A study on the semantic and lexicogrammatical features of the short story mr know all by w somerset maugham a systemic functional analysis

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ************ NGUYỄN THI ̣ BÍ CH LIÊN A STUDY ON THE SEMANTIC AND LEXICOGRAMMATICAL FEATURES OF THE SHORT STORY MR KNOW ALL BY W SOMERSET MAUGHAM: A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ CÁC ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGỮ NGHĨA VÀ NGỮ PHÁP TỪ VỰNG TRONG TRUYỆN NGẮN ÔNG BIẾT TUỐT CỦA NHÀ VĂN W.SOMERSET MAUGHAM PHÂN TÍ CH THEO QUAN ĐIỂM CHỨC NĂNG HỆ THỐNG M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 HANOI – 2016 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ************ NGUYỄN THI ̣ BÍ CH LIÊN A STUDY ON THE SEMANTIC AND LEXICOGRAMMATICAL FEATURES OF THE SHORT STORY MR KNOW ALL BY W SOMERSET MAUGHAM: A SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ CÁC ĐẶC ĐIỂM NGỮ NGHĨA VÀ NGỮ PHÁP TỪ VỰNG TRONG TRUYỆN NGẮN ÔNG BIẾT TUỐT CỦA NHÀ VĂN W.SOMERSET MAUGHAM PHÂN TÍ CH THEO QUAN ĐIỂM CHỨC NĂNG HỆ THỐNG M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân HANOI - 2016 CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT I hereby certify that the thesis entitled A study on the semantic and lexicogrammartical features of the short story Mr Know All by Somerset Maugham: A systemic functional analysis is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master of Art at University of Language and International Studies, Ha Noi National University, and the thesis has not been submitted for any degree at any other university or tertiary institution Hanoi, 2016 Nguyễn Thi Bi ̣ ́ch Liên i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like first to express my deep gratitude to Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân, my supervisor, for his untiring and benevolent assistance granted to me throughout the process of my writing His practical advice, useful suggestions and critical feedback have been generous and beneficial, without which I would not have been able to complete this thesis I would also like to express my sincere thanks to my whole-hearted colleagues and friends for their help and kind encouragement during the research period My indebtedness is to my beloved family members whose help and encouragements contributed greatly to the completion of my study Hanoi,2016 Nguyễn Thi Bi ̣ ́ch Liên ii ABSTRACT The shortcoming in most textual analyses is their dependence on contestable and value judgments of literary critics However, such prescriptive commentary is not instrumental in exploring multiple meanings encoded in grammar This necessitates a linguistic analysis of texts, which demonstrates how and why a text gets to be the way it is as well as the reader interprets it in the particular way For this reason, the functional text analysis undertaken in this study aims to investigate how and why the text is written It is performed with regard to Halliday‟s Functional Grammar framework The linguistic data were analyzed by using the quantitative and qualitative methods Consequently, how interpersonal relationships are created within texts, how information is organized in texts and how the ideological positions of writers are implanted in texts were shown and interpreted It is presented that the predominance of the material process reflects the main purpose of the discourse And most of the processes are presented in the past tense and in declarative mood which serves effectively the purpose of the author iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CANDIDATE‟STATEMENT i CKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv PART I: INTRODUCTION CHAPTER1:GENER LINTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1.2 Aims of the study and research questions 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Methods of the study 1.5 Design of the study PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Systemic Functional Linguistics 2.2.1 Strata of the systemic functional model 2.2.2 Metafunctions 2.3 The ideational meaning 2.3.1 Process types 10 2.3.1.1 Material process 10 2.3.1.2 Mental processes 10 2.3.1.3 Relational processes 11 2.3.1.4 Behavioral processes 12 2.3.1.5 Verbal processes 12 2.3.1.6 Existential processes 13 2.3.2 Circumstances 13 2.4 The interpersonal meaning 14 2.4.1 Constituents of the Mood 15 2.4.2 Residue 16 2.4.3 Mood types 16 2.4.3.1 Indicative mood 17 iv 2.4.3.2 Imperative mood 18 2.5 The textual meaning 18 2.5.1 Types of theme 19 2.5.1.1 Ideational or Topical theme 19 2.5.1.2 Textual theme 20 2.5.1.3 Interpersonal theme 20 2.5.2 Theme and mood 20 2.5.2.1 Theme in interrogatives 21 2.5.2.2 Theme in imperatives 21 2.5.2.3 Theme in declaratives 21 2.5.2.4 Theme in exclaimatives 22 2.6 Summary 22 CHAPTER 3: THE SEMANTIC AND LEXICOGRAMMATICAL FEATURES OF THE SHORT STORY MR KNOW ALL 23 3.1 W Somerset Maugham and the story Mr Know All 23 3.2 The analysis of the story in terms of clause and clause complex 24 3.3 The analysis of the story in terms of transitivity 25 3.4 The analysis of the story in terms of mood 39 3.5 The analysis of the story in terms of theme 41 3.6 Summary 43 PART III: CONCLUSION CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION 44 4.1 Recapitulation 44 4.2 Implications of the study 45 4.3 Suggestions for further study 45 REFERENCES 46 APPENDIX 1: Clause and clause complex I APPENDIX 2: The transitivity pattern IX APPENDIX 3: The mood pattern XC APPENDIX 4: The theme pattern C v PART I: INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1: GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study Since its birth in early 18th century, linguistics has witnessed a great change in the development of various approaches to grammar study such as Chomsky‟s transformational generative grammar, Bloomfield‟s immediate constituent grammar Systemic functional grammar, among those, which was developed by celebrities in linguistics such as Halliday, Hassan, Morley, Bloor, can be seen as the most useful tool to satisfy human‟s desire to explore the language‟s nature As Thompson (1996:6) states functional grammar is “a full analysis of sentence in both form and meaning as well as their relationship” Compared with traditional grammar, which considered grammar as “a set of rules which specify all the possible grammatical structures of the language where grammatical and ungrammatical sentences are distinguished clearly” (Lock, 1996:1), functional grammar “is a way of looking at language in terms of how grammar is used” (Martin et al, 1997) In more details, functional grammar concerns with the grammatical patterns and lexical items used in text, as well as choices of those items, focusing on “the development of grammatical systems as a means for people to interact with each other” (Martin et al., 1997:1) In Vietnam, there also have valuable studies of grammarians relating to functional grammar, among which there are Cao Xuân Hạo (1991) with Tiếng Việt: Sơ thảo ngữ pháp chức năng, Hoàng Văn Vân (2005) with Ngữ pháp kinh nghiệm cú tiếng Việt: Mô tả theo quan điểm chức hệ thống Thanks to all these scholars, language is seen to be “closer to life” According to Halliday, a functional grammar was designed to study the wording and interpret the wording by reference to what it means in order to “make it possible to say sensible and useful things about any text” (Halliday, 1994) In detail, it is particularly helpful for explaining how language is selected and organized in particular ways for particular socio-cultural purposes Yet, “traditional approaches to the study of literary texts model text analysis as an interpretive activity”, where “students learn to read a text and try to argue about what meanings they think the writer was making in the text” (Eggins, 2000: 309) “From a systemic perspective”, text analysis is, however, “not an interpretive but an explanatory activity” (Eggins, 2000: 309) In fact, “the linguistic analysis of text is not an interpretation of that text; it is an explanation” – an explanation of both “WHAT” and “HOW” “a text means” (Eggins, 2000: 309; Halliday & Hasan, 1985: 327) In this way, students will become “effective readers”, who can “see the constructedness of the text and of the reading position” imposed upon them by the writer (Kress, 1990: 40) As a teacher of English, I am deeply interested in developing both language proficiency and structural accuracy for my students That is the reason why I have been deeply concerned with systemic functional grammar and my absorption in it, I believe, will help me to apply the theory teaching English to my students more effectively As shown in the title A study on the semantic and lexicogrammatical features of the short story Mr Know All by W Somerset Maugham: A systemic functional analysis, there are some main reasons for my choice of the topic Firstly, as a language teacher, what I am supposed to is to use and teach English correctly and appropriately In order to achieve this goal, analyzing texts to understand their meaning is quite necessary Secondly, understanding what a text is through analyzing, it will certainly help us a great deal in our teaching as stated by Halliday and Hasan (1985) That is reason why I choose to explore the semantic and lexicogrammatical features of Mr Know All by Somerset Maugham 1.2 Aim of the study and research questions The overarching aim of the study is to investigate how transitivity, mood and theme are employed in the story Mr Know All by W Somerset Maugham to convey experiential, interpersonal and textual meanings To achieve this aim, the following research question are raised for exploration: How are transitivity, mood and theme employed in the story Mr Know All by Somerset Maugham to reveal the experiential, interpersonal and textual meaning ? 1.3 Scope of the study Within the framework of a minor thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts in English Linguistics, the primary focus of this study will be on investigating semantic and lexicogrammatical features of the story; they are the transitivity pattern, the mood and modality patterns, and the thematic pattern The text used as data for the study is a short story entitled Mr Know All by W Somerset Maugham 1.4 Methods of the study To achieve the aim as stated above, the study will use two main methods: qualitative and quantitative methods Quantitative method is used for literature review, re-examining the systemic functional grammar framework, analysing the data for results, and discussing research results Quantitative method is concerned with calculating the data and concerting it into percentages for discussion and cocnclusion The analyses of the clauses in terms of transitivity, mood and theme are based on Halliday‟s systemic functional grammar framework 1.5 Design of the study The study is designed in three main parts: Part I – Introduction Chapter – General introduction presents rationale for the study, aim of the study, scope of the study, method of the study and design of the study Part II – Development – is the main part of the study which is organized around two chapters: Chapter 2: Theoretical backgrounds – provides the theoretical framework of the study Its focus is on introducing important concepts of systemic functional linguistics relevant to the topic of the study and a brief introduction to the author and the story Mr Know All ... chapter to analyze the story Mr Know All by W Somerset Maugham 22 CHAPTER THE SEMANTIC AND LEXICOGRAMMATICAL FEATURES OF THE SHORT STORY MR KNOW ALL 3.1 W Somerset Maugham and the story Mr Know. .. effectively As shown in the title A study on the semantic and lexicogrammatical features of the short story Mr Know All by W Somerset Maugham: A systemic functional analysis, there are some main reasons... introduction to the author and the story Mr Know All Chapter 3: Data analysis – analyses the semantic and lexicogrammatical features of the story Mr Know All to see how transitivity, mood & modality, and