An investigation into relational and verbal processes in the litterature review in view of functional grammar

THE UNIVERSITY OF DA NANG UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ PHƯƠNG THÚY AN INVESTIGATION INTO RELATIONAL AND VERBAL PROCESSES IN THE LITERATURE REVIEW IN VIEW OF FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR Major: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS Code: 60.22.02.01 MASTER THESIS IN SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES (A SUMMARY) Da Nang, 2017 This thesis has been completed at University of Foreign Language Studies, The University of Da Nang Supervisor: NGU THIEN HUNG, Ph.D Examiner 1: Nguyen Tat Thang, Ph.D Examiner 2: Nguyen Thi Quynh Hoa, Ph.D The thesis was be orally defended at the Examining Committee Time: 09/09/2017 Venue: University of Foreign Language Studies -The University of Da Nang This thesis is available for the purpose of reference at: Library of University of Foreign Language Studies, The University of Da Nang CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE A literature review is absolutely common for researchers at any levels The purpose of a literature review is to show readers that the researcher has read, and illustrate a good grasp of the previous published works related to the researcher’s topic or field In fact, although some reviewers of literature are very high value and achieve good feedbacks, the mainstream of them were boring, poor and not quite academic Conducting and presenting the literature review requires a variety of activities such as reading, interpreting, and analyzing, and synthesizing numerous data or ideas As we all know, language is as an effective instrument of thought We need a model of language that assist us to create the meaning of the text and Functional grammar can solve this because Functional grammar views language as a resource of making meaning Therefore, writers can take the advantages of the functional aspects of language to fullfil their task in presenting an effective literature review of their research work In this sense, Functional grammar can be considered an effective instrument to view how well the writers build the literature review We can see that Halliday’s Functional Grammar (FG) focuses on the meaning of language or communication and indicates the grammatical patterns of natural language Actually, having insight knowledge about the experiential function can assist writers to serve for the content of their literature reviews and make it easy for readers to understand the writers’ expression Especially, experiential metafunction has six process types: Material, Relational, Mental, Behavioural, Verbal and Existential with particular functions and special kinds of verbs, which provides writers the most appropriate words to show accurate summary, thinking, comparison and judgment about the previous studies in their own literature reviews Let’s consider some extracts from a literature review of “Matching and Stretching Learners’ Learning Styles” published by Journal of Language Teaching and Research “The education literature suggests that learners who are actively immersed in the learning process will be more likely to achieve success (Dewar, 1999).” “In Gagne‟s (1985) view, teaching strategies are conditions required for the acquisition of knowledge and skill.” The verb in bold “suggests”, is the verbal process and the underlined “are” is the relational process in terms of experiential meaning The writer used the verbs to describe the special points of the achievements of previous researchers Therefore, an analysis of processes of experiential representation is a helpful theoretical model for both reviewers and the readers in writing and understanding the literature review For these reasons above, I make a decision to conduct the research with the title: An investigation into relational and verbal processes in the literature review in view of Functional Grammar 1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES 1.2.1 Aims This study aims to examine the relational and verbal processes in the literature reviews in view of Functional grammar and provide the Vietnamese learners of English practical knowledge concerning the functional aspects of the linguistic resources in presenting the literature reviews 1.2.2 Objectives To achieve the aim of the study, the following objectives are intended: - To find out the linguistic resources for representing for two processes: relational and verbal of the experiential meaning in the literature review - To identify the functional aspects of the two processes in the literature review - To suggest some implications for producing the literature review 1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY In the scope of this research I concentrate mainly on analysis of the relational and verbal processes of the experiential function used in systems and lexico-grammatical structures which is a incredibly significant branch of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar in the literature review in terms of Functional grammar The experiential metafunction about the perception and experience of the world was analyzed in clause as representation in the literature review Besides, analysis of two processes in transitivity system such as relational and verbal processes containing in the literature review were discovered From the analysis, it is expected that the study would help people to distinguish the distinctive features of relational and verbal processes applied in the literature review and how language represents in the literature review, so that the writers can take advantages of them to improve writing literature review skill However, such Material, Mental, Behavioral Process will not be dealt with and are put beyond the scope of this study 1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS To accomplish the objectives mentioned above the research seeks the information to answer the following questions: - How the relational and verbal processes in view of functional grammar are used in literature review? - What are the linguistic realizations of the two processes in the literature review in view of Functional grammar? 1.5 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY The study is presented in five chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Literature Review and Theoretical Background Chapter 3: Research Method Chapter 4: Findings & discussions Chapter 5: Conclusions & implications CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1.1 Defining Literature review 2.1.2 An Overview of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) 2.1.3 Linguistic Metafunctions 2.1.4 The Grammar of Experiential Meaning 2.2 LITERATURE REVIEW Up to now, many researchers have been done on the meaning of the clause as representation: Eggins' An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics (2004) introduces readers to the major concepts, principles and techniques of the systemic functional approach to language It provides an overview of systemic functional theory and illustrates how readers use these principles or approaches in analyzing the spoken and written texts Bloor and Bloor (2004) show an overview of the applications of functional grammar to the practical importance of linguistic theory and analysis related to different texts such as science, travel, history and literary sources He proposes that “when people use language, their language acts produce – construct meaning” (2004, p 2) In the study about Transitivity Analysis of Heroic Mother by Hoa Pham by Thu Hanh Nguyen (2012), transitivity analysis gives more detailed information to assist the reader’s responses to “Heroic Mother” The study of transitivity analysis through processes and the participants provides linguistic indication to support the meaning of the story so readers can understand the main character’s world Heroic mother is the main character suffering from the isolation, boredom, and insufficient consideration from her family The study An investigation of the Doctoral Literature Review of Melynda (2011) focuses on the importance of a well-conducted dissertation literature review and then examine the textbooks used in the early stages of doctoral education and the quality of dissertation literature reviews from a field of the Literature Review Scoring The article A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review by Justus (2009) summarizes some pivotal information on how to conduct a high-quality dissertation literature review It includes the purposes of a review, presents taxonomy of literature reviews, the procedure in writing a quantitative or qualitative literature review The article also provides some common mistakes and a framework for the self-evaluation of a literature review A Framework for Using Discourse Analysis for the Review of the Literature in Counseling Research by Anthony and Rebecca (2014) provides a framework for counselor researchers and practitioners for using another qualitative data analysis technique to analyze and interpret literature review sources—a process that we call a Discourse Analysis-Based Research Synthesis (DARS) 2.3 SUMMARY In summary, this chapter has reviewed the previous researches relating to this study It has also presented the verbal processes and relational processes in light of functional grammar The usage of the verbal and relational processes in the literature review is also examined All these theories serve as a background of the study and will all be the foundation for analysis in the following chapters CHAPTER RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 METHODOLOGY To reach the demand of objectivities mentioned in chapter 1, the combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches was used in this study - The descriptive method was used to analyze the linguistic features of relational attributive processes and verbal processes in the Literature review with quantitative and qualitative information - Qualitative information was collected for the identification of the types of verbal processes and relational processes represented in the literature review - Quantitative information was collected for the frequency of each types of processes manifested in the literature review 3.2 SAMPLING 3.3 DATA COLLECTION 3.4 DATA ANALYSIS The corpus of the data was analyzed and classified with the function of experiential meaning in clause in the literature review: - Investigating the literature review to look for the samples containing relational and verbal processes in the literature reviews - Putting the samples into groups of processes: Relational and Verbal - Analyzing the samples of each group carefully basing on the theory of the experiential meaning in clause as representation from the Functional grammar - Selecting the most appropriate and interesting examples to demonstrate the main points of the thesis - Discussing the frequency of clause in term of two processes types of the experiential function in the literature review - Discussing the findings, describing, analyzing and pointing out the similarities and differences of the usage of relational and verbal processes in the literature review The consequences of the analysis are then showed in mainly qualitative manner (in words and nominal scales) Frequency of common core verbs of two kinds of processes is presented in Figures CHAPTER FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 4.1 LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF THE LITERATURE REVIEW IN VIEW OF VERBAL PROCESSES This chapter presents the analysis of the verbal transitivity in the literature review from the Systemic Functional Linguistics perspective The consequences show that there is an important variation among the verbal process frequencies and their projecting characteristics in the literature reviews 4.1.1 Literature review in view of verbal processes with suggest 4.1.2 Literature review in view of verbal processes with propose 4.1.3 Literature review in view of verbal processes with show 4.1.4 Literature review in view of verbal processes with assert 4.1.5 Literature review in view of verbal processes with state 4.1.6 Literature review in view of verbal processes with identify claim 4.1.7 Literature review in view of verbal processes indicate 4.1.8 Literature review in view of verbal processes with argue 4.1.9 Literature review in view of verbal processes with define 4.2 LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF THE LITERATURE REVIEW IN VIEW OF RELATIONAL ATTRIBUTIVE PROCESSES 10 the literature review, the writers tend to use verbal processes taking projections more than non-projections Additionally, hypotactic locutions tend to use more frequently than the paratactic ones The combination of two locutions appears rarely 4.3.1.2 Qualitative analysis about linguistic features of the literature review in view of relational attributive processes A Intensive: From the example mentioned above, there are common patterns in intensive processes: (-/+)C + Carrier + RAP (intensive/describing) + Attribute + C(-/+) (-/+)C + Carrier + RAP (intensive/emphasizing) + Attribute + C(-/+) (-/+)C + Carrier + RAP (intensive/explanation) + Attribute + C(-/+) (-/+)C + Carrier + RAP (intensive/comparing) + Attribute + C(-/+) (-/+)C + Carrier + RAP (intensive/changing) + Attribute + C(-/+) (-/+)C + Carrier + RAP(intensive/comprising) + Attribute +C(-/+) The core verb of Intensive attributive relational process - The verb BE plays the role of linking between carrier and attributor Besides, BE conveys meaning of comparing, describing, indicating or emphasizing The verb BE can be in present or past tense depending on each condition of the time + It usually combines with an indefinite noun, or a noun phrase with plural or singular form, an adjective or an adjective phrase, to 11 infinitive verb Let's see the following example: E-learning is an increasingly popular area of modern education (Kristina, 2010, p.531) - The verb PLAY can support more information about mentioned terms Moreover, it can express the importance of issues It can be accompanied with an indefinite noun or noun phrase Let's see the following example: Traditional education plays too much attention to instilling the knowledge into the students (Yuanyuan, 2015, p.1205) - The verb SEEM is used to describe the external appearance of state, express the enhancement, shows the gradual changing of state to the goal state It can combine with adjective, to be or to infinitive Let's see the following example: In certain words, final syllables seemed to be stressed rather than the first syllables (Dabaghi, 2010, p.1782) - The verb BECOME expresses the inherent nature or a state of change Besides, it can express the result of changing or improvements It is usually accompanied with an adjective, adjective phrase or comparative adjectives, an indefinite noun phrase Let's consider the following example: They also found that when teacher autonomy is restricted teachers become more controlling with their students (Waldvogel, 2013, p.209) The participants in Intensive attributive relational process Intensive Attributive relational process definitely contains two 12 relational participants Carrier and Attribute and sometimes including Circumstances + Carrier: The participants as Carrier are the entities holding the attributes Additionally, they often function as Subject in the sentences - Carrier may be human or non-human It shows the opinions, statements or the summary of studies or achievements, Carrier can be a noun or a noun phrase, complex noun phrase expressing bright inventions or approaches in the researches Besides, Carrier indicates the proper name or pronouns, like the following example: - Carrier can carry a sham subject “IT” The particular feature of English or the sham subject “IT” shows the private opinions or statements or uses to draw the attention… + Attributive: Participants as Attribute express feature, state, existence of the other participant Attribute always preserves the grammatical meaning in the sentence as complement (Cs) with only structure - SVCs Attribute can be nominal group or a complex noun phrase, an adjective, comparative adjectives or an adjective phrase + Circumstance: Circumstantial elements can be accompaniment, angle, time or manner They can stand in front of or the end of the sentence B Circumstance: The Circumstance relational attributive process has common constructions: When Circumstance as process: (1) (-/+) C + Carrier + R.P (attributive/ circumstantial) + Attribute + C (-/+) When Circumstance as participants: 13 (2) (-/+) C + Carrier + R.P (attributive/ intensive) + Attribute (circumstantial) + C (-/+) The core verb of Circumstance attributive relational process + When the Circumstance as process, this process can be realized by these verbs “circumstantial verbs” such as: come from, result in, dwell on, focus on, occur through, begin with, end with, etc All the core verbs follow the subjects and can be in the present tense or past tense These verbs almost combined with a noun or a noun phrase Besides, the noun phrase is always long and complex + When the Circumstance as participants, this process can be realized by the verb “BE” The core verb “be” always accompanied with the noun or a noun phrase conveying meanings of place or time The participants of Circumstance attributive relational process + Carrier: The participants as Carrier are the entities holding the attributes Moreover, they often serve as Subject in the sentences Carrier may be a pronoun, an indefinite thing, a concrete thing, a noun or noun phrase indicating human Carrier can be an indefinite noun related to the opinions or researches: + Attributive: Participants as Attribute can be possessed things of possessor and express the terms belonging to the carrier Attribute can be nominal group or a complex noun phrase + Circumstance: Circumstantial elements add information about time (when), place (where), matter (about what), or accompaniment (with whom) They can be realized by (a) prepositional phrase(s) or (an) adverbial group(s) They can stand in 14 front of or the end of the sentence C Possessive: The possessive relational attributive process has a common construction: (-/+) C + Carrier + R.P (attributive/ possessive) + Attribute + C (-/+) The core verb of Possessive attributive relational process The core verb in this process is “to have” with present or past form Let’s see the following examples: The participants of Possessive attributive relational process + Carrier: The participants as Carrier are the entities holding the attributes, playing as Subject in the sentences Carrier may be a pronoun, an indefinite thing, a concrete thing, a noun or noun phrase indicating human + Attributive: Participants as Attribute can be possessed things of possessor and express the terms belonging to the carrier Attribute can be nominal group or a complex noun phrase + Circumstance: Circumstantial elements add information about time (when), place (where), matter (about what), or accompaniment (with whom) They can stand in front of or the end of the sentence 4.3.2 Discussion of the quantitative analysis 4.3.2.1 Quantitative analysis about linguistic Features of the literature review in view of verbal processes The frequency of linguistics features of literature review in view of verbal processes is presented in the charts below There are a small number of relational identifying processes In the Attributive mode, a quality, classification or descriptive epithet 15 (Attributive) is assigned to a participant (Carrier) In the literature review, the writers tend to use relational attributive to give their opinion, their evaluation, their adjustment about the previous reports, studies or researches Therefore, the relational attributive recognized in the literature review commonly Figure 4.1 The most frequent verbal processes in the literature review As can be observed in Figure 4.1, the result of data analysis shows the frequency of verbal processes in the literature reviews The chart indicates “suggest” with the highest frequency of verbal processes is 19,8%, the verbal process “propose” takes the second largest with 16,1% Ranking the third place is “assert” (14,3%), followed by the verb “show” with 13,9% The figure of “assert” and “show” is quite similar The verb “state” stands at the fifth place accounting for 12,3% The occurrences of “claim” with 8,9% and “argue” is almost the same and is a half of the occurrence of “suggest” The verbal process “indicate” takes up 5,9% and followed by lowest frequency of verbal process “define” with 4,6% It is common that the reviewers tend to use the verbal processes of 16 “suggest”, “propose”, “assert”, “show” and “state” more than these last verbs because they take advantages of the processes to express the sense of the literature reviews Figure 4.2 Projecting characteristics of the most frequent verbal processes in the literature review As can be seen in Figure 4.2, the verbal process “indicate” with non-projected shows the lowest frequency of verbal processes (0.5%), followed by “show” and “define” with frequencies that are more than double (1.5% and 1.6%), and the figures of “argue”, “claim” “propose”, “assert” are quite equal (2%, 2.4%, 2.5% and 2.8%) Ranking at the second highest proportion of no projection is “state” (4.8%) Finally, occurrence of “suggest” with the highest percentage (5.9) In contrast, taking up the lowest frequency of verbal process with projection is “define” and the proportions of “suggest”, “propose” and “show” are much higher than the remained verbs Overall, the verbal processes have more nonprojections than projections 17 4.3.2.2 Quantitative analysis about linguistic Features of the literature review in view of relational attributive processes The frequency of linguistics features of literature review in view of relational attributive processes in the eighty literature reviews under the perspective of Functional grammar is presented in the table and the table and chart below Figure 4.3 The results of the survey of the occurrences of subtypes Relational Attributive Process in the literature review Figure 4.3 above shows that Intensive Relational Attribute Process is used with the highest rank in the literature review (64.5%) Circumstance Relational Attribute Process is the second order (25%) Ranking the third is Possessive Relational Attribute Process (10.5%) There are big differences between subtypes of the process The percentage of Intensive Relational Attribute Process is more than double the figure of Circumstance Relational Attribute Process and six times more than the Possessive Relational Attribute Process 18 CHAPTER CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS Based on the results which were presented in the previous chapter about the linguistic feature of verbal and relational attributive processes in term of Functional grammar in the literature reviews, this chapter summarizes the main findings, puts forward some conclusions and provides some implications of the study as well as makes suggestions for further research 5.1 CONCLUSION In going through the analysis and the discussion of Verbal and Relational Attributive Processes in the literature reviews in details, we now arrive at the conclusions on two kinds of the processes 5.1.1 Verbal Processes in the literature reviews - As we can see in chapter 4, the authors use nine verbal processes: suggest, propose, show, assert, state, claim, indicate, argue, define frequently to outline the purposes and contents of the literature reviews - The fundamental framework of VPs in the literature reviews has three potential constituents appearing commonly in VPs to connect together to form the structures: Sayer + Process + Receiver and Sayer + Process + Projection Additionally, the attendance of circumstance is not potential in the process - According to the analysis of nine most frequent verbal processes, there are common patterns in the literature reviews: + [SAYER + V.P + VERBIAGE + CIRCUMTANCE] + [SAYER + V.P + CLAUSE] + [CIRCUMSTANCE + V.P + BY + SAYER + V.P + CLAUSE] 19 + [SAYER + V.P + RECEIVER + A CLAUSE] + [SAYER + V.P + A COMPLEX CLAUSE] - The Sayers are almost the third persons and can be singular or plural The Receiver appears rarely in the processes Besides, the Circumstance can stand at the top of the sentence and sometimes appears at the end of the sentence, indicating location, matter or angle and giving more details about the sources of the study or research mentioned - In terms of projection, in the literature review, the writers tend to use Verbal processes taking projections more than nonprojections Additionally, hypotactic locutions are used more frequently than the paratactic ones The combination of two locutions appears seldom 5.1.2 Relational Attributive Processes in the literature reviews - The fundamental framework of RAPs in the literature reviews contains three potential elements appearing mostly in RAPs to combine together to create the formula: Carrier + Process + Attributive Additionally, the existence of circumstance is not potential in the process The components of RIPs can be organized like this: (Circumstance) + Carrier + RAPs + Attribute + (Circumstance) - RAPs in the literature reviews are basically divided into three subtypes: Intensive process (X is A); Circumstantial process (X is at A); possessive process (X has A) Each type of process is differently expressed in core verbs - The participants as Carrier often function as Subject in the 20 sentences Carrier may be human or non-human, can be a noun or a noun phrase Besides, Carrier indicates the proper name or pronouns and Carrier can be an indefinite noun related to the opinions or researches Additionally, Carrier can carry a sham subject “IT” - The participant as Attribute can be nominal group or a complex noun phrase and can be an adjective, comparative adjectives or an adjective phrase - Participants as Circumstantial elements sometimes appear in the sentence and add information about time (when), place (where), manner (how), accompaniment (with whom) and reason/cause (why, for what/who), matter (about what), or accompaniment (with whom) They can stand in front of or the end of the sentence - In the literature reviews, there are some typical verbs of Relational Attributive Intensive Process: be, play, seem, become and make In Circumstance process, when Circumstance as process, this process can be realized by these verbs “circumstantial verbs” such as: come from, result in, occur through, begin with, end with, focus on, etc, and when the Circumstance as participants, this process can be realized by the verb “be The core verb in possessive process is “to have” with present or past form - In the literature reviews, there are different ways in combination of three main components in Relational Attributive Processes: Carrier, Process and Attribuitve, creating the fixed structures in proverbs In the process of research, we have found the 10 typical patterns of structure: + (-/+)C + Carrier + RAP (intensive/describing) + Attribute + C(-/+) + (-/+)C + Carrier + RAP (intensive/indicating) + Attribute + C(-/+) 21 + (-/+)C + Carrier + RAP (intensive/emphasizing) + Attribute + C(-/+) + (-/+)C + Carrier + RAP (intensive/explanation) + Attribute + C(-/+) + (-/+)C + Carrier + RAP (intensive/comparing) + Attribute + C(-/+) + (-/+)C + Carrier + RAP (intensive/changing) + Attribute + C(-/+) + (-/+)C + Carrier + RAP (intensive/comprising) + Attribute + C(-/+) + (-/+)C + Carrier + R.P (attributive/circumstantial) + Attribute + C(-/+) +(-/+)C + Carrier + R.P (attributive/intensive) + Attribute (circumstantial) + C(-/+) + (-/+)C + Carrier + R.P (attributive/possessive) + Attribute + C(-/+) 5.2 IMPLICATIONS 5.2.1 To the learners as potential writers of the literature review One’s a profound knowledge of Proverbs reflects the ancestor’s experience in many aspects of life The appropriate use of proverbs in conducting the literature review is considerable Possessing a good knowledge can help writers to enhance the efficiency of verbal communication Finding on the analysis of Verbal and Relational Attributive Processes produce valuable points that readers should pay much attention to enrich their ability in using the language in order to present an effective literature review Writers are hoped to access an 22 overview of the Verbal and Relational Attributive Processes in transitivity system so that they help writers to distinguish between the two kinds of processes, draw student’s attention to the characteristics of proverbs in order to have a good choice of process verbs in writing the reviews It aims to support writers to express their opinion, evaluation, adjustment, comparison of a variety of piece of study in a particular subject area within a certain period of time in the reviews adequately Additionally, this thesis will help writers have knowledge of syntactic and semantic features of clues of participants such as Carrier, Atributive, Sayer, Reciever, Circumstance, Locution, Project, etc The results introduce to writers the framework of Verbal and Relational Attributive processes and can enable writers to distinguish between the common structural models of each process in the literature review The findings also absolutely support writers to avoid mistakes caused by interferences in analyzing Verbal and Relational process in performing the content of the review Besides, the consequences can be the important implication in conducting the literature review because with the knowledge acquired in this study, the linguistic knowledge of Verbal and Relational Processes in light of functional grammar's perspective can be a valuable tool for learners to master how to use two kinds of processes in suitable situation or context to get the best literature review 5.2.2 To the Readers Many readers may have problems in acquiring the comprehension of content and structures of the literature reviews Readers may get confused in understanding meaning that writers conveyed in the literature review This limitation may be due to the 23 lack of knowledge of functional grammar in general or verbal processes and relational processes in particular With the result of the investigation, readers obtain a great opportunity to explore a lot of sentences containing Verbal and Relational Attributive Processes to support their comprehension Readers can improve their general knowledge about the Functional Grammar and can help readers distinguish Verbal and Relational Attributive Processes clearly and understand the meaning of them accurately It is hoped that with the result of the study readers may have knowledge of understanding proverbs of verbal and relational processes that writers use to express their opinion, their feeling, their evaluation, their adjustment and their attitude about the previous researches in the literature reviews Readers have to pay attention to the special functions of common structures in Verbal and Relational processes Moreover, readers also have to focus on meaning participants such as Sayer, Core verbs, Receiver, Carrier, Attributive, or Circumstance in Verbal and Relational Processes in the reviews to comprehend the content effectively This thesis will help teachers have knowledge of syntactic and semantic features of appreciation Lastly, this study is expected to be a useful tool for both writers and readers The thesis can help writers and readers to write and comprehend the literature review clearly and effectively Therefore, writers and readers and those who concerned with these matters have an opportunity to get a better understanding of Functional grammar in presenting the literature review 5.3 LIMITATION OF STUDY AND FUTHER RESEARCH 5.3.1 Limitation of study Within the scope of a master thesis the study has got some restrictions 24 - Firstly, because of the shortage of time the features of all three metafunctions in view of Functional grammar into the literature review have not been studied and only two kinds of experiential meaning are mentioned in my thesis Besides, I cannot give the deep analysis about linguistic features of each component of each process in experiential function - Secondly, there is the lack of materials related to my thesis in analysis about linguistic features into the literature review in view of Functional grammar - Finally, due to the limitation of researcher’s knowledge, the explanation will be clumsy 5.3.2 Suggestion for further research This thesis only addresses linguistic features of verbal and relational attributive processes in view of Functional grammar in literature reviews Thus on the basic of what the study has done, the followings need to be researched further: - An investigation into the linguistic features of Possessive Relational Process in the literature review in view of Functional grammar - An investigation into the linguistic features of Intensive Relational Process in the literature review in view of Functional grammar - An investigation into the linguistic features of Circumstance Relational Process in the literature review in view of Functional grammar - An investigation into Relational Processes expressed in fairy tales, poems, songs and other kinds - An investigation into Verbal Processes expressed in fairy tales, poems, songs and other kinds ... Process in the literature review in view of Functional grammar - An investigation into Relational Processes expressed in fairy tales, poems, songs and other kinds - An investigation into Verbal Processes. .. presented the verbal processes and relational processes in light of functional grammar The usage of the verbal and relational processes in the literature review is also examined All these theories... containing relational and verbal processes in the literature reviews - Putting the samples into groups of processes: Relational and Verbal - Analyzing the samples of each group carefully basing