first position in a clause, we describe it as a topical theme” The

topical theme consists of element(s) that represent a process, a participant in the process or a circumstance Looking at the table of the thematic analysis (see

Appendix II: The Theme – Rheme Pattern), we can see that topical themes in the

text account for the highest percentage in which 212 are participants, 26 are circumstances and 12 processes For example,

(Clause 140)

Participant: Carrier Relational process Participant : Attribute

Topical Theme (unmarked) Rheme

(Clause 25)

Participant: Goal Participant: Actor Material process

Topical Theme (marked) Rheme

(Clause 197)

Circumstance: Manner Participant: Actor Material process

Topical Theme (marked) Rheme

(Clause 86)

Process: Verbal Participant: Receiver

Topical Theme (unmarked) Rheme

The most frequently used elements in the position of a topical theme are Johnsy, Sue and Behrman As can be seen in Appendix II (The Theme – Rheme pattern), Johnsy appears as the topical themes of 47 clauses (approximately 19%), Sue functions as the topical themes of 44 clauses (approximately 18%) and Behrman, ranks third with 25

clauses (about 10%) Short stories or novels aim to transfer “information” (author‟s thinking) mainly through charaters The writer focuses on developing the characters

and from that the story unfolds It can be drawn from this analysis that the main

characters of the story are Johnsy, Sue, and Behrman

Clause by clause, the development proceeds as follows:

From the first clause to the 11th clause, of which there are 8 clauses analyzed for theme, the topical themes are mainly adverbs of place and nominal groups referring to places which are “In a little district west of Washington Square”, “The places”, “One street ”, “To quaint old Greenwich Village”, “At the top of a squatty, three-story

brick” The author wanted to start the story with its setting: an old village in a little district west of Washington Square, where poor artists live From this setting, the readers wait for what will happen next

From the 12th clause to 139th clause, “Sue” and “Johnsy” are transferred into the dominant Theme In this portion of the text, obviously, the author wanted to focus on these two main characters Johnsy and Sue met by chance and became close friends Johnsy was a girl painter who was dying of pneumonia She kept watching the ivy leaves fall outside the window and believed that when the last one fell she would die Sue is a loving, kind-hearted, sympathetic artist paving her way to Art who is the best friend of Johnsy She felt very sorry about Johnsy‟s illness but still tried whatever to comfort and encourage and take care of her

From the 140th clause to 154th clause, the topical theme which appears mainly is “Old Behrman”, so “Behrman” now becomes the Theme In fact, this old artist is one of the three main characters and the hero of the story However, at the beginning of the story, the other two main characters appear instead of Old Behrman He doesn‟t turn up until the middle of the story Moreover, in this paragraph, he only appears as the theme of

10 clauses, which makes him unimportant in readers‟eyes In most cases, the thematic structure is not arranged at random; instead, there is usually some meanings behind it O‟Henry‟s stories are perhaps best known for their surprise endings Here he wants to insure the surprise ending, heightens the impact we feel when we found this man suddenly and unexpectedly sacrifies himself for Johnsy

From here, “Sue” and “Johnsy” return to be the dominant theme As the “last” leaf staying on the tree, Johnsy realized that “It‟s a sin to want to die” and became optimistic that she was going to get well and make her dreams come true Eventually she recovered “Old Behrman” only becomes the theme again in clauses 242 and 244

where the readers are informed about his illness, and then at the end of the story from clause 257 where through Sue, the author tells us that Behrman painted the leaf when the last one on the ivy vine fell on the dreary and extremely cold night to restore the dying Johnsy‟s hope to live He appears to be the theme of only four clauses at the last paragraph of the story

- Mr Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital (Clause 257)

- He was ill only two days (Clause 258)

- His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold (Clause 260)

- He painted it there the night that the last leaf fell (Clause 269-270)

The two last themes are “Old Behrman” and “the last leaf” (Clause 269, 270) The

story reaches its climax and ends there The writer holds back important information until the last moment The last image which remains in readers‟ mind for a long time is Old Behrman and his masterpiece: The Last Leaf The last leaf, also the theme of the story, speaks highly of the sincere lasting friendship just as the evergreen ivy leaf and the noble spirit – selfless sacrifice

3.3.2 Interpersonal Theme

Interpersonal themes also play an important part in the text Dialogic portions between characters in “The Last Leaf” account for nearly half of the whole story The reason is the type of discourse of this text- telling a story, in which there is a lot of interaction between characters In the text, there are all kinds of interpersonal themes listed by

Halliday (1994: 53) which are “vocative”, “modal”, and “mood-marking” Twenty clauses contain interpersonal themes and of which fourteen are mood-marking in

clauses 36, 40, 43, 70, 75, 92, 97, 100, 105, 116, 122, 138, 163, and 265, five are

vocatives such as “doctor” in clause 44, “Johnsy, dear” in clause 116, “Mr Behrman”

in clause 172 and only two modals which express the speaker‟s attitude to the content

of the massage in clause complexes CXV, and CXXXVI Here are some examples:

(Clause 92)

Interpersonal theme: Mood-marking Topical theme

Rheme Theme

(Clause 235)

Interpersonal theme: Vocative Topical theme

Rheme Theme

3.3.3 Textual Theme

In this text, there are a large number of Textual themes, in which, structurals are the

most frequently used They are mainly the positive addition “and”, the adversative addition “but” and the simple time “then” They occur in 31 clause complexes (VII,

XIV, XVII, XX, XXIX, XXXII, XXXV, LV, LXVII, LXXIII, LXXIX, CII, CV, CXIII, CXV, CXXII, CXXVI, CXXXII, CXXXVIII, CXLI, CXLIV, CXLV, CXLIX, CLIII, CLIV, CLVI, CLIX, CLXII, CLXIII, CLXVII, and CLXXIV) to make the text

more cohesive and coherent, expressing the logical relations of addition and enhancemen For example:

- It will fall today, and I shall die at the same time (Clause complex CXXXVIII)

- There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made mor

comfortable (Clause complex CLXIII)

- Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking (Clause

complex CXXXVI)

There are only 2 continuatives which signal a new move: a response in dialogues (“well” in clause 25 and “oh” in clause 93) Conjunctives also appear in the text (“besides” in 126 and “for the rest” in 152) which together with structurals and

continuatives make the story more coherent and easy to follow

3.3.4 Marked and Unmarked Theme

As can be seen in Appendix II, of 250 clause analysed for theme, 27 are marked

themes and 223 are unmarked ones According to Halliday (1994: 38), unmarked

themes are those that follow the standard structure, “the form we tend to use if there is

no prior context leading up to it, and no positive reason for choosing anything else” In English, for instance, for a declarative clause, the standard structure is where the theme

is the subject of the clause But when the clause is organized differently, it presents a marked theme

Unmarked themes are mostly used in the text Most of them are subjects of

declarative clauses, for example, “These places” in clause 3, “an artist” in clause 5,

“Johnsy” in clause 12, 55,… Some are finite operators and subjects in “yes/no” interrogatives or the Wh-element in “Wh-” interrogatives such as “what” in clause 70,

“why” in clause 167, “Didn’t the doctor” in clause 92, and “Couldn’t you” in clause

122 The rest ones are predicators and “Let‟s” in imperative clauses, for instance,

“tell” in clause 86, “Don’t be” in clause 97, “Try” in 104, and “let’s” in clause 100

For example:

(In a declarative clause)

One street crosses itself a time or two (Clause 4)

(In an interrogative clause)

Couldn’t you draw in the other room? (Clause 122)

(In an imperative clause)

Don’t try to move (Clause 138)

In the text, there are 27 marked themes When the author put his word in an abnormal

way, there must be something unusual he tries to express, for instance, he wants to make an emphasis and draw the reader‟s attention, or he intends to show his personal

emotion or attitude In the text, at the very beginning of the story, circumstances of

place are used as marked theme, which create the setting of the story: an old village in

a little district west of Washington Square, where poor artists live For example,

broken themselves into small strips called “places”.( Clause 1)

- To quaint old Greenwich Village, the art people soon came prowling , hunting

for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low

rents.(Clause 8)

- At the top of a squatty, three –story brick, Sue and Johnsy had their

studio.(Clause11)

Circumstance of time are also widely used as marked theme, for example, “In

November” in clause 18, “One morning” in clause 27, “three days ago” in clause 80,

“now” in clause 82, “For half an hour” in clause 181, “Through the twilling” in clause

217, … That is because of the kind of the text – telling a story Thanks to these

circumstances, the readers will find it easy to follow the events happening in the story

In clause 200, “still dark green near its stem, with its serrated edges tinted with the

yellow of dissolution and decay” are used as marked them which emphasizes the

image of the last leaf- the masterpiece of Mr Old Behrman, and the theme of the story

as well

There is a kind of what Danes (1974: 7) calls “thematic progression” in the text, though this pattern is not always consistent Here are some illustrations

(Clauses 34, 35, 36, 37)

That she is not going to get well

Has she anything on her mind?

As can be seen in the Theme – Rheme analysis above, “Johnsy” is the theme

throughout 4 clauses Here it is the only one which enters into the line of development

of the text The “thematic progression” can be illustrated as follows:

But his feet strod slowly through the maze of the narrow and …(clause 21)

As can be seen in the Theme-Rhene analysis above, “Mr Pneumonia” is the rheme of

2 clauses 19 and 20, then in clauses 21, 22, 23, it is transferred into the theme, and then settles down again in the rheme in clauses 24 and 25 So, we can have the

“thematic progression” as follows:

This is the method of text development to carry the story toward and it is what Halliday (1994: 2) calls “the text with a stepwise structure”

It can be said in summary that in the text, there are all kinds of theme mentioned by

Halliday (1994) in which Topical themes play the most important part in the text development “By analyzing the Theme-Rheme structure of the text clause by clause,

we can gain an insight into its texture and understand how the writer made clear to us the nature of his underlying concerns” (Halliday, 1994: 105) (For more detail, see

Appendix II.)

3.4 The Cohesion of the Text

The text is very cohesive, mainly due to lexical cohesion and referencing Cohesiveness in text creates texture and texture is due to the semantic ties that exist between clauses and sentences Halliday and Hasan (1976: 297) refer to texture in text

as either being “tight”, which means that there are many cohesive ties, or “loose”, which means that there would be fewer cohesive ties, with variances of both in the same text within and across paragraph boundaries Starting with referencing and finishing with lexical cohesion, the textual analysis will prove that cohesion is an important aspect for creating meaning within text

3.4.1 Grammatical Cohesion

As mentioned in chapter 2, there are four main types of grammatical cohesive devices: reference, ellipsis, substitution, and conjunction The analysis of the grammatical cohesive devices of the text is based on the framework of Halliday (1994: 2); Halliday and Hasan (1976: 10)

3.4.1.1 Reference

There are three main kinds of reference: personal reference, demonstrative reference, and comparative reference, which contain anaphoric reference, cataphoric and exophoric one in the text The table below shows a great deal of all reference found in

the text The first column represents the cohesive devices, the second one is about interpretative source, the third gives the phoric status of the tie and chain relation (the address of all the preceding members in the chain) is present in the last column

Table 2: Reference of the Text

Cohesive

These („place‟) 2.“places” anaphoric 3-2

This (street) 4 street anaphoric 5-4

This (route) 5 street anaphoric 6-5-4

They 8 the art people anaphoric 9-8

They 11 Sue and Johnsy anaphoric 15-11

Their 11 Sue and Johnsy anaphoric 16-15-11

The (doctors) exophoric

The (colony) anaphoric 18-10

This (ravager) 19 Pneumonia anaphoric 20-19

His 20 this ravager anaphoric 21-20-19

The (maze) 21 maze of the narrow and

moss-grown „place‟ cataphoric 21-21

She 26.Johnsy anaphoric 28-26-25

He 27 the busy doctor anaphoric 30-27

He 30 the busy doctor anaphoric 31-30-27

That (chance) 28 chance anaphoric 32-28

Her 28 Johnsy anaphoric 32-28-26-25

her 32 Johnsy anaphoric 34-32-28-26-25

She 34 Johnsy anaphoric 35-34-32-28-26-25 She 35 Johnsy anaphoric 36-35-34-32-28-26-25 She 36 Johnsy anaphoric 37-36-35-34-32-28-26-

25 She 37 Johnsy anaphoric 40-37-36-35-34-32-28-

26-25