Circumstantial meanings in behavioral clauses in english and vietnamese

Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 3, No (2017) 632-646 Circumstantial meanings in behavioral clauses in English and Vietnamese Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh*, Phan Van Hoa**, Tran Huu Phuc*** Abstract: This article discusses the characteristics of circumstances in behavioral clauses in English and Vietnamese in terms of lexicogrammatical structures and ideational meanings as well as making comparisons of them Attention has been paid to interpreting a wide range of lexicogrammatical choices as well as various strands of function of circumstances realized by these choices Each type of circumstances is interpreted (i) structurally, that is, according to rank, and (ii) semantically, according to type Due to the lexical and grammatical differences between English and Vietnamese, circumstantial elements that are commonly realized by prepositional phrases in English are more likely to be realized by nouns or nominal groups in Vietnamese As compared with English circumstances, Vietnamese circumstances are less likely to be embedded or encoded in behavioral processes in the clause Analysis of circumstance characteristics is conducted on twelve English and Vietnamese short stories and novels from the 19th century to present in order to demonstrate the use of circumstances In the conclusion, we pointed out the new results from our investigation and we will also suggest some practical applications such as the efficient approaches to this domain, solutions to translation matters and language teaching and learning Keywords: Circumstances; Behavioral clauses; Functional grammar Received 27th April 2017; Revised 16th October 2017; Accepted 30th October 2017 Introduction* interpretation of both types of lexicogrammar and circumstantial meanings A decision has been made to investigate the characteristics of circumstances in English and Vietnamese since we are English teachers and researchers within functional grammar model of language We frequently face some indeterminate and problematic cases when analyzing and categorizing English and Vietnamese circumstances Shedding light on this matter enables a different view of ideational meaning to have a better understanding of the extent of these meanings in contexts and to offer a more effective way of teaching these meanings to students Being one of the three core elements in ideational meaning analysis, circumstances appear freely in six types of processes but play an important role in meaning contributions We examine the characteristics of circumstances in terms of lexico-grammatical diversity and circumstantial meanings across our selected data That is to say, we suggest a different * College of Transport II, Viet Nam; email: trinhgtvt2@gmail.com ** University of Foreign Language Studies, University of Da Nang, Viet Nam *** University of Foreign Language Studies, University of Da Nang, Viet Nam 632 Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh et al / Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 3, No (2017) 632-646 1.1 Theoretical Background Halliday and Matthiessen classify circumstances into nine Extent, Location, Manner, Contingency, Accompaniment, Role, (2004) types: Cause, Matter, and Angle Circumstances are very significant with special interpretations wherever they occur Table 2.11 illustrates the list of circumstantial elements and their realization Table 1: Types of circumstantial elements Type Extent Distance Duration Frequency Location Place Time Manner Means Quality Comparison Cause Reason Purpose Behalf Contingency Accompanime nt Condition Default Concession Comitative Additive Role Guise Product Wh-item How far? How long? How many times? Where? [there, here] 633 Examples of realization for; throughout „measured‟; nominal group or; throughout „measured‟; nominal group „measured‟ nominal group at, in, on, by, near; to, towards, into, onto, (away) from, out of, off; behind, in front of, above, below, under, alongside adverb of place: abroad, overseas, home, upstairs, downstairs, inside, outside; out, up, down, behind; left, right, straight ; there, here When? [then, at, in, on; to, until, till, towards, into, from, now] since, during, before, after adverb of time: today, yesterday, tomorrow; now, then How? [thus] by, through, with, by means of, out of )+ material) from How? [thus] n + a + quality (e.g dignified) + manner/way, with + abstraction (e.g dignity); according to adverbs in -ly, -wise; fast, well; together, jointly, separately, respectively How? What like, unlike; in + the manner of like? adverbs of comparison differently Why? because of, as a result of, thanks to, due to, for want of, for, of, out of, through Why? What for, for the purpose of, for the sake of, in the for? hope of Who for? for, for the sake of, in favor of, against [„not in favor of‟], on behalf of Why? in case of, in the event of in default of, in the absence of, short of, without [„if it had not been for‟] despite, in spite of Who/what with; without with? And who/what as well as, besides; instead of Else? What as? as, by way of, in the role/shape/guise/form of What into? into 634 Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh et al / Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 3, No (2017) 632-646 Matter What about? Angle about, concerning, on, of, with reference to, in [„with respect to‟] according to, in the words of, to, in the view/opinion of, from the standpoint of (Halliday 2004: 262) 1.2 Previous Studies Halliday and Matthiessen (2000) give an in-depth explanation to how human beings construe their experience of the world The construction of experience is usually thought of as knowledge, represented in the form of conceptual taxonomies, schemata, scripts and others Bloor and Bloor (1995) present a short account to the analysis of English for those starting out with functional grammar Eggins (1994) introduces the principles and techniques of the functional approach to language Fowler (1996) figures out that functional grammar is a semantic system to analyze representations of reality in a linguistic text and create the same experience through various lexicogrammatical options influenced by different mind styles or authorial ideology In Vietnamese, Hoàng Văn Vân (2012) adopts functional grammar‟s framework to describe the experiential grammar of Vietnamese clauses of the system of TRANSITIVITY He offers a close examination of circumstantial TRANSITIVITY in Vietnamese Although he doesn‟t make comparisons between English and Vietnamese circumstances, his approach makes the door wider to the study and the comparison between English and Vietnamese in functional grammar One of the core similarities of the above functional ideology is the semantics of TRANSITIVITY that Givón (1995) called “the three features that define semanticallytransitive clause” Each of these semantic dimensions correspond to what Hopper and Thompson (1980) call prototypical transitive event: Agent (as salient cause), Patient (as salient effect) and Verbal modality (as being perfective, sequential and realis) Such functional essentials have made research directions clearer to functional clauses in English and its contrastive languages like the topic involved Method 2.1 Data collection Qualitative is adopted in this study because our attention is paid to interpret English and Vietnamese circumstances in behavioral clauses In other words, we focus on analyzing and making sense of English and Vietnamese ones rather than seeking to count things To determine behavioral clauses within this study, we start with behavioral processes because we look at behavioral clauses from Halliday‟s viewpoint The selection of behavioral processes began with selecting verbs that realize behavioral processes offered by Halliday (2004), Martin et al (1997), Thompson (2013), Eggins (1994) and Vietnamese behavioral processes suggested by Hoàng Văn Vân (2002), Lê Thị Hằng (2007), Tôn Nữ Bảo Khoa (2009) and from my dictionary collection Tables and illustrate the raw lists of behavioral processes in English and Vietnamese Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh et al / Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 3, No (2017) 632-646 635 Table 2: A list of English behavioral processes English behavioral processes Abuse, argue, blink, blush, breathe, burp, chat, chatter, cogitate, cough, criticize, cry, curse, dance, dream, embrace, faint, flatter, foam, frown, gasp, gawk, giggle, glimpse, gnash, gossip, grimace, grin, groan, hitcup, hug, insult, kiss, laugh, listen, mediate, moan, mumble, murmur, mutter, nod, observe, ponder, praise, puzzle, quiver, ruminate, scowl, scream, shit, shiver, shudder, sigh, sing, slander, smile, snarl, sneer, sneeze, sniff, snore, snort, sob, stammer, stare, stutter, sweat, think on, tremble, twitch, view, watch, whine, whinge, whisper, yawn, yell Table 3: A list of Vietnamese behavioral processes Vietnamese behavioral processes Băn khoăn, bi bô, b u môi, b , cà lăm, ca ng i, c i, c i c , c i l n, c i vả, cân nh c, cau c , cau mày, chê, chê bai, ch i, ch p m t, co, co r m, c i, c i kh y, dằn v t, dàn x p, i u nh, d i, ê a, g m g , g t u, g t g , gi t m nh, h t x , h t vào, ho, h h t, h la, h reo, khao kh t, khit m i, kh c, kh t khịt, l c u, l m b m, l m b m, lăng m , l ng nh n, làu bàu, li c nh n, li c x o, lo, l m, m ng, m m môi, m , n c, nằm, n m, ng m, ng m ngh , ng m ngh a, ng p, ng y, nghe, ngh n, ng , ng i, nhai, nhăn m t, nhăn nh , nh o bang, nhảy, nh y m t, nh n, n i, n i l p, nu t, , h i, ôm, ph b ng, qu c m t, quan s t, qu t, qu , rên, rên r , r n r n, r , r r , run, r ng m nh, s nh c, s vả, s , tâm s , t n d ng, t n g u, tâng b c, than v n, theo d i, th t, th , to t m hôi, tr m ngâm, tr m t , tranh c i, tr m t, tr ng m t, t l , v m hôi, vu kh ng, vu oan, xem, x u, xu nịnh After building up our raw English and Vietnamese behavioral lists, we adopt bottom-up approach to recognize behavioral clauses in English and Vietnamese short stories and novels “Jane Eyre”, “The Great Gatsby”, “Sons and Lovers”, “Women in love” and “The rainbow” are the five English novels written by Bronte, Fitzgerald and Lawrence In their work, the characters with their personal experience and behaviors are brilliantly described via the lively wording of the talented writers Besides, the seven Vietnamese short stories and novels “S ng m n”, “D m n phiêu l u k ”, “T t n” “Ch Ph o”, “S ”, “Trong tim m t s n ng vàng” and “Quê n i” are thoroughly selected due to their popularity and wonderful narrative device of personal experience and behaviors We have made the decision to carry out the research in stories and novels but not in other genres since stories and novels reflect the reality via the lens and skillful wording of talented writers In this paper, sampling is a crucial step and we decided to adapt random sampling technique Wordsmith 5.0 and Navigation pane in Word documents and PDF are used as powerful tools to select behavioral clauses Concord function in Wordsmith 5.0 is exploited to collect English behavioral clauses while Search engine is used to pick up Vietnamese behavioral clauses since Wordsmith 5.0 is not applicable to 636 Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh et al / Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 3, No (2017) 632-646 Vietnamese texts There are two main reasons for choosing Wordsmith 5.0 and Navigation pane because the above novels and short stories are already available in electronic versions so it is advantageous and time-saving for us to process them In addition, we can work on and store a huge amount of collected data effectively After processing English verb list in table in Wordsmith 5.0, 1387 English behavioral clauses are collected and saved from the five novels As for Vietnamese data collection, Navigation pane is used to select Vietnamese behavioral clauses We exploited the Navigation pane with the remaining verbs in table 2, 1155 Vietnamese behavioral clauses are selected and saved 2.2 Data analysis A framework for data analysis is offered in this section All selected English and Vietnamese circumstances in behavioral clauses are analyzed and categorized in terms of lexico-grammar and circumstantial meanings and then a comparison of them in English and Vietnamese is made Theoretically, the relationships between lexico-grammar and function are very close but complex In other words, function (or meaning) is realized or expressed through lexico-grammar or linguistic expressions and according to Fontaine (2013) there is not a one-to-one relationship between them Results and discussion 3.1 Lexico-grammar After we thoroughly investigate and analyze circumstances in behavioral clauses at their lexico-grammatical level based on Halliday‟s account, adverbial phrases and prepositional phrases are widely found in the selected data 3.1.1 Adverbial phrases According to Morley (2000), lexicogrammar in FG is the stratum which handles the wording of a text It is the level at which different patterns of semantic structures are realized in word form and is concerned with the classes of grammatical unit This section pays attention to interpretation of lexicogrammatical wording of circumstances in English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses Attempts have been made to figure out the realizational rules which map circumstances into the lexico-grammatical wording A majority of circumstances in our selected behavioral clauses are realized by adverbial phrases or groups For example: (1) She smiled slowly and walking through her husband as if he were a ghost shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye (Fitzgerald 1925) (2) He glanced at me and frowned slightly (Fitzgerald 1925) In (1) and (2), “slowly” and “slightly” are examples of circumstances functioning as manner realized by adverbial phrases As compared to English adverbial groups, withly adverb as „Head‟, it is far more difficult to classify Vietnamese adverbial groups due to their formation and spelling While most of English adverbs are accompanied with suffix-ly such as: quickly, slowly, easily, and some irregular adverbs without suffix-ly such as well, fast, late, hard, amongst others, most of Vietnamese adverbs are unidentified at word level They may be either adjectives or adverbs depending on particular positions in clauses Consider the following examples in Vietnamese (3) Nụ cười toe toét l i n môi chị (4) Ph Ðoan nh n tr m n mà m m cười toe toét (V Tr ng Ph ng 1938) Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh et al / Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 3, No (2017) 632-646 “Toe to t” in (3) is a typical case of adjectives since it modifies the noun “n c i” whilst “Toe to t” in (4) is a common example of adverbs modifying behavioral verb or process “smile” This kind of confusion in the examples is very popular in Vietnamese and it can make identifying the grammatical units within the clauses very challenging at times 3.1.2 Prepositional phrases This section briefly discusses the wording or structural realization creating different meanings of circumstances They are typically expressed by prepositions as shown in the following: (5) Wright was grinning behind her (Lawrence 1915) (6) Gerald watched them with the steady twinkle in his eyes (Lawrence 1920) (7) She smiled slowly and walking through her husband as if he were a ghost shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye (Fitzgerald 1925) These are examples of English prepositional phrases including a preposition and a nominal group Prepositional phrases serve a wide range of circumstantial meaning and they are thoroughly discussed in section 3.2 In Vietnamese, “bằng, v i, c ng, , t i, trong, trên”, inter alia, are the most common prepositions Consider the following examples: (8) N kh c hu hu r i ch y quanh lồng (Ngô T t T 1937) (13) A convulsed shiver behavior ran through Pro: behavioral 637 (9) Chị D u th th n ng i chõng long nan (Ngô T t T 1937) (10) Nghị Qu vểnh râu ứng sân gạch ng m ôi b câu g t g g c a chu ng (Ngô T t T 1937) (11) R i chị l i ẵm n ngồi sân (Ngơ T t T 1937) (12) Anh D u nằm c ng queo phản (Ngô T t T 1937) Prepositions “quanh, trong, ra, trên” in the above examples tell us about the locations or situations where something is going on This section is a discussion of wording or structural realization of circumstances in English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses Attention will be paid to interpretation of circumstances in terms of meanings 3.2 Circumstances According to Halliday and Matthiessen (2004), there are nine subtypes of circumstances : Extent, Location, Manner, Cause, Contingency, Accompaniment, Role, Matter, Angle Some circumstances just go with certain clauses For example, circumstances of Matter are fairly popular with mental, verbal and behavioral clauses but quite rare with the other process types In our study, there are only four certain types namely: Extent, Location; Manner; and Cause in behavioral clauses 3.2.1 Circumstance of extent her Rangephenomenon (Lawrence 1919) once, twice, Cir: Extent at his touch Cir: cause Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh et al / Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 3, No (2017) 632-646 638 (14) She stared Behaver broodingly into Cir: Manner Pro: behavioral her tea-cup , twisting Range Pro: Phenomenon behavior al her wedding ring Range Phenome non all the time Cir: Extent (Lawrence 1919) (15) He Behaver stared at Pro: behavioral it Range – Phenomenon for a moment Cir: extent (Fitzgerald 1925) In (13) and (14), the circumstances “once, twice” and “all the time” tell us something about the frequency of the processes “ran through” and “twisting” in the relations to the other participants and circumstances whilst in (15) circumstance “for a moment” tells readers about the duration of the process “stare at” Consider the following example in Vietnamese: (16) Thỉnh thoảng Cir: extent y lại hít mạnh vào m t c i Behaver Cir: extent Pro: behavioral Cir: manner Cir: Location Range phenomen on (Nam Cao 1956) There are three kinds of circumstances in (16) namely: extent, manner and location Among them, circumstance of extent “th nh thoảng” and “l i” belong to the category of frequency which is the extent of repetition of the occurrence of the process “h t” For example: (17) Nh ng h không s h i, v n thản nhiên ng a m t ứng th hai râu nghe ngóng chốc lát r i l i chăm ch làm (Tơ Hồi 1941) 3.2.2 Circumstance of Location Circumstance of location will answer either „where?‟ or „when? Consider the following examples: (17) He hugged himself in his brown blanket (Lawrence 1920) (18) All the while the peewits were screaming in the field (Lawrence 1919) (19) She sobbed violently on his shoulder, whilst he held her still, waiting (Lawrence 1920) In the above examples, the three circumstances realized by prepositional phrases “in his own blanket”, “in the field” and “on his shoulder” give us information about the spatial location of the processes Consider the following examples in Vietnamese: Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh et al / Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 3, No (2017) 632-646 (20) Ch nh Tổng ng m tăm nằm cạnh bàn đèn (Ngô T t T 1937) (21) Nh c c i th n th y, h n m i ch i r , th t m ng khắp làng cho oai (Ngô T t T 1937) As with English, Vietnamese location circumstance also refers to a place It typically answers the question âu/ ch nào? (where) It may be a definite location such as cạnh bàn đèn (next to the modest opium layout tray) or khắp làng (all over the village) as in (20) and (21) 3.2.3 Circumstance of manner Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) figure out that there are four subcategories in Manner, namely, Means, Quality, Comparison and Degree a Quality Quality is typically realized by an adverbial group, with-ly adverb as Head Phrasal expressions of quality in the following examples modify the specifications of manner of behavioral process in terms of speed, shape, tone, sound and so on (39) He smiled, uncomfortably, cynically (Lawrence 1915) 639 (40) And he trembled delicately in every limb (Lawrence 1920) (41) Then he nodded, a little suddenly (Lawrence 1920) In Vietnamese, a lot of adverbial groups serving as Circumstance: Quality are found in this paper since they are all-purpose devices which help writers describe their characters‟ behaviors efficiently Below are some examples: (45) L o ngo c m c i khà khà r i nói (Tơ Hồi 1941) (47) M y ứa trẻ xem ch i d c i (Tơ Hồi 1941) (48) Ch ng n v a thổi phù phù v a c n ngấu nghiến (Ngô T t T 1937) (49) Thằng D n v c u v a thổi v a húp soàn soạt (Ngô T t T 1937) As far as we are concerned, adverbial senses are closely related to the quality of actions or behaviors they modify That is to say, adverbial phrases modify the quality of behaviors Interestingly, the interpretation of adverbial senses is mostly determined by the various behaviors they modify in Vietnamese For examples: 640 Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh et al / Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 3, No (2017) 632-646 Table 4: Contrasting examples of accompanying manner- quality of process “cry” and “smile” in Vietnamese Khóc l t m t Khóc tru tréo Khóc lu loa Khóc thảm thi t Kh c ng t Khóc hu hu Kh c th m Kh c s t m t Kh c m Khóc om sịm Khóc nhè Kh c s ng m t Khóc than Kh c thổn thức Khóc gào Khóc ốn Khóc thút thít C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C C In Vietnamese, the typical accompanying manner circumstances of process “cry” are “hu hu”, “tru tr o”, “lu loa”, “thảm thi t”, “hu hu” while the typical ones of process “smile” are “toe to t”, “ch m ch m, “ kh y” …and “laugh” are “hi h ”, ha”, “r ”, “hô ih h i khanh kh ch i ph i khúc khích i vang i gi n tan i ru i in i hoa i t nh imm ih h i toe to t it i i nh t i kh y i khà khà i th m i h ”, “kh c kh ch” and others Moreover, there is a sharp distinction between English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses analysis in terms of experimental meta-function Let us consider the following examples: (50) She giggled She Behaver giggled Pro: behavioral (Lawrence 1919) (51) Cơ c i khúc khích Cô Behaver c i Pro: behavioral (50) and (51) are agnated in terms of meaning in English and Vietnamese but they khúc khích Circumstance: manner are distinctive in terms of experimental analysis In (50), circumstance of manner is Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh et al / Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 3, No (2017) 632-646 absent and is embedded in behavioral process “giggle” whilst manner circumstance “kh c kh ch” is available and falls apart from behavioral process “c i” In many cases, English circumstances of manner are embedded or encoded in behavioral processes while Vietnamese ones are separated from behavioral processes and are labeled as Circumstance of Manner Interpreters and experiential analysts should take this case into consideration when working on translating it 641 Last but not least, grammar functional analysts have to face some challenges when interpreting Vietnamese circumstance since it is extremely difficult for us identify whether it is a compound or are separated words In other words, some circumstances are firmly bounded up with behavioral processes and embedded in them while others are freely tied with behavioral processes Let us consider the following examples: (52) Lexico L c y cười khẩy Adverbial phrase Pronoun Verbal phrase Cir: Time Behaver Process: Behavioral grammar Ideational metafunction (Cẩm Thương 2011) (53) Ông Bảy l i vu t râu dài cười khẹc Hoá Lexico Proper grammar noun Ideational meta- Behaver function khẹc Adverb Verbal Noun phrase Verbal phrase phrase Cir: Time Adverbial phrase Process: Behaviora l Range- Process: Cir: Phenomenon Behavioral Manner (Võ Quảng 1974) It is interesting that both “kh y” and “kh c kh c” stands behind the behavioral process “c i” but “kh y” in (52) is definitely fixed with the process “c i” and forms a phrasal verb whilst “kh c kh c” in (53) is not joined to the process “c i” and is labeled as Circumstance-Manner It is highly advisable that these analysts should look up these expressions to make sure that the elements behind the process are fixed or not b Comparison Comparison is typically expressed by a prepositional phrase with like or unlike For example: (54) He breathed lightly and regularly like an infant (Lawrence 1920) (55) Gudrun cried, in a strange, high voice, like a gull, or like a witch creaming 642 Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh et al / Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 3, No (2017) 632-646 out from the side of the road (Lawrence 1920) (56) He was breathing hoarsely too, like an animal that is suffering (Lawrence 1920) In Vietnamese, circumstance of Comparison is always realized by the word “nh ” as in the following example: (57) Chị D u ng i đờ gỗ (Ngô T t T 1937) (58) N lăn ành ch xu ng t n gi y gi a gà phải nước nóng.(Ngơ T t T 1937) (59) R t r n b c m t n m b vào miệng, uể oải nhai bị nhai trấu (Ngơ T t T 1937) (60) C i T ôm ch m l y m kh c mưa gió (Ngơ T t T 1937) 3.2.4 Circumstances of cause (61) And I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being dragged forth by the said Jack (Bronte 1847) (62) The children gasped at such a fabulous price (Lawrence 1919) In (61) and (62), the prepositional phrases are labeled as circumstances of Cause which construe the reason why the process is actualized Particularly, the prepositions above are closely bonded with verbs “tremble” and “gasp” In Vietnamese (63) Tôi b m b ng nhịn c i thầy đồ Cóc r i d ng c i khoa giao thiệp hoa mỹ khôi hài p a l i (Tơ Hồi 1941) In the light of this analysis, the nominal group “th y C c” is considered Circumstance of Cause 3.3 Puzzle Circumstance or participant-range One of the difficulties in analyzing clauses in a functional framework is being able to figure out whether an element of the clause is functioning as a participant or a circumstance Especially in English, there are a considerable number of phrasal verbs It definitely causes some puzzle to decide whether to interpret a structure as process + circumstance or process + participantrange What is the most comprehensive analysis of the following? (64) She sniffed, and sniffed Pro: behavioral at the bottle Cir: location Behaver OR She sniffed, and sniffed at Pro: behavioral the bottle Range Behaver (Lawrence 1919) (65) He Behaver glanced Pro: behavioral at me Cir: location and frowned Pro: behavioral He Behaver glanced at Pro: behavioral me Range and frowned Pro: behavioral slightly Cir: manner OR (Fitzgerald 1925) slightly Cir: manner Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh et al / Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 3, No (2017) 632-646 643 (66) He is putting Behaver Pro: behavioral on a cheerful smile He is putting on a cheerful smile Behaver Pro: behavioral Range Cir: location OR (Lawrence 1920) The stance we take is that preposition is jointly bonded with a verb Therefore, it performs a function as part of the process, as with sniff at the bottle consisting of process sniff at + Range bottle, glanced at me with process glanced at + Range me and is putting on a cheerful smile with process is putting on + Range a cheerful smile There is no simple analysis criterion for interpretation of each single case But in behavioral clauses, these cases are firmly considered Participant-Range We look at these indeterminate cases from the same viewpoint with Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) and Martin el al (1997) Martin et al (1997) argue that “often it will be obvious that the preposition must count as part of the process realization” (Martin et al, 1997:128) In Vietnamese, there were less inconsistencies and ambiguities in analyzing behavioral clauses related to phrasal verbs from functional perspective It is definitely not a case of Verb + Preposition For example, Vietnamese verb “nh n” is one word and it is often accompanied by Vietnamese prepositions such as “vào”, “lên”, “xu ng”, “ra” “Vào”, “lên”, “xu ng”, “ra” are very ambiguous and challenging to interpret when they go with motion verbs like “ i”, “ ứng”, “ng i” and “nằm” from cognitive perspective “Vào”, “lên”, “xu ng”, “ra” are often considered as directional complement verbs encoding the path of Motion (Manner/Cause + Directional complement verbs) (Mai Thị Thu Hân 2011:108) Cognitive linguists make a clear distinction between locational and directional meaning to form a state verb phrase or a dynamic motion verb phrase while Halliday (1985) views and classifies both locational and directional meaning into the second Circumstance-Location This study, therefore, adopting Halliday‟s functional framework, labels “vào”, “lên”, “xu ng”, “ra” as Circumstance-Location instead of locational or directional ones In this light, these examples are interpreted as follows (67) Chí Phèo Behaver ứng l i Pro: Behavioral nhìn Conjunctive adjunct Pro: Behavioral Range-phenomenon (Nam Cao 1957) Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh et al / Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 3, No (2017) 632-646 644 (68) a Pro: Material Tôi Behaver m t Range l n cu i Cir: Time nhìn Pro: Behavioral phong cảnh Rangephenomenon n i tơi Cir: Location (Tơ Hồi 1941) (69) Y nhìn Behaver Pro: Behavioral vào gương Cir: Location v a xoa n n Conjunctive Pro: adjunct Behavioral m t v a Rangephenomenon Conjunctive Pro: adjunct Behavioral càu nhàu (Nam Cao 1956) (70) l Pro: Behavioral Lão Behaver m t Rangephenomenon nhìn Pro: Behavioral tr ng tr ng Cir: Manner vào mắt Cir: Location (Nam Cao 1956) (71) ngoảnh nhìn Pro: Behavioral Tơi Behaver lên Cir: Location (Tơ Hồi 1941) (72) Đơi m t Behaver nhìn Pro: Behavioral xuống Cir: Location nh s ngu i ta nh n vào tâm h n Cir: Manner (Nam Cao 1956) These prepositions aren‟t firmly combined or incorporated with verbs to form phrasal verbs as in English They can, however, be used compositionally to add more meaning Conclusion In this paper, an attempt has been made to examine circumstances in English and Vietnamese in terms of lexico-grammatical realization and circumstantial meanings A qualitative method is adopted to interpret them It is safe to say that there is a very wide range of circumstantial meanings The analysis of collected data revealed some similarities and distinctive differences between English and Vietnamese We interpret and identify two typical kinds of English and Vietnamese lexico-grammatical realization in behavioral clauses: adverbial phrases and prepositional phrases and four accompanying circumstances in behavioral clauses: extent, location, manner and cause Among them, circumstance of manner is the most available in both English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses since it Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh et al / Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 3, No (2017) 632-646 specifies the way how the behavioral processes are performed by the participant After making a contrastive analysis between English and Vietnamese circumstances, it can be seen that English circumstantial meaning of manner is occasionally absent and embedded in English behavioral processes but it is physically present and falls apart from Vietnamese behavioral processes Translators should take this case into consideration in translation In addition, it is found that there is a borderline of participants and circumstances in English due to the prevalence of English phrasal verbs whilst there is no trouble analyzing and labeling Vietnamese circumstances References Bloor, T & Bloor, M 1995 The Functional Analysis of English: A Hallidayan Approach, Edward Arnold Eggins, S 1994 An introduction into Systemic Functional Linguistics London and New York: Continuum Fontaine, L 2013 Analysing English Grammar: A Systemic Functional Introduction Cambridge University Press Fowler, R 1996 On critical linguistics Texts and practices: Readings in critical discourse analysis London: Routledge Givón,T., 1995 Functionalism and Grammar John Beniamins Publishing Company Halliday, M.A.K 1985 Introduction to functional grammar London: Arnold Halliday M.A.K & Matthiessen, C.M.I.M 2000 Construing experience through meaning: a language-based approach to cognition, Open linguistics series, Continuum International Halliday, M.A.K & Matthiessen, 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Nam c a th kỷ XIX XX Trong k t lu n, việc nêu b t iểm m i c a k t nghiên cứu, ch ng s ịnh h ng ứng d ng k t nghiên cứu m t vài l nh v c nh c ch ti p c n nghiên cứu sâu v chu cảnh mệnh hành vi hai ngôn ngữ, x l v n dịch thu t, c ng nh d y ngo i ngữ Từ khóa: Chu cảnh; Câu hành vi; Ngữ ph p chức  ... is offered in this section All selected English and Vietnamese circumstances in behavioral clauses are analyzed and categorized in terms of lexico-grammar and circumstantial meanings and then a... words, we focus on analyzing and making sense of English and Vietnamese ones rather than seeking to count things To determine behavioral clauses within this study, we start with behavioral processes... xu nịnh After building up our raw English and Vietnamese behavioral lists, we adopt bottom-up approach to recognize behavioral clauses in English and Vietnamese short stories and novels “Jane Eyre”,