A suggested model for experiential analysis in english and vietnamese texts and an application in news and editorials

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF DANANG PHAN THI THUY TIEN A SUGGESTED MODEL FOR EXPERIENTIAL ANALYSIS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE TEXTS AND AN APPLICATION IN NEWS AND EDITORIALS Subject area Code : THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE : 60.22.15 M.A THESIS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (A SUMMARY) DANANG, 2010 The study has been completed at the College of Foreign Languages, University of Danang Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Phan Văn Hòa Examiner 1: Assoc Prof Dr Ngô Đình Phương Examiner 2: Dr Trần Quang Hải The thesis was orally defended at the Examining Committee Time: January 15th, 2011 Venue: University of Danang The origin of the thesis is accessible for the purpose of reference at: - The College of Foreign Languages Library, University of Danang - Information Resources Centre, University of Danang CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE Newspapers have become popular and necessary in our society Along with the higher need to read and understand what pieces of news and editorials on newspapers mean, people endeavor to understand how and why they mean what they Many people even want to know how to evaluate these articles: whether they are effective for their purposes or not, and to what extent they success “Whatever the ultimate goal that is envisaged, the actual analysis of a text in grammatical term is the first step.” [15, xvi] “A discourse analysis that is not based on grammar is not an analysis at all, but simply a running commentary on a text: either an appeal has to be made to some set of non-linguistic conventions, or to some linguistic features that are trivial enough to be accessible without a grammar, like the number of words per sentence (and even the objectivity of these is often illusory); or else the exercise remains a private one in which one explanation is as good or as bad as another.” [15, xvi-xvii] Thus, a news or editorial analysis should have a grammar at the base The analysis may include cohesion, theme, mood, information, etc interpretation In reality, people tend to approach pieces of news and editorials to gain knowledge or experience of goings-on Therefore, a news or editorial analysis based on grammar first needs to interpret the organization of patterns of experience This can only be done on the background of an applied model of experiential text analysis Up to now, there have been some studies on the issue of experiential grammar in English and Vietnamese such as [1], [2], [7], [8], [9], [14], [15], [19], [20], [23], [25], [26], [27], [31], [32], [33], [34], [36], [38], [41], etc The arising problem is that there has been no research on the comparison and contrast between two languages at text level and a detailed experiential analysis in news and editorials Such a research may help understand the function of the journalism language in expressing experience about the world: possible choices in semantics to represent patterns of experience and the nature of their realization by available configurations In addition, it can become the background to the application in reading and writing pieces of news and editorials in English and Vietnamese as well as translating the articles from English into Vietnamese and vice versa As a result, the research “A suggested model for experiential analysis in English and Vietnamese texts and an application in news and editorials” is expected to carry out 1.2 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY With an attempt to build a model of experiential analysis in texts and make an investigation into experience in news and editorials, the fulfillment of the study brings a great significance - It provides a suggested theoretical frame to be applied in experiential text analysis and may serve as the base for more researches into experiential grammar in English and Vietnamese at text level - It contributes some suggestions to reading, writing, and translating pieces of news and editorials 1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY To our acknowledgement, the metafunctions are mapped on each other in a text A perfect text analysis should cover the perspectives - ideational, interpersonal, and textual However, within the limited scope of this research, we focus only on a component of the ideational metafunction, the experiential The study will suggest a model for experiential analysis in English and Vietnamese written texts and then apply this model in news and editorials For convenience, news and editorials are also taken for illustration in building the theoretical frame for experiential analysis in texts In addition, the sources of news and editorials come from some certain electronic newspapers The selected articles focus on social and political events-the most popular and concerned issues 1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS The study tries to answer the following questions: How can the experience in English and Vietnamese texts be analyzed from FG’s view? What are the differences and similarities of the experience world in English and Vietnamese news and editorials? What implications does the study have for dealing with news and editorials? 1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY The study is made well-organized with a framework including chapters: Introduction, Literature Review, Methods and Procedures, A suggested model for experiential analysis in English and Vietnamese texts, Experiential analysis in English and Vietnamese news and editorials, and Conclusion CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 REVIEW OF PRIOR RESEARCH 2.2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.2.1 Language, context, text, and metafunctional resonance 2.2.2 Modelling experience HAVING IDENTITY HAVING SYMBOLIZING ATTRIBUTE WORLD OF EXISTING SAYING ABSTRACT RELATIONS BEING HAPPENING THINKING (BEING CREATED) PHYSICAL WORLD OF WORLD DOING CONSCIOUSNESS SENSING CREATING, FEELING CHANGING DOING (TO) , SEEING ACTING BEHAVING Figure 2.1: The grammar of experience: types of process in English [15, 108] Doing Types of process Projecting Being Material Behavioural Mental Verbal Relational Existential Figure 2.2: The system of process types in Vietnamese [41, 200] 2.2.3 Experiential elements: Process, Participant, and Circumstance 2.2.4 Types of process and associated kinds of Participant 2.2.5 Circumstantial elements 2.2.6 Summary of experiential elements in English and Vietnamese clauses A summary of experiential elements in English and Vietnamese clauses is shown in Table 2.23 and Table 2.24 Note: mid.: middle, eff.: effective Agent Beneficiary Range Extent by to, for at, on for, over, across in, at, on, from with, by, like through, for in case of with, beside as, into about according to 12 Role 13 Matter 14 Angle 11.Accompaniment Cause 10 Contingency Manner Location 2.Medium 1.Process Ergative function _ PROCESS Typical preposition Behaviour Phenomenon Behaver Behavioural duration (temporal), distance (spatial) time (temporal), place (spatial) means, quality, comparison reason, purpose, behalf condition, concession, default comitation, addition guise, product Range Recipient, Client Actor (eff.) Initiator Actor (mid.) Goal (eff.) Material Phenomenon (‘like’) Phenomenon (‘please’) Senser Mental Attribute Beneficiary Attributor Carrier Attributive Identifier/ Value Identifier/ Token Assigner Identified Identifying Existent Existential (adapted from [15, 166]) why? what for? who for? under what conditions? who/what with? who/ what else? what as? what into? what about? who says? how? what with? in what way? like what? when? where? how long? how far? how often? Verbiage Receiver Sayer (eff.) Sayer (mid.) Target (eff.) Verbal Transitive function Table 2.23: Summary of experiential elements in English Quá trình Dung môi Tác nhân Lợi thể Cương vực Phạm vi Định vị Phong cách Nguyên nhân 10 Đồng hành 11 Vai diễn 12 Vấn ñề 13 Quan ñiểm _ cho qua trong, suốt ở, tại, lúc, từ bằng, với, giống vì, ñể, cho, trường hợp, dù với, như, thành theo Chức khiến tác QUÁ TRÌNH Giới từ ñiển hình Ứng xử Hiện tượng Ứng thể Hành vi Hiện tượng (‘like’) Hiện tượng (‘please’) Cảm thể Tinh thần khoảng thời gian, khoảng cách, tần số thời gian, ñịa ñiểm phương tiện, phẩm chất, so sánh lý do, mục ñích, thay mặt, ñiều kiện, nhượng hướng tới tham thể, không hướng tới tham thể, hướng tới trình ñội lốt, sản phẩm Cương vực Tiếp thể Khách thể Hành thể (tác ñộng) Khởi thể Hành thể (trung tính) Đích thể (tác ñộng) Vật chất Thuộc tính Tạo thuộc tính thể Đương thể Định tính Đồng thể / Giá trị Đồng thể / Biểu Chỉ ñịnh thể Bị ñồng thể Đồng Hiện hữu thể Hiện hữu gì? thành gì? gì? theo quan ñiểm ai? bao lâu? bao xa? thường xuyên nào? nào? ỏ ñâu? nào? với gì? theo cách nào? giống gì? sao? ñể làm gì? ñể cho ai? trong/với ñiều kiện gì? với ai/cái gì? ai/cái Ngôn thể Tiếp ngôn thể Phát ngôn thể (tác ñộng) Phát ngôn thể (trung tính) Đích ngôn thể (tác ñộng) Phát ngôn Chức chuyển tác Table 2.24: Summary of experiential elements in Vietnamese CHAPTER 3: METHODS AND PROCEDURES 3.1 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES 3.1.1 Aims Within the scope of an M.A thesis, the study is aimed at • establishing a model to be applied for experiential analysis in English and Vietnamese texts • analyzing the realization of patterns of experience in English and Vietnamese news and editorials • offering some suggestions for dealing with news and editorials upon a functional grammatical view 3.1.2 Objectives The study is expected to • identify and solve the issues relating to experiential analysis in texts • find out the differences and similarities of the experience world reflected in two languages and in the two kinds of journalism texts • interpret the linguistic choices to represent experience in the two languages 3.2 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS In order to reach the aims and objectives discussed above, the study is designed in the qualitative and quantitative approaches in contrastive analysis between the two languages and between two kinds of texts One of the main duties of the research is to set up an applied model in experiential test analysis To fulfill this, the descriptive method is mainly used to summarize the experiential grammar studied at clause level and then build a theoretical frame for experiential analysis in texts Specifically, the analytic description interprets the strong and unsuitable aspects of the functionalists’ views This serves as the base for the synthetic description to take the most appropriate view for application After the establishment of the model, the study continues to make an experiential analysis into English and Vietnamese news and editorials The qualitative and quantitative text analysis needs carrying out to explore the realization and frequency of experiential patterns The qualitative method is applied in specifying the features of experiential elements including Participants, Processes and Circumstances as well as the characteristics of the experience world in the two kinds of texts in the two languages The quantitative method is used to calculate the proportion of the experiential elements appeared in the collected data Since the study deals with the two languages and two kinds of journalism texts, news and editorials, the comparative and contrastive analysis is chosen as the general method of the study At the very beginning, the theoretical background is supposed to be set in a parallel presentation in the two languages Then, the suggested model is built with an attempt to bring into possible application in both English and Vietnamese The method of comparative and contrastive analysis is also dealt with in finding out the similarities and differences of the experience world reflected in English and Vietnamese news and editorials 3.3 DATA COLLECTION The study is expected to make an exploration into another kind of texts – journalism texts while previous studies on experiential grammar take interest in literature works The sources of news and editorials come from some certain famous electronic newspapers This is due to the fact that printed newspapers in native English are practically not available in Vietnam; moreover, more and more people nowadays prefer to read newspapers on line The selected articles focus on social and political events-the most popular and concerned issues To avoid the limitation of linguistic comparison by means of translation, the articles, especially in Vietnamese, focus on the internal events All of the examples and investigation data are in written texts and mostly taken from collected articles in source of data Besides, for a full theoretical description, in Chapter some examples are also cited from [14], [15], and [41] News and editorials are chosen to analyze because they both belong to journalism texts but have their own styles and forms In Chapter 4, they serve as a model kind of text for establishing the theoretical frame for experiential text analysis 3.4 DATA ANALYSIS An experiential analysis, which specifies the Participant, Process and Circumstance elements, proves to be a hard task because it is necessary to always consider the background criteria Sometimes the delicate cases may require the view referring and taking The analysis deals with the overall text; i.e it is carried out from the beginning to the end of the text Moreover, an analysis unit may consist of more than one level, and the hierarchic analysis continues to be done on the next levels Therefore, to guarantee the qualitative and quantitative reliability, 20 pieces of news and 12 editorials in English and Vietnamese are chosen to analyze The analysis undergoes through stages as follows: Stage 1: Experiential analysis The news and editorials are first broken into units of analysis following the suggested model in Chapter Within each unit, the experiential elements will be identified on the basis of the theoretical background and the theoretical frame set up in the research The complete analysis deals with the first to the last level Stage 2: Quantitative investigation The frequency of each kind of the experiential elements including types of process, Participants associated with processes, and kinds of Circumstances will be calculated The results reflect the actual appearance of the experiential elements; that is, the ellipsis or implication cases will not be counted Stage 3: Interpretation and comparison The investigation results will give information about models of experience: in English news, in English editorials, in Vietnamese news, and in Vietnamese editorials The reasons for the realization of these experience models are expected to explain Then, the four models will be compared with one another and with the general model suggested by Halliday to point out some features of the experience world 3.5 RESEARCH PROCEDURES In summary, the steps involved are • Summarizing the experiential grammar explored at clause level in English and Vietnamese • Establishing a suggested model for experiential analysis at text level • Collecting and experientially analyzing the news and editorial following the suggested model • Calculating the frequency of experiential elements in the collected data • Describing and analyzing the realization of experience in English and Vietnamese news and editorials • Making a comparison to find out the similarities and differences of linguistic choices to represent experience world characterization is the case of a dependent member with an elliptical Subject In English, it is similar to a non-finite clause which can also belong to a clause complex Meanwhile, applied to D.Q.Ban’s rules, it is an Adjunct, rather than a member of a sentence complex in Vietnamese However, within this thesis, the distinction is unnecessary because both can perform the same function, Circumstance 4.2 LEVELS OF ANALYSIS An effective Transitivity interpretation needs to cover an analysis of all clauses, from the beginning to the end, so it cannot be simply horizontally presented clause by clause It should also include the vertical or hierarchic analysis; that is, it should cover several levels of analysis The embedded or dependent clauses are considered at the first level as elements in the Transitivity structure of the clause in which they are embedded, and at the later levels in their own Transitivity structure We can take the following clause complex as an example: (4.9) “Whatever occurs, I think it is imperative that you not overreact,” he said [55] This example includes process types: mental, verbal, and attributive relational The third process, at the first level, consists of a Circumstance of Concession and an intensive attributive relational process The next level analysis is the own Transitivity of the clause whatever occurs and the Carrier that you not overreact in which we have two more material processes A detailed analysis is shown in Table 4.4 Table 4.4: Example of multi-level analysis in English “Whatever occurs,/ Cir:Concesstion Actor imperative I think Senser Pro:mental / it is Ca- Pro:relational:attributive Pro:material that you Attribute not overreact,”// -rrier Actor he said.// Sayer Pro:verbal Pro:material Let us consider another multi-level analysis in Vietnamese (4.10) Tuần qua, dư luận giật Bộ Tư pháp công bố hẳn "danh sách” bao gồm 86 văn 33 tỉnh thành bị Bộ Tư pháp khẳng ñịnh trái luật [72] This example includes levels of experiential analysis shown in Figure 4.1 At the second level, the adverbial clause of Time Location is interpreted into a verbal process The analysis continues going to the third level in the Transitivity of the Participant Verbiage composing of an attributive relational At the last level, the Carrier is analyzed into an identifying relational process Level Level Tuần qua, dư luận giật Cir:Location:Time Senser Pro:mental "danh sách" bao gồm Level Level 86 văn 33 tỉnh thành Carrier Identified/ Token Pro:relational: identifying: intensive "danh sách” bao gồm 86 văn 33 tỉnh thành bị Bộ Tư pháp khẳng ñịnh trái luật.// Cir:Location:Time Bộ Tư pháp công bố hẳn Sayer Pro:verbal bị Bộ Tư pháp Pro:- Attributor Verbiage khẳng ñịnh - relational: attributive: intensive trái luật Attribute Identifier/ Value Figure 4.1: Example of multi-level analysis in Vietnamese 4.3 UNIT OF ANALYSIS When we get started with text experiential analysis, we will face the question how to divide the text into pieces to which the analysis can be applied With the opinion of dependent clauses as Circumstances, the unit of analysis is then one above the clause As suggested by Martin, Matthiessen, and Painter, the possible analysis unit in a written text can be sentence, “beginning with a capital letter and ending with a full stop” [23, 4] In Hallidayan term, it is ‘clause complex’, a complex of clauses with certain functional-semantic relations [14, 192-193] However, with a deep insight into the Transitivity in texts, we have found that the actual unit can be below the clause complex A unit of experiential analysis in texts is a segment of linguistic elements which together form a Transitivity structure, at least at the first level In accordance with Halliday’s definitions [16], the possible unit of text experiential analysis is corresponding to a clause or a clause complex of hypotactic expansion As specified, only this kind of clause complex is considered as a unit of experiential analysis; therefore, other kinds will be divided into separate units With regards to clause complex of paratactic expansion, each clause forms a separate unit With respect to projection, quoting and reporting, in both English and Vietnamese, the projected will be divided into units apart from the projecting clause, similarly to H.V.Vân’s view [41, 287304] In comparison with the Vietnamese terms established by D.Q.Ban [38, 39 and 40], this unit of analysis can be a sentence, a complex sentence or sentence complex of hypotaxis The concept of complex sentence here is in some way similar to the clause complex of hypotactic elaboration in English In regards to sentence complex of parataxis in Vietnamese, each of its member forms a unit of analysis 4.4 TROUBLESHOOTING 4.4.1 Circumstance or Participant 4.4.2 One or two processes More than one lexical verb can be found in a single clause, as in tried to accept (cố gắng chấp thuận), happened to assist (tình cờ giúp ñỡ) [14, 262-263], were forced to leave (bị buộc rời khỏi), began asking (bắt ñầu hỏi) [23, 116] Halliday, Martin, Matthiessen, and Painter consider these verbal group complexes as single Process According to Martin, Matthiessen, and Painter [23, 117], “the second verbal group is the relevant one for Process type” Thus, tried to accept, happened to assist, were forced to leave are material Processes, and began asking is verbal Process These simple clauses differ from cases where there are clauses and therefore distinct processes and analysis units such as he got up// and ( )turned on the light (anh ta thức dậy// () bật ñèn) [23, 117] in which there is an ellipsis of the Actor In the data of this study, the elliptical Participant like this will not be counted This case can also be interpreted as processes and analysis units in Vietnamese, as in: (4.25) Năm năm qua, nhiều biện pháp nghiệp vụ, Phòng PC15 ñã lập nhiều chuyên án,// phát xử lý 147 vụ, 252 ñối tượng.// [74] A problem arouses when the first lexical verb has a mental or verbal meaning; for example, she wanted to it (cô ta muốn làm ñiều ñó) Halliday [14, 268] points out two different attitudes to this verbal group complex In the first camp, it is considered as a verbal group functioning as a material Process, and the other treats it as a clause complex including Processes: mental and material We have chosen to follow the second opinion, which is also supported by Martin, Matthiessen, and Painter [23] It is due to the fact that the choice of participant is restricted by the lexical verb in the first verbal group; only a conscious entity can be construed as the major participant [23, 117] Here the relation between want and to is one of projection A projection of it, as in wants to it, is a meaning, and thus does not imply ‘does it’ This case is different from the verbal group of expansion as a single Process above, such as tries to it or starts to it, which does imply ‘does it’ Besides, the wanting and the doing have distinct time references We can even say yesterday I wanted to it tomorrow, but not yesterday I started to it tomorrow [14, 266-267] All such projections can be treated as clause complexes and divided into separate units For example, (4.26) he threatened (verbal)// to blow up the city (material)// = “I’ll blow up the city!”// he threatened // (4.27) he promised (verbal)// to make her happy (relational)// = he promised//he would make her happy// (4.28) he told them (verbal)// to help themselves (material)// (4.29) she wanted (mental)// him to go (material)// [16, 460-463] Here it should be noted that in Halliday’s interpretation, the object following a verbal Process belongs to the projecting clause or the first analysis unit and functions as a Receiver (Example 4.28) Meanwhile, the object after a mental Process is of the projected clause or the second analysis unit (Example 4.29) 4.4.3 Material or relational 4.5 A MODEL ANALYSIS The experiential analysis in a text starts with the division of analysis units following the interpretation in Section 4.3 To ease the identification, we can first divide the text into the potential analysis unit “beginning with a capital letter and ending with a full stop” [23, 4] We call this as ‘potential’ unit because it can become an analysis unit itself or may be divided into some analysis units Then the categorization of this unit is carried out If it is an English clause or clause complex of hypotactic expansion in Halliday’s terms or else a Vietnamese sentence or complex sentence or sentence complex of hypotaxis in D.Q.Ban’s terms, it forms an actual analysis unit In case this unit is an English clause complex of paratactic expansion or Vietnamese sentence complex of parataxis, each of its member forms a separate unit And if it has a projection, quoting and reporting, in both English and Vietnamese, the projected will be divided into units apart from the projecting clause Here the special cases of projection noted in Section 4.4.2 should be also concerned The next step is the labeling of experiential elements based on the features and criteria set up by Halliday and H.V.Vân summarized in Section 2.2.4 and 2.2.5 and the expanding theory of Circumstances in Section 4.1 In the labeling, the Process is the obligatory and nuclear element attached with other elements of Circumstances and Participants At the first level, the embedded or dependent clauses are labeled as elements in the Transitivity structure of the analysis unit At the second level, they then become the potential sub-units of analysis and we can deal with them as we handle the potential analysis unit The analysis continues in the same way to level n when there is no more embedded or dependent clause within the sub-unit of analysis An illustration for the general procedures of experiential analysis in texts is presented in Figure 4.2 Potential analysis unit Analysis unit Level Circumstance Participant Process Participant/Cir containing embedded/dependent clause Potential sub-unit of analysis Sub-unit of analysis Level 2/3/ …/n Participant Circumstance Process Participant/Cir containing embedded/dependent clause Figure 4.2: The general procedures of experiential analysis Following the illustration in Figure 4.2, we have a detailed analysis of an English potential unit showed in Figure 4.3 and another analysis of a Vietnamese one in Figure 4.4 Potential analysis unit: The United States reiterated its refusal to deal with Hamas despite the militant group's participation in the Palestinian election, in which an early projection said it would win 30 per cent of the vote Analysis unit: The United States reiterated its refusal to deal with Hamas despite the militant group's participation in the Palestinian election, in which an early projection said it would win 30 per cent of the vote.// Sayer: The United States Level Verbal Pro: reiterated Verbiage: its refusal to deal with Hamas Potential sub-unit of analysis Concession Cir: despite the militant group's participation in the Palestinian election, in which an early projection said it would win 30 per cent of the vote Potential sub-unit of analysis Sub-unit of analysis: to deal with Hamas Sub-unit of analysis: an early projection said/ Relational Pro: to deal with Sayer: an early projection Level Identifier: Hamas Verbal Pro: said Sub-unit of analysis: it would win 30 per cent of the vote/ Actor: it Material Pro: would win Goal: 30 per cent of the vote Figure 4.3: A detailed analysis of a potential analysis unit in English Potential analysis unit: Tại sở thờ tự mà ñoàn ñến thăm, sau ân cần thăm hỏi tình hình ñời sống việc chuẩn bị Tết Phật tử ñịa phương, ông Lê Hữu Lộc chúc chức sắc tín ñồ Phật giáo bước vào năm gặt hái ñược nhiều thành tựu ñường tu học, hoạt ñộng Phật Analysis unit: Tại sở thờ tự mà ñoàn ñến thăm, sau ân cần thăm hỏi tình hình ñời sống việc chuẩn bị Tết Phật tử ñịa phương, ông Lê Hữu Lộc chúc chức sắc tín ñồ Phật giáo// Receiver: chức sắc tín ñồ Phật giáo Level Sayer: ông Lê Hữu Lộc Time Cir: bước vào năm Verbal Pro: chúc Place Cir: Tại sở thờ tự mà ñoàn ñến thăm Analysis unit: bước vào năm gặt hái ñược nhiều thành tựu ñường tu học, hoạt ñộng Phật sự.// Time Cir: sau ân cần thăm hỏi tình hình ñời sống việc chuẩn bị Tết Phật tử ñịa phương Material Pro: gặt hái ñược chúc Goal: nhiều thành tựu Time Cir: ñường tu học, hoạt ñộng Phật Potential sub-unit of analysis Potential sub-unit of analysis Sub-unit of analysis: sở thờ tự mà ñoàn ñến thăm Sub-unit of analysis: ân cần thăm hỏi tình hình ñời sống việc chuẩn bị Tết Phật tử ñịa phương Level Actor: ñoàn Material Pro: ñến Purpose Cir: thăm sở thờ tự Quality Cir: ân cần Verbal Pro: thăm hỏi Verbiage: tình hình ñời sống việc chuẩn bị Tết Phật tử ñịa phương Potential sub-unit of analysis Sub-unit of analysis: thăm sở thờ tự Level Material Pro: thăm Range: sở thờ tự Figure 4.4: A detailed analysis of a potential analysis unit in Vietnamese CHAPTER 5: EXPERIENTIAL ANALYSIS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NEWS AND EDITORIALS 5.1 RESULTS OF THE EXPERIENTIAL ANALYSIS 5.1.1 Results of the investigation into processes 5.1.2 Results of the investigation into Participants 5.1.3 Results of the investigation into Circumstances 5.1.4 Conclusion From the result, we easily find out that in English and Vietnamese news and editorials, the material process is most used to express experience The second most frequent configuration for conveying experience is relational process, and the next rank belongs to the verbal and the mental Meanwhile, the existential and the behavioural rarely appear Unlike those in English, some Vietnamese relational processes may come without the corresponding Process elements Logically, the Participants in material and relational processes are the most popular kinds of Participants, and the least frequent are those in existential and behavioural processes As regards Circumstances, the most frequent are the Location then the Manner and the Cause Meanwhile, the Role and the Angle are seldom found 5.2 THE WORLD OF EXPERIENCE IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NEWS AND EDITORIALS 5.2.1 Diagrams of experience world 5.2.2 Summary of the results of the experiential analysis Table 5.32: Summary of the results of the surveys on processes process Vietnamese English Vietnamese news editorials editorials English news material 43.54 59.92 44.56 55.58 behavioural 1.59 0.81 0.82 1.59 mental 8.45 5.26 5.43 5.18 verbal 19.62 14.58 10.87 4.98 relational 25.52 18.22 36.96 29.28 existential 1.28 1.21 1.36 3.39 100 100 100 100 Total (%) Table 5.33: Summary of the results of the surveys on Circumstances Circumstance Vietnamese English Vietnamese news editorials editorials English news Extent 5.41 10.28 6.73 7.41 Location 45.67 38.28 37.00 29.91 Manner 14.50 20.57 19.26 25.64 Cause 13.64 14.86 19.88 15.38 Contingency 6.06 2.29 6.73 5.41 Accompaniment 5.84 6.29 3.98 6.84 Role 1.95 0.57 1.22 0.29 Matter 5.63 4.00 3.98 6.84 Angle 1.30 2.86 1.22 2.28 100 100 100 100 Total (%) 5.2.3 Features of experience world in English and Vietnamese news and editorials 5.2.3.1 Common features The experience world in English and Vietnamese news and editorials is the physical world and the world of abstract relations It is mainly constructed by the material processes with the actions of doing, creating, and changing as well as the happenings The relational processes have the second greatest potential to express experience with the effect of connecting the relationships among the entities or between a thing and its attribute Moreover, patterns of experience obviously have certain relations, so perfect news reports or editorials need to reveal these relations According to Halliday [15], the mental process is one of the main processes together with the material and the relational The other including the verbal, the behavioural, and the existential are the intermediate processes and less often appear His opinion is completely right to the cases of material, relational, behavioural, and existential processes in the data In case of the mental, the results of the surveys seem to be contrary to his view Actually, the mental process is a main configuration to represent experience, like what Halliday describes However, within this study, we have chosen to analyze news and editorials only, so the findings just reflect the features of journalism texts In these texts, what is concerned is the external world rather than the internal world of people, in which the other kinds of texts appreciating the ego, literary ones for example, may take interest It is necessary to keep the journalism texts objective and reliable Meanwhile, the mental process appears to express the writer’s comment or evaluation although in the texts it is maybe pointed out as the thinking or feeling of someone else, except for the projected mental Whereas a mental process is subjective, a verbal one proves to be objective and useful in news and editorials It serves to specify the journalist’ sources as comments or sayings by famous people Furthermore, it brings the readers the feeling that the writer is an eye-witness who by some way masters all the sequence of the events This helps increase the reliance of the given experience The circumstantial elements also play an important role in constituting the experience world in English and Vietnamese news In the surveys, the number of Circumstances is not much smaller than that of Processes Actually, the Circumstances are optional but very useful and important in making a representation of experience They can sometimes make the texts less monotonous Among the Circumstances, the Location representing the Time or the Place of the events is the most active constituent It is possible to say that this element can not lack in journalism texts A possible explanation is that the Location contributes to provide the readers with the complete picture of experience Besides, obviously the information about an affair with the specific Location may indicate the context of the affair and is more trustful While the Location can not be ignored, the Angle and the Role seem to be unnoticeable elements This may be interpreted that English and Vietnamese people prefer to use a verbal process to infer a circumstantial Angle and a relational process to replace a Role The choice of a Process over a Circumstance seems create positive effects in emphasizing the background information of an affair Since a Process is compulsory, people may pay more attention to it 5.2.3.2 Distinctive features The experience world in news and editorials has a difference in the proportion of the components Clearly the percentage of the relational process in editorials surpasses that in news It is due to the effect of this kind of process; the relational is productive to connect parts of experience to come to an evaluation or comment In respect of the circumstantial elements, the rate of the Location in news is higher than that in editorials Often the events in editorials are well-known, so their Location can be sometimes not mentioned The Manner and the Cause appear more in editorials than in news These circumstantial elements also help give the writer’s judgement and assessment All these differences are due to the features of each kind of journalism texts While news only puts the real reflection of the affairs as center, editorials also cover the bias of the writers on the events Another gap due to the difference in the languages can be specified that a process configuration of Vietnamese may sometimes go without a Process, but in English we have never found such a case Moreover, the unbalance in the choices of material process over other process types in Vietnamese is much bigger than that in English while the rate of relational and verbal in Vietnamese is less than that in English It is possibly explained that to Vietnamese people, the information about actions is the most noteworthy and reliable Seemingly the Vietnamese are so simple; they prefer a quick and easy understanding The readers not often expect to interpet certain relations or some locution of a famous gentleman to master the information Meanwhile, English peope also share their most concern to sayings and relationships Due to the readers’ anticipation, the writer often drops some relational or verbal hints to be pored over In addition, in Vietnamese editorials, the proportion of verbal processes is a bit less than that of mental ones A possible interpretation can be specified that Vietnamese editorials tend to be developed in a close direction They often give clear judgements of the writers on the actions, behaviours, or sayings, etc On the contrary, verbal processes are chosen much more frequently than mental ones in English editorials because English people seem to prefer an open direction They may sometimes put forward some actions or locutions and let the readers think in their own ways These differences result from the distinction between English and Vietnamese styles 5.2.4 Summary In sum, the experience world in English and Vietnamese news and editorials much differs from the general model of experience figured by the functionalists It is the external world, the physical and relational world, rather than the spiritual one The four models of experience world in English news, Vietnamese news, English editorials, and Vietnamese editorials are all constituted by six process types, among which the material and relational are the two most important components Attached with these six processes are the circumstantial elements with the most energetic operation of the Location The differences among the four experience models or the linguistic choices to represent experience depend on each language, the styles of different peoples, and the kinds of texts CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION 6.1 CONCLUSIONS • The experiential analysis emphasizes the functional similarities rather than the formal differences, so dependent clauses can function as circumstantial elements in texts In accordance with Hallidayan terms, clause complex of hypotactic expansion, more specifically, extension or enhancement in English can play the role of Circumstance With respect to D.Q.Ban’s terms, Circumstance in Vietnamese can be an Adjunct or sentence complex of hypotaxis • A perfect experiential text analysis should cover several levels The embedded or dependent clauses are considered at the first level as elements in the Transitivity structure of the clause in which they are embedded, and at the later levels in their own Transitivity structure • The unit of experiential analysis in texts is one above the clause It is a segment of linguistic elements which together form a Transitivity structure, at least at the first level This unit is corresponding to a clause or a clause complex of hypotactic expansion in English In Vietnamese terms established by D.Q.Ban, this unit of analysis can be a sentence, a complex sentence or sentence complex of hypotaxis Other kinds will be divided into separate units With regards to clause complex of paratactic expansion in English and sentence complex of parataxis in Vietnamese, each member forms a separate unit With respect to projection, quoting and reporting, in both English and Vietnamese, the projected will be divided into units apart from the projecting clause • The discrimination between Circumstance versus Participant and material versus relational is sometimes vague or difficult to identify The possible choice of Theme can function as a criterion to discriminate the borderline between Circumstance and Participant Some verbs can serve in material and relational processes, so the identification needs to be based on the tenses (only in English) and/or meaning • The case of verbal groups such as tried to accept (cố gắng chấp thuận), were forced to leave (bị buộc rời khỏi), began asking (bắt ñầu hỏi) is considered as a single Process When the first lexical verb has a mental or verbal meaning such as wanted to do, the group is then a clause complex including Processes: mental and material • The experiential analysis first needs to divide the text into the potential analysis unit “beginning with a capital letter and ending with a full stop” Then is the categorization and division of this unit into analysis units The next step is the labeling of experiential elements At the second level, Participants and Circumstances containing the embedded or dependent clause then become the potential sub-units of analysis and we can deal with them as we handle the potential analysis unit The analysis continues in the same way to level n when there is no more embedded or dependent clause within the sub-unit of analysis • The three experiential elements, Process, Participant, and Circumstance all appear in English and Vietnamese news and editorials The six process types and nine circumstantial kinds are more or less found Of the Participants, those in material process appear most frequently, and a Behaviour in behavioural process as well as a Beneficiary in relational attributive process is entirely not put into practice • The four models of experience world in English news, Vietnamese news, English editorials, and Vietnamese editorials are all constituted by six process types, among which the material and relational are the two most decisive components In comparison with the mental process, a main process in theory, the verbal proves to be more prominent in the collected data The behavioural and the existential are the intermediate processes and take a small proportion • In the surveys, the number of Circumstances is not much smaller than that of Processes The Circumstances actually play an important role in constructing the experiential world in English and Vietnamese news and editorials Among these, the Location is the most active constituent while the Angle and the Role seem to be unnoticeable • The experience world in English and Vietnamese news and editorials is not towards the spiritual world but towards actions and locutions It is the physical world and the world of abstract relations, which is different from the general model of experience figured by the functionalsists • Vietnamese language has a process configuration without a Process element, but English does not have this feature To Vietnamese people, the information about actions is the most noteworthy and reliable while English peope also share their most concern to sayings and relationships As a result, the unbalance in the choices of material process over other process types in Vietnamese is much bigger than that in English while the rate of relational and verbal in Vietnamese is less than that in English Besides, due to the differences in text type, the percentage of the relational process in editorials surpasses that in news, and the Manner and the Cause appear more in editorials than in news In sum, the linguistic choices to represent experience depend on each language, the styles of different peoples, and the kinds of texts 6.2 IMPLICATIONS This section aims to contribute a functional grammatical view from the experiential metafunction on the tasks of reading, writing, and translating news and editorials Reading news and editorials is a quicker way to get knowledge about goings-on compared with observing and interpreting oneself However, because the reader only perceives and breaks the linguistic codes instead of witnessing the experience picture, he may sometimes go in the wrong way To avoid this, the reader must consider the cultural and situational context in which the affair happens Then he does an analysis into experiential elements to perceive the encoded experiential meaning This process can be carried out with the reader’s explicit consciousness of functional roles maybe under certain functional labels (Actor, for example) or without these labels (for example, he just understands it is an entity that does something) The knowledge of functional labels helps systematize the analysis process Writing news or editorials is in nature the process of representing experience by language In other words, it is the process of encoding the experiential meaning This starts at the context in which the writer forms the experience about an affair perhaps by observing, hearing, or watching, etc Then, he realizes its meaning through the suitable choice of a configuration in language: a certain process The important point of an effective piece of news is that it can genuinely reflect the whole picture of an affair This basically includes the things or people involved, their actions, behaviours, sayings, sometimes ideas, and the relations among these with certain spatial and temporal proximity Therefore, a Location can not be ignored, and the material process with the largest potential to express experience can be used most popularly No matter what process occurs, what should be concerned is the experiential meaning is clear enough However, the choices of different processes can create various effects and depend on the writer’s purposes Writing an editorial is a harder task in comparison with writing a piece of news because the writer must represent the experience not only about the real world but also inside his mind through an analysis, evaluation into the affair in the reality Often the events in editorials are well-known, so their Location can be sometimes not mentioned Now that it is necessary to represent the opinion or the bias of the writer, the relational process, the Cause, and the Manner are productive in editorials Translating news and editorials is not a direct work from a language to another; this process has a transitive stage Language is only the codes of the meaning, so the relation between two languages is created through the real world of the goings-on The process of translating goes from the codes of a language to the reader’s mind in which they are referred to the world to become the reader’s experience then to the target language under a different set of codes; simply translating is the combination of reading and writing Thus, to translate pieces of news and editorials in English to Vietnamese and vice versa, the translator should first know the experiential meaning encoded in the original language From the experience formed in his mind, the translator represents it in the target language An effective translation in this case needs to remain the experiential meaning maybe with or without the corresponding configurations In conclusion, FG makes text-dealers explicitly aware of the available choices in language to have an informed decision about the options It gives them the background to interpret all the linguistic choices for experience representation in various contexts 6.3 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH The study tries to build a suggested model for experiential analysis in written texts and apply this only in English and Vietnamese news and editorials which have been collected in electronic newspapers To overcome the shortcomings of this study, further research may be made with an analysis on the data of news and editorials from the other sources (written in printed newspapers or spoken) or other kinds of texts, literature, for example The analysis may be focused on other aspects, possibly the Theme or the Mood structures [...]... Potential sub-unit of analysis Sub-unit of analysis: thăm các cơ sở thờ tự Level 3 Material Pro: thăm Range: các cơ sở thờ tự Figure 4.4: A detailed analysis of a potential analysis unit in Vietnamese CHAPTER 5: EXPERIENTIAL ANALYSIS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE NEWS AND EDITORIALS 5.1 RESULTS OF THE EXPERIENTIAL ANALYSIS 5.1.1 Results of the investigation into processes 5.1.2 Results of the investigation into... Concentrating on the language function, H.V.Vân [41] indicates that a Circumstance in Vietnamese clause can place without a preposition, as shown in Examples (2.171), (2.174) and (2.179) On FG’s disposition, in Transitivity analysis in texts, all what adds the circumstantial information should be considered as Circumstance When carrying out the Transitivity analysis, many functionalists treat different clauses... capital letter and ending with a full stop” Then is the categorization and division of this unit into analysis units The next step is the labeling of experiential elements At the second level, Participants and Circumstances containing the embedded or dependent clause then become the potential sub-units of analysis and we can deal with them as we handle the potential analysis unit The analysis continues... of analysis Level 2/3/ …/n Participant Circumstance Process Participant/Cir containing embedded/dependent clause Figure 4.2: The general procedures of experiential analysis Following the illustration in Figure 4.2, we have a detailed analysis of an English potential unit showed in Figure 4.3 and another analysis of a Vietnamese one in Figure 4.4 Potential analysis unit: The United States reiterated...CHAPTER 4: A SUGGESTED MODEL FOR EXPERIENTIAL ANALYSIS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE TEXTS 4.1 CIRCUMSTANCES IN TEXTS As its name suggests, FG puts as center the function of language, on which the text analysis based on FG needs to focus When making an exproration into circumstantial elements in English clause, Halliday [15] concludes that a Circumstance is typically realized by a prepositional phrase... continues in the same way to level n when there is no more embedded or dependent clause within the sub-unit of analysis • The three experiential elements, Process, Participant, and Circumstance all appear in English and Vietnamese news and editorials The six process types and nine circumstantial kinds are more or less found Of the Participants, those in material process appear most frequently, and a Behaviour... relational process, the Cause, and the Manner are productive in editorials Translating news and editorials is not a direct work from a language to another; this process has a transitive stage Language is only the codes of the meaning, so the relation between two languages is created through the real world of the goings-on The process of translating goes from the codes of a language to the reader’s mind... IMPLICATIONS This section aims to contribute a functional grammatical view from the experiential metafunction on the tasks of reading, writing, and translating news and editorials Reading news and editorials is a quicker way to get knowledge about goings-on compared with observing and interpreting oneself However, because the reader only perceives and breaks the linguistic codes instead of witnessing... for experience representation in various contexts 6.3 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH The study tries to build a suggested model for experiential analysis in written texts and apply this only in English and Vietnamese news and editorials which have been collected in electronic newspapers To overcome the shortcomings of this study, further research may be made with an analysis on the data of news and. .. subordinate clauses function as Circumstances realized by Adjuncts This way of analysis emphasizes the functional similarities rather than the formal differences Thus, the clause because technology is advancing in the example above first needs to be analyzed as a Circumstance of Cause: Reason Up to this point, we can expand the theory of Circumstance in clauses (Section 2.2.5) to be applied in text analysis