an analysis of lexical cohesive devices in aesop's fables = phân tích phương tiện liên kết từ vựng trong truyện ngụ ngôn của êzốp

1.5 Introduction about Aesop and Aesop‟s fables 19 Chapter 2: Previous studies on lexical cohesive devices 21 Chapter 3: Lexical cohesive devices in the English version of Aesop’s fable

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES DEPARTMENT

Supervisor: NGUYỄN THÚY HƯƠNG, M.A

Hanoi, September 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1.5 Introduction about Aesop and Aesop‟s fables 19

Chapter 2: Previous studies on lexical cohesive devices 21 Chapter 3: Lexical cohesive devices in the English version of Aesop’s fables 23

Appendix 1: 25 chosen Aesop‟s fables for analysis of lexical cohesive devices

Appendix 2: Number of occurrence of lexical cohesive devices in 25 chosen Aesop‟s fables for analysis

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

The concept of discourse analysis was first studied in the late 1970s and 1980s from different aspects and views of linguists It has been paid much attention to by linguists since its appearance Halliday and Hasan (1976) put the emphasis on the social functions of language Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson (1974), whose exemplary study of turn-taking in ordinary conversation made a first seminal contribution to the understanding of the sequential organization of interaction Then the concept continued to attract the attention of the late twentieth century‟s linguists such as Cook (1989), Hatim and Mason (1990), Swales (1990), Simpson (1997), etc Through linguistic history, discourse analysis is found important in providing insights into various aspects of language in use and therefore of great value to language teaching In reality, traditional language teaching seems to deal merely with pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary of a language whereas the ability to produce a grammatically correct sentence is not sufficient to use a language for powerful communication Discourse analysis came into being to put such knowledge of language into action for communicating more successfully

Cohesion and coherence, as sub-concepts of discourse analysis are greatly essential in discourse construction and comprehension for communication It is believed that the linguistic features of great importance and interest are those of generic structure and cohesion The belief comes from the fact that these two factors make influential contribution in defining a genre of discourse As a component of cohesion, lexical cohesion is therefore worth being investigated

Fable which is defined as “a traditional short story that teaches moral lessons, especially one with animals as characters” ( Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary, 2000: 470) is a genre of discourse Of all the great authors of fables, Aesop is the earliest and best known His short and simple fables own their typical features distinguished from other genres

of discourse such as an article or a speech Apart from its contribution to discourse as a genre, fables are considered the valuable authentic materials that play a very important part in students‟ cultural enrichment, language enrichment as well as personal involvement In language teaching, they represent great potentials for learners, especially learners at the

elementary level Short and simple as fables are, they consequently seem to be the most suitable authentic material for students‟ language proficiency at low level in rural areas For all these reasons, this research is carried out with the hope that an analysis of lexical cohesion devices in Aesop‟s fables is helpful for the application of fables in English teaching and learning in Vietnam

2 Aims of the study

The research is intended to explore lexical cohesive devices as one discourse feature in Aesop‟s fables To be more specific, it aims at:

 Identifying lexical cohesive devices used in Aesop‟s fables

 Realizing the role and contribution of lexical cohesive devices in constructing a fable

3 Scope of the study

The concept of cohesion is large This study only focuses on the lexical cohesive devices and explores the process in which coherence is achieved in the formal written genre of fables Short and simple fables of Aesop are studied to work out typical lexical cohesive devices used in such genre of discourse Data analyzed in the study is taken from 25 of Aesop‟s fables chosen at random that were translated into English by Laura Gibbs for World‟s Classics in 2002

4 Methods of the study

To attain the aim of the study, the research is conducted in the following steps:

First, data necessary for the study are collected Relevant theories are read and extracted from books of great linguists such as Halliday and Hasan (1976), Cook (1989), Brown and Yule ( 1983), Hatim and Mason ( 1990), Swales (1990) Aesop‟s fables are also collected to serve the purpose of analyzing lexical cohesive devices used

Second, a framework of lexical cohesive devices is set up in order to find out the defining characteristics of fables as a genre of discourse This is done on the ground of several linguists‟ relevant theories and their viewpoints

Third, three previous studies on lexical cohesive devices used in other genres of discourse are reviewed for comparison with the use of lexical cohesive devices in fables

Then, 25 selected fables are analyzed in terms of lexical cohesive devices: reiteration and collocations All the 25 fables are comprehensively analyzed to identify the lexical cohesive devices used; their frequencies of occurrence are counted to make out the significance level of each device to fables

Last, some conclusions are drawn based on the data analysis and some implications for English teaching at elementary level are also proposed

The study is approached in both inductive and deductive ways; the three successive methods chosen for the study can be named as descriptive, analytical and comparative

5 Organization of the study

The study is composed of three parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion The Introduction part presents the rationale, the aims, the scope, methods and organization of the study

The Developments part consists of three chapters:

Chapter 1 discusses the theoretical background related to discourse analysis The concepts of

discourse and discourse analysis, the concept of genre and the distinction between genre and register are made clear The theoretical knowledge of cohesion and fables are also mentioned

in this chapter

Chapter 2 reviews some previous studies on similar issue

Chapter 3 focuses on the analysis of lexical cohesive devices employed in Aesop‟s fables

The conclusion part reviews the study and ends it with some findings, implications for teaching and learning, and suggestions for further studies

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Theoretical background

1.1 Theory of discourse

1.1.1 Definition of discourse

Since its introduction to modern science the term 'discourse' has taken various,

sometimes very broad meanings Originally the word 'discourse' comes from Latin 'discursus'

which denotes 'conversation, speech' The concept of discourse has been discussed for a long time and linguists have different ways of understanding and defining it To begin with, Widdowson (1979:98) defines “discourse is a use of sentences to perform acts of communication which cohere in large communicative unit, ultimately establishing a rhetorical patterns which characterizes the piece of language as a whole as a kind of communication” Meanwhile, according to Cook (1989) “discourse is stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified and purposeful” His viewpoint was later shared with by Crystal (1992:25) who states that “discourse is a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a cohesive unit such as a sermon, an argument, a joke or a narrative” In Cook‟s view, such stretches of language can only be obtained if they are considered “in their full textual, social, psychological context” In basic sense, it may be defined as “the language in use for communication” hence, discourse is supposed to be meaningful (Cook, 1989)

There also exist a number of other linguists‟ viewpoints on discourse In 1990, Hatim and Mason contributed another definition that implied discourse is “a matter of expression of attitude”; “a mode of speaking and writing which involves the participants in adopting a particular on certain area of socio-cultural activity: racial discourse, scientific discourse,

domestic discourse Then, seven years later, in 1997, in the book called “Language through literature”, Simpson claimed discourse is “the term reserved for the highest level of linguistic

organization in language study” It is also stated to refer to the “structure and function of language beyond the level of sentence” by him

To summarize, the concept of discourse is still under discussion, but basically, the majority of linguists share a common view when defining it It can be noted that their definitions are expressed in different ways but all emphasize the two most important aspects of

discourse regarding its structure and function In terms of structure, a discourse is a well- formed organization above the level of a sentence; in terms of function, a discourse serves as a means of communication

1.1.2 Discourse versus Text

The distinction between the word “discourse” and “text” is still in controversy As observed, three trends of reasonizing have emerged to clarify the controversial distinction: For some linguists, these two terms seem to be used almost interchangeably; Some see discourse

as a process and text as a product; and in others‟ view text is used for writing and discourse for speech Following the first trend is Halliday and Hasan (1976) who simply state: “we can define text (discourse) in the simplest way perhaps by saying that it is language that is functional” They view text as employed to refer to discourse and see text as a “semantic unit” characterized by cohesion In their viewpoint, “a text is a passage of discourse which is coherent in these two regards: it is coherent with respect to the context of situation and therefore consistent in register; and it is coherent with respect to itself, and therefore cohesive” (1976:23) Brown and Yule, Widdowson and Cook are the followers of the second trend To prove his points, Brown and Yule (1983:3, cited in Nunan, 1993:6) argue that text is “the representation of discourse and the verbal record of a communication act” Then, Widdowson(1983:100) continues to point out the difference and the interrelationship between the two as: “discourse is a communicative process by means of interaction Its situational outcome is a change in state of affairs: information is conveyed, intentions made clear, its linguistic product is text” In favor of the third trend is Crystal (1992: 72) who insists discourse is a “continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, whereas a text is “a piece of naturally occurring spoken, written or signed discourse identified for purposes of analysis”

In conclusion, there remains a disagreement about the meaning of the terms

“discourse” and “text” It is, however, most agreed that both discourse and text need to be defined in terms of “meaning” and that coherent text/piece of discourse are those that form a meaningful one To put it in another way, discourse is a general term to refer to all the act of verbal communication, whereas text is simply a verbal record of the whole communicative process (that is discourse) in which many situational factors are involved, it can be both

written and spoken, and there is no limit to the size of the text- “a text consists of one word or

it may be of considerable length” (Swales, 1990).Accordingly, text is purely linguistic, formal object while discourse has both linguistic and non-linguistic property

1.1.3 Discourse analysis

The first modern linguist who commenced the study of the relation of sentences and coined the name 'discourse analysis', which afterwards denoted a branch of applied linguistics, was Zellig Harris , an American linguist (Cook 1989:13) The emergence of this study is a result of not only linguistic research, but also of researchers engaged in other fields of inquiry, particularly sociology, psychology, anthropology and psychotherapy Hence, it is seen as “a new branch of linguistics which grew out of the work in different disciplines in the 1960s and early 1970s, including linguistics, philosophy, logic, semiotics, psychology, anthropology” (Van, 2000)

A significant contribution to the evolution of discourse analysis has been made by British and American scholars In Britain the examination of discourse turned towards the study

of the social functions of language A thorough account of communication in various situations such as debates, interviews, doctor-patient relations, paying close attention to the intonation of people participating in talks as well as manners particular to circumstances was the first concern of British scholars Americans, on the other hand, focused on examining small communities of people and their discourse in genuine circumstances and on conversation analysis inspecting narratives in addition to talks and the behavior of speakers as well as patterns repeating in given situations

Being identified and studied properly in a large scale and continuously, discourse analysis is understood as a primarily linguistic study examining the use of language by its native population whose major concern is investigating language functions along with its forms, produced both orally and in writing Moreover, identification of linguistic qualities of various genres, vital for their recognition and interpretation, together with cultural and social aspects which support its comprehension, is the domain of discourse analysis To put it in another way, the branch of applied linguistics dealing with the examination of discourse attempts to find patterns in communicative products as well as their correlation with the

circumstances in which they occur, which are not explainable at the grammatical level (Carter, 1993:23)

It was in 1973 that Discourse analysis was dealt perfectly and correctly in M.A.K Halliday‟s functional approach to language His approach is completely influential in British discourse analysis with the emphasis on the social function and the thematic and informational structure of speech and writing

of field, mode and tenor For some scholars, context seems just to be the minimal stretch of language that helps to understand what is written or spoken Halliday (1994:5) concluded that context “refers to the events that are going on around when people speak and write” Guy Cook (1994) observes that context can be used in both a broad and a narrow sense: in the narrow sense, it refers to knowledge of factors outside of the text under consideration; in the broad sense it refers to knowledge of these factors and to knowledge of other parts under consideration, sometimes referred to as “co-context” The role of context in discourse analysis was, as a result, then realized David Nunan (1993:7) defines: “Context refers to the situation

giving use to the discourse and within which the discourse is embedded” In other words, context helps define reference; context helps establish and accumulate presuppositions; context helps hearer detect conversational implicature; the discourse elaborates the context and the context helps interpret the meaning of utterances in the discourse

1.1.4.2 Register

Register, or context of situation as it is formally termed, is “ the set of meanings, the configuration of semantic patterns, that are typically drawn upon under the specific conditio ns, along with the words and structures that are used in the realization of these meanings" (Halliday, 1978:23) It is concerned with the variables of field, tenor, and mode, and is a useful abstraction which relates variations of language use to variations of social context Therefore, register analysis of linguistic texts, which enables us to uncover how language is maneuvered to make meaning, has received popular application in (critical) discourse analysis and (foreign) language teaching pedagogy

Register is considered to supplement usefully for the concept of cohesion since “the two together effectively define a text”, Halliday and Hasan (1976:22) This traces back to their belief that “the register is the set of meanings, the configuration of semantic patterns that are typically drawn upon under the specified conditions, along with the words and structures that are used in the realization of these meanings” In their viewpoint , register are discussed in terms of the three features of context known as field, mode and tenor that are claimed to be “ highly general concept for describing how the context of situation determines the kinds of meaning that are expressed”

Field known as reference to “what is going on” ( i.e the field of activity) is “ the total

event, in which the text is functioning together with the purposive activity of speaker or writer;

it thus includes the subject matter as one element in it” (Halliday and Hasan , 1976:22) In other words, field is the kind of language use which reflects the “purposive role” or the “social function of the text” as Gregory and Carroll (1978) called, or it equals the setting and purpose

of the interaction

Mode refers to the medium of the language activity including channel Halliday and

Hasan (1976:22) defines mode as “the function of the text in the event, including therefore

both the channel taken by the language- spoken or written, extempore or prepared - and its genre or rhetorical mode as narrative, didactive, persuasive, „phatic communion‟ and so on” Hatim (1990:50) later refers channel to “the vehicle through which communication takes place, is an important aspect of mode It transcends speech and writing to include other communicative occurrence such as the telephone conversation, the essay, the business letter, etc”

Tenor refers to “the type of role interaction, the set of relevant social relations,

permanent and temporary among the participants involved” (Halliday and Hasan, 1976:22) It

is the tenor that “relays the relationship between the addresser and the addressee” Consequently, it is considered to refer to who is taking part, their statuses and roles and points out what kind of relationship is among the participants

In summary, field, mode and tenor collectively defines the context of situation of a text Nevertheless, there is overlap between all three variables The values accruing from the three dimensions of language use help us define and identify registers The three variables are interdependent: a given level of formality (tenor) influences and is influenced by a particular level of technicality (field) in an appropriate channel of communication (mode) Hatim (1990:51) These three register variables delineate the relationships between language function and language form In a specific way, a register is constituted by "the linguistic features which are typically associated with a configuration of situational features- with particular values of the field, mode and tenor" (Halliday, 1976:22) For example, the tenor of a text, which concerns the relationship between the addresser and the addressee, can "be analyzed in terms

of basic distinctions such as polite-colloquial-intimate, on a scale of categories which range from formal to informal" (Hatim and Mason, 1990:50) In the same vein, the mode of an interaction which manifests the nature of the language code being used can be distinguished in terms of, among other things, spoken and written

1.1.4.3 Genre

Genre has been a controversial topic for a large number of linguists for years It is often employed to refer to different styles of literary discourse, such as sonnets, tragedies and romances Recently, the term has been adapted by functional linguists to refer to different

types of communicative events (Martin, 1984; Swales, 1990) - A communicative event is defined by Nunan (1993: 17) as a “piece of oral or written interaction which contains a complete message; the event itself may involve oral language (for example, a sermon, a casual conversation) or written language (for example, a poem, a newspaper headlines) In 1985, Martin offered a relatively simple definition with illustrations about genre: “Genres are how things get done, when language is used to accomplish them They range from literary to far from literary forms: poems, narratives, expositions, lectures, seminars, recipes, manuals, appointment making, service encounters, and news, broadcast and so on The term genre is used here to embrace each of the linguistically realized activity types which comprise so much

of our culture” (Martin 1985, cited in Swales 1990) Nonetheless, Martin‟s definition is thought not to reveal much clearly the nature of genre, and how each genre differs from one another At the same time, Kress also contributed an idea that genres are “conventionalized forms of text which reflects the functions and goals involved in particular social occasions as well as the purposes of the participants in them” (Kress 1985:19, cited in Hatim and Mason, 1990:69) Genre, afterwards, was also studied further by Hatim and Mason themselves Under their look, “genres are viewed in terms of a set of features which we perceive as being appropriate to a given social occasion” This, to a great extent, means the conventions of the social occasion are the key factor in determining genres; and there is a relationship between elements of lexis, grammar, etc and the social occasion associated with particular genres

In a nutshell, whatever meaning genre is associated; it is still seen as one of the two perspectives from which discourse is frequently studied beside register It is a culturally and linguistically distinct form of discourse

1.2 Cohesion

1.2.1 The concept of cohesion

Halliday and Hasan were the two linguists who published good studies of cohesion

within English discourse In the book called Cohesion in English (1976) they define cohesion

“is a semantic one; it refers to relation of meaning that exist within text, and that define as a text” It is understood, as contrasted with register, is not concerned with what a text means Rather, it refers to a set of meaning relations that exist within the text According to them, the function of cohesion is to relate one part of a text to another part of the same text Cohesion is

the quality of well-formed discourses (texts) that gives them an internal unity, making them

“hang together” Sentences flow smoothly from one to another within that discourse This idea

is later taken up by Quirk (1985:1423) and restated by Cook (1994:29) who maintain cohesion

is “the network of lexical, grammatical and other relations which link various parts of a text” These relations or ties organize and, to some extent, create a text, for instance, by requiring readers to interpret words and expressions by reference to other words and expressions in the surrounding sentences and paragraphs Cohesion is a surface relation and it connects together the actual words and expressions that we can see or hear It, therefore, may be defined as the formal linguistic realization of semantic and pragmatic relations between clauses and sentences in a text In basic sense, cohesion refers to “the formal relationship that causes texts

to cohere or stick together It is indicated by grammatical, logical and lexical relationships found among or between the sentences of a text” (Hoa Ng., 2000: 23)

1.2.2 Cohesion versus Coherence

It is commonly known that the defining characteristic of discourse is “coherence” The study would introduce two typical linguists‟ views as a base for understanding it Palmer (1983) writes: “Coherence refers to the rhetorical devices, to ways of writing and speaking that bring about order and unity and emphasis” Nonetheless, the linguistic studies through periods show disagreement on what cohesion is and how it defers from coherence for the fact both the terms come from the verb “cohere” which means sticking together Nunan (1993) also states coherence is the “feeling that sequences of sentence or utterance seem to hang together” Coherence is thus understood as the extent to which discourse is perceived to hang together

Through linguistic history, some linguists have made great efforts to distinguish these two terms Richard et al (1992:62) point out: “cohesion is the grammatical and or lexical relationship between the different elements of a text This may be the relationship between different sentences or different parts of a sentence”; and coherence is “the relationship which links the meanings of utterance in a discourse or of the sentence in a text” Correspondingly, if cohesion refers to linguistic elements that make a discourse semantically coherent, then coherence involves with what makes a text semantically meaningful Cohesion is seen as one

of the ways of indicating coherence or in other words, cohesion is the realization of coherence

From Richard‟s outlook, cohesion exists within text and adds to the coherence of text and coherence is something created by the reader in the act of reading the text It may be useful to think of coherence as something the reader establishes or hopes to establish in the process of reading connected discourse As a continuation, Larson later claims: “the determination of coherence is fundamentally an interpretation by a reader It is part of a transaction between text and reader, between reader‟s world and the writer‟s language”; “coherence is both text-related and a reader-related phenomenon”

To conclude, cohesion and coherence are similar in that both concern the way stretches

of language are connected to each other, yet these two aspects of discourse are interrelated, which make a text or discourse coherent and different from random ones Coherence is believed to be embodied by a system of cohesive devices and cohesion is mainly used to ensure coherence

1.2.3 Cohesion and discourse structure

Halliday and Hasan (1976:10) define discourse structure is a type of structure - the structure of some postulated unit higher than a sentence such as a paragraph, or some larger entity such as episode or topic unit In their viewpoint, the concept of cohesion is to set up to account for relations in discourse, but in rather a different way, without the implication there is some structural unit that is above the sentences Cohesion, in this view, refers to the range of possibilities that exist for linking something with what has been previously mentioned As a matter of fact, it is the sentence that is the pivotal entity here- whatever is put together within one sentence is part of a text- we can interpret cohesion, in practice, as the set of semantic resources for linking a sentence with what have been mentioned before From the standpoints

of Halliday and Hasan: “the determinant of whether a set of sentences do or do not constitute a text depends on cohesive relationship within and between the sentences” The relation between them creates cohesion Added to this, they assure: “We have to show how sentences, which are structurally independent of one another, may be linked together through particular features of their interpretation; and it is for this that the concept of cohesion is required”

1.2.4 Types of cohesion

The seminal work on cohesion done by Halliday and Hasan (1976) has been found to

be a starting point for any research dealing with cohesion In their viewpoint, the classification

of cohesion is based on the linguistic form Some forms of cohesion are realized through grammar and others through the vocabulary Cohesion is a semantic relation, but it is realized through the lexico – grammatical system They also introduce the most comprehensive description and analysis of cohesive devices which identifies five different types including Reference, Substitution, Ellipses, Conjunction and Lexical cohesion According to them, Reference, Substitution, Ellipses are grammatical cohesion in that they involve a closed- system items Lexical cohesion involves a kind of choice that is open-ended Conjunction is on the borderline of grammatical and lexical since conjunctive items are grammatical, but some are lexical as well- Halliday and Hasan (1976: 303)

There remain other ideas in naming, classifying or grouping types of cohesion The study is based on the two great linguists‟ classification for its simplicity and clear understandability As cohesion is realized through both grammar and vocabulary, it has been classified into two kinds: grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion which work together to create a text

1.2.4.1 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, hence, refers to the structural content It can be defined as the surface marking in written discourse and between sentences and turns in speech For this reason, grammatical cohesion can be grouped into 4 types: reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction

Reference: is the use of words which do not have meanings of their own, such as

pronouns and articles To infer their meaning the reader has to refer them to something else that appears in the text

Substitution: in order to avoid repeating the same word several times in one paragraph

it is replaced, most often by one, do or so In other words, substitution is a relation in the

wording rather than meaning; they are alternate words used in the place of a repetition of a particular item

Ellipsis: is very similar to substitution, however, it replaces a phrase by a gap It

equals to the omission of noun, verb, or a clause on the assumption that it is understood from the linguistic context

Conjunction: specifies the relationship between clauses, or sentences Most frequent

relations of sentences are: addition (and, moreover e.g.), temporality (afterwards, next…) and causality (because, since…)

Reiteration: Halliday and Hasan, (1976: 278) point out reiteration is “a form of lexical

cohesion which involves the repetition of a lexical item, at one end of the scale; the use of a general word to refer back to a lexical item, at the other end of the scale, and a number of things in between – the use of a synonym, near synonym, or superordinate” They also explain again in the next page (279): “when we talk about reiteration , we are including not only the repetition of the same lexical item but also the occurrence of a related item, which may be anything from a synonym or near synonym of the original to a general word dominating the entire class” Then, they categorize any instance of reiteration may be (a) the same word( repetition) (b) a synonym or near- synonym, (c) a superordinate or (d) a general word

Collocation: J.R Firth (1890-1960), a British linguist, is usually considered to be the

"father" of collocation It was also he that first used the term "collocation" in its linguistic sense In the words of Halliday and Hasan (1976) collocation represents “the most problematical part of lexical cohesion” Collocation is the type of cohesion that is achieved through the association of lexical items that regularly co-occur Mc Carthy (1991:65), in the meanwhile, argues: “It‟s debatable whether collocation properly belongs to the notion of

lexical cohesion, since collocation only refers to the probability that lexical items will occur, and is not a semantic relation between words

co-The understanding of reiteration and collocation will be discussed deeper in the section 3.3 of the study with illustration from Aesop‟s fables in the English version

1.3 The narrative structure

Labov and Waletzky (1967:41) first presented the diagrammatic representation of the internal structure of a narrative with the four components including orientation; complication; evaluation and resolution Afterwards, Labov (1972) introduces „abstract‟ before orientation arguing that the addition was necessary since „it is not uncommon for narrators to begin with one or two clauses summarizing the whole story‟ He hence presented the basic structure of a narrative in a model composed of six ordered units, namely abstract, orientation, complicating action, evaluation, result or resolution and (optional) coda - (Labov 1972: 363)

Orientation: introduces the reader to significant background details in a story such as

characters, time, or setting In „orientation‟, reference is made to the identification in some way of the time, place, persons and their activity or the situation in which they find themselves all within the first several narrative clauses In addition, orientation clauses may provide background information such as knowledge that characters in the story may or may not have, mood of characters or other information that is necessary to understanding the narrative

Complication: The story escalates as the complicating action and complication

develops and reaches a high point in the evaluation

Evaluation: where the significance of the story is clear The term „high point‟ is used

to refer to the point at which a story builds through the recapitulation of events and then often suspends the action at this crisis point while the importance of the story is highlighted Labov (1972) argues that „evaluation‟ is possibly the most important part of a narrative that has unfortunately been ignored by many in the analysis of the narrative Evaluation is “the means used by the narrator to indicate the point of the narrative, its raison d‟être: why it was told, and what the narrator is getting at.” (Labov 1972:366)

Resolution: Subsequently, resolution of the crisis is provided through more

recapitulation of events This means that narratives are organized around one or more key points that are stressed by the narrator

Coda: refers to the way a narrative is concluded Codas have the property of bridging

the gap between the moment of time at the end of the narrative proper and the present They bring the narrator and the listener back to the point at which they entered the narrative The coda can thus be seen as a means of solving the problem of indicating the end of a „turn‟ at speaking (Labov, 1972: 366) Codas are structural in function and serve to signal the end of a narrative

In summary it is suggested that a complete narrative begin with an abstract, followed by

an orientation, it then proceeds to the complicating action, evaluation and resolution It then returns the listener to the present time with the coda

1.4 Fables and its properties

1.4.1 Definition of fables

The word "fable" comes from the Latin "fabula" (a "story"), itself derived from "fari" ("to speak") with the -ula suffix that signifies "little": hence, a "little story" In its original sense "fable" denotes a brief, succinct story that is meant to impart a moral lesson, but, in a pejorative sense, a "fable" may be a deliberately invented or falsified account of an event or circumstance An author of fables is termed a "fabulist," and the word "fabulous," strictly speaking, "pertains to a fable or fables." In recent decades, however, "fabulous" has come frequently to be used in the quite different meaning of "excellent" or "outstanding"

A fable is shortly defined, in Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary (2000), as “a traditional short story that teaches a moral lesson, especially one with animals as characters” The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (6th edition) also gives another definition of a fable : “

a brief allegorical narrative, in verse or prose, which illustrates a moral thesis or satirizing human beings; the characters of a fable are usually animals who talk and act like people while retaining their animals traits” Also, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, a fable is “a

succinct story, in prose or verse, that features animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized (given human qualities), and that illustrates a moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim” Expressed

in different ways as it is, a fable can be easily memorized as very short tales containing some moral teaching with animals as characters

1.4.2 General characteristics of a fable

A fable sets out to teach the reader or listener a lesson they should learn about life The narrative drives towards the closing moral statement and it is the clear presence of a moral that

distinguishes fables from other folk tales Accordingly, fables can be described as a didactic

mode of literature It is one of the most enduring forms of folk literature, spread abroad so can

be found in the literature of almost every country As a genre of discourse in traditional literature, fables own the characteristics regarding their theme, plot and structure, character, style as follows:

Theme: Although they use many of the typical themes, characters and settings of

traditional stories, fables have a very specific purpose that strongly influences their content A fable sets out to teach the reader or listener a lesson they should learn about life The narrative drives towards the closing moral statement, the fable‟s theme: the early bird gets the worm, where there‟s a will there‟s a way, work hard and always plan ahead for lean times, charity is a virtue The clear presence of a moral distinguishes fables from other folk tales

Plot and structure: Plot is overtly fictitious as the point of the story is its message,

rather than an attempt to convince the reader of a real setting or characters There is a shared understanding between storyteller and audience that the events told did not actually happen They are used as a means to an end, a narrative metaphor for the ethical truth being promoted

For this reason, fables do not carry any non-essential narrative baggage There are usually few characters and often only two who are portrayed as simple stereotypes rather than multidimensional heroes or villains Narrative structure is short (sometimes just a few sentences) and simple and there is limited use of description Action and dialogue are used to

move the story on because the all-important moral is most clearly evident in what the main characters do and say

Character: The main characters are often named in the title (the town mouse and the

country mouse, the North Wind and the Sun) and they are also frequently animals, another subtle way of signaling the fictional, „fabulous‟ nature of the story and its serious purpose Animal characters speak and behave like human beings, allowing the storyteller to make cautionary points about human behavior without pointing the finger at real people

Style: Many fables use the rich vocabulary, imagery and patterned language common

in traditional tales but generally speaking, the shorter the fable, the more simple its use of language In these short texts, use of vocabulary is often pared down and concise

1.4.3 Generic structure of a fable

As it is noticed, the structure of a fable is typically the simplest kind of narrative with a beginning, a complication and a resolution Two characters (often animals) meet, an event occurs and they go on their way with one of them having learned an important lesson about life For such simplicity, the generic structure of a fable seem to lack some components in comparison with the structure of a natural narrative suggested by Labov(1972) as mentioned

in 1.3

To be more specific, there, in a fable, generally, exists a component that provides a brief introduction of the main characters that are about to appear constantly during the narrative and that sets the scene for the story to happen This opening section is differently labeled “orientation” (Labov, 1972), “stage” (Longarce 1976),” setting” (Rumehart, 1975) or

“placement” (Hasan, 1984) This study would follow the suggestion of Labov (1972) and refer

to it as Orientation The orientation is then followed by the so called Event Chain- series of

specific events that develop the content of the fable The event chain itself is composed of three subcomponents namely Initiating event, Sequent event and Final event These events are normally arranged in chronological order; one event is strictly followed by another in terms of chronological order, even when there are no explicit indicators of adverbials of time In the

long run, a fable may end with a component that is referred to as Coda Coda provides a

concrete verbal moral lesson withdrawn or inferred from the story A fable, however, is not

always supposed to include all the three components and isolate them clearly It can begin with either orientation or initiating event, and end without a coda sometimes By and large, the generic structure of a fable can be viewed through the following illustration:

[Orientation]

Event chain (Initiating event-> Sequent event-> Final event)

[Coda]

Note: The square brackets in the figure indicate optional elements in a fable

The arrows show the logical sequence of each element

1.5 Introduction about Aesop and Aesop’s fables

Aesop was claimed to be a slave in ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BC, who was famed as a storyteller However, the place of Aesop's birth was and still is disputed: Thrace, Phrygia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Samos, Athens, Sardis, and Amorium all claimed the honor Little is known about him from credible records, except that he was at one point freed from slavery and that he eventually died in Delphi Only after his death, collections of his stories were made And because of his fame, he was credited with the authorship of a great many fables whose real authors were unknown In fact, the obscurity shrouding his life has led some scholars to deny his existence altogether The modern view is that Aesop probably did not solely compose all those fables attributed to him, if he even existed at all Also, present scholarship reveals fables and proverbs of "Aesopic" form existing in both ancient Sumer and Akkad, as early as the second millennium BCE Therefore, at their most ancient roots, the fables of Aesop are composed in a literary format which appears first not in Ancient Greece or Ancient Egypt, but instead in ancient Sumer and Akkad and most probably in Ancient India

The so called Aesop's Fables or Aespica refers to a collection of fables credited to Aesop It evolved from an uncertain time between 3rd century BC and 3rd century AD Then, Aesop's Fables have become a blanket term for collections of brief fables, especially beast fables involving anthropomorphic animals The first extensive translation of Aesop into Latin was done in the 1st century AD Later, its translation and transmission evolved through years

and spread widely Some adaptations have been made and even, some authors took the inspiration from Aesop's Fables to write their own fables

Whatever it is disputed, Aesop's Fables as it is called are the earliest and best known The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today Many stories

included in Aesop's Fables, such as The Fox and the Grapes (from which the idiom "sour grapes" was derived), The Tortoise and the Hare, The North Wind and the Sun, The Boy Who Cried Wolf and The Ant and the Grasshopper are well-known throughout the world and

always worth reading for generations

Chapter 2: Previous studies on lexical cohesive devices

The theoretical knowledge of the study is based on the viewpoints from different prospects of great linguists as well as the ideas extracted from the researches done beforehand

In this chapter, the author would like to review some researches related to the study of previous authors as reference for carrying out the study/ later comparing and analyzing the data of lexical cohesion in English version of Aesop‟s fables In reality, researches done on cohesion, particularly lexical cohesive devices of a certain genre of discourse are numerous; therefore, it is hard to cover all For this reason, only some researches implemented in Vietnam within restricted area of the Vietnam National University are reviewed in a very small scale

The first research is an M.A thesis by Phuong To Tam (2003) entitled “An analysis of coherence and cohesion and a contrastive analysis of lexical cohesive devices in English and Vietnamese” The data for this thesis is from a chapter (chapter 5) on International Trade in

the textbook “International Business- An integrated Approach” by John J.Wild, Kenneth L.Wild and Jerry C.Y.Han (1998) The attention of the study is paid to considering contrastive analysis of lexical cohesive devices (including reiteration and collocation) in English (source language) in the original textbook and their equivalents in Vietnamese (target language) in the translation version The author then attempts to collect data in both English and Vietnamese to see the frequencies, similarities and differences of each device and sub-device of lexical cohesive devices in the discourse of both languages In the research, reiteration is viewed noticeably in terms of repetition, synonyms and antonyms In the first place, the repetition is categorized into noun+ noun phrases, proper names, other content words and titles, and the analysis shows repetition is most often seen with nouns and nouns phrases, other types of repetition account for a rather small portion in total ranging from 9.6% to 15%; synonyms and antonyms are analyzed with their types of nouns, verb and adjectives Collocation is also a focus for analysis; the author primarily classifies collocation (in terms of structure) into two main types: Noun-collocation with noun as element and others without the presence of a noun, and come to conclusion that noun-collocation dominates all other types of collocations with up

to 75%

The next research is another M.A thesis by Le Thi Mai Hien (2004) entitled “An analysis of cohesive devices in English application letter” The process of searching on twenty

English application letters enables her to reach the results of the frequency of occurrence of lexical cohesive devices, reiteration and collocation to say exactly in English application letters The data present Repetition in English application letters occupies the first among the four kinds of reiteration; superordinates rank the second with a considerably high percentage

of 24.9%; synonyms and near-synonyms account for nearly the same portion, which is respectively 10.4% and 11.3% The data analysis helps the authors come to the final conclusion that repetition is by far the most frequently used lexical cohesive devices in the genre of application letter

The last research reviewed is Nguyen Thi Thao‟s (2005) M.A thesis of “Some discourse features of English fables” Different from the two above studies, this research

seems to cover a broader aspect of discourse The author desires to deal with not one but some features of discourse in a certain genre Generic structure and cohesive devices are the two striking features discussed in the study The author shows the normal generic structure of a fable that is constructed with the Orientation, the Event Chain and the Coda at the end Cohesive devices are also exploited regarding its constituents namely reference, substitution, conjunction (grammatical cohesive devices) and lexical cohesive devices It is concluded that

in terms of grammatical cohesive devices, Reference, account for the highest frequencies of use, whereas, in terms of lexical cohesive devices, Repetition contributes the biggest proportion in English fables

In conclusion, it is noticed that a number of researches on cohesive devices and particularly on lexical cohesive devices have been done in various discourses and genres Nevertheless, none has been done on Aesop‟s fables in the English versions The results of the previous studies are helpful for making comparison in this study It is hoped the study shares some new facts and figures with the previous ones and reveal clear distinction in the use of lexical cohesive devices in a fable and in other kind of texts

Chapter 3: Lexical cohesive devices in the English version of Aesop’s fables

According to McCarthy (1985: 4), “Cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another” While cohesive devices in a text or language are “the tools, means, words that are used in sentences as the link between one part and other part of sentences in the texts.”In other words, cohesive devices are the tools to show the relationship between parts of a text or sentences in a text Since it is the relationship between one part and other part of sentences in the texts, it deals with grammar and vocabulary Thus, there are grammatical cohesion that consists of reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction, while lexical cohesion consists of reiteration and collocation

This chapter focuses on the description and analysis of lexical cohesive devices manipulated in fables so as to discover the most striking device in the manifestation of them in fables The analysis process is mainly based on the linguistic view of Halliday and Hasan and McCarthy and deals with Laura‟s translation of Aesop‟s fables

3.1 Reiteration

Reiteration is placing exactly the same item in the following sentence in the text or when one lexical item refers back to another to which it is related by having a common referent Mc Carthy stated: “Reiteration means either restating an item in a later part of the discourse by direct repetition or else reasserting its meaning by exploiting lexical relations” (1991: 65) In his view, a reiterated item may be a repetition of the same item in the previous text, a synonymy or near-synonymy, a super ordinate and a hyponymy or a general word These items mostly accompanied by reference item typically „the‟ (1991:278)

3.1.1 Repetition

Generally, “Lexical repetition” means repeated items and repeating items that are in lexical relations These repeated and repeating items vary from forms to the entities they denote By and large, there are two forms of repetition: wholly repeated and partially repeated This repetition may be done on word or phrase In Aesop‟s fables repetition is noted to occur quite frequently