VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THUỲ LINH AN ANALYSIS OF CLAUSE EXPANSION IN ‘TWO THANKSGIVING DAY GENTLEMEN’ BASED ON SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR AND SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING WRITING Phân tích về cú mở rộng trong tác phẩm ‘Hai quý ông trong ngày Lễ Tạ ơn’ dựa trên quan điểm Ngữ pháp Chức năng Hệ thống và một số gợi ý trong giảng dạy viết M. MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60 22 15 HA NOI - 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THUỲ LINH AN ANALYSIS OF CLAUSE EXPANSION IN ‘TWO THANKSGIVING DAY GENTLEMEN’ BASED ON SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR AND SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING WRITING Phân tích về cú mở rộng trong tác phẩm ‘Hai quý ông trong ngày Lễ Tạ ơn’ dựa trên quan điểm Ngữ pháp Chức năng Hệ thống và một số gợi ý trong giảng dạy viết M. MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60 22 15 SUPERVISOR: PHẠM THỊ THANH THUỶ, M. HA NOI - 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgement i Table of Contents ii Chapter I: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale of the study 1 1. Aims of the study 2 1. Scope of the study 2 1. Methods of the study 3 1.
Design of the study 3 Chapter II: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2. O‘ Henry and his work 5 2. Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen 10 2. Systemic Functional Grammar & Clause 11 2.
Systemic Functional Grammar & Its Three Metafunctions 11 2. Above the Clause: the Clause Complex 14 2. Clause Complex and Sentence 14 2. Parataxis and Hypotaxis 15 2.
Projection and Expansion 16 a. Summary 18 Chapter III: EXPANSION IN “TWO THANKSGIVING DAY GENTLEMEN” AND SOME SUGGESTIONS IN TEACHING WRITING 3. Expansion in ―Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen‖ by O‘Henry 20 3. Clause Complexes in ‗Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen‘ 20 3.
Expansion in ‗Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen‘ 21 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Conjunctions for Expansion in ‗Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen‘ 32 3. Some Suggestions for Teaching Writing 36 Chapter IV: CONCLUSION 4. Limitations of the study and Suggestions for Further Research 41 REFERENCES 43 APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 VI APPENDIX 3 XI LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale of the Study The world has seemed to become smaller and smaller together with the process of globalization which is considered natural. People around the world need to know one common language to communicate and that language now is obviously English. English has been used as an international language - a tool for numerous economic, cultural and social activities worldwide. Realizing the importance of the language, English has been put in Vietnamese schools for a long time.
With this action, the movement of learning English has been blooming in all areas of the country, from the North to the South. However, it seems that in primary and high schools, more attention has been paid on grammar and reading skill than on any other ones such as writing, speaking and listening. Fortunately, learners have recently paid more attention to speaking and listening because they need these two to communicate well. Then, how about their writing skill? As an instructor at the Faculty of Foreign Languages of Thai Nguyen University, I was many times disappointed when receiving students‘ writings with simple errors.
A majority of these errors are not grammatical ones. This means students do not meet many difficulties with tenses or structures of noun phrases, verb phrases or prepositional phrase. Most of their mistakes lie on higher structures. Many of them are confused about relations between clauses: how to connect them together, whether it should be one sentence with one clause or one sentence with two clause, etc.
The thought of providing a theoretical framework for instructors and first year students to apply into studying writing skill is the main reason for this paper. The story ―Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen‖ by O. Henry is chosen to analyze. Any stories can be the material for analyzing, but I find this one particularly interesting so I choose it for the thesis.
Students can take O. Henry‘s way of writing as example to compare and correct their own writings (especially the ways to connect clauses in one sentence). LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Henry is a well-known American writer to Vietnamese.
Many people have read his famous short story – The Last Leaf. Personally, I am interested in his stories not only because of the simple way of writing, surprising endings but also because of the humanity that we can sense through them. ―Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen‖ is really a moving short story which is worth reading. That is the reason why the story is chosen in this analysis but not others.
Aims of the Study Within the framework of a minor M. thesis, the study attempts to: - provide an overview of O.Henry and his work; - re-examine some of the most important issues related to Functional Grammar; - analyze the case of expansion in the story ―Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen‖ by O. Henry; - offer some suggestions for teaching writing clause complex for first year students at Thai Nguyen Faculty of Foreign Languages. Scope of the Study This study is hoped to help students improve their writing skills.
It seems to be a very big challenge. Thus, in order to make the task manageable in keeping with the aims of the paper, there are some limitations: - Only issues relating to clause complex are taken into consideration because students often make mistakes with these. - The approach of grammar used to analyze in the paper is Systemic Functional Grammar developed by M.K Halliday because of its clear system and easiness to understand as applied into the analysis. - Only one short story of O.
Henry, Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen, is discussed due to the time constraints, knowledge restriction, and also the scope of an M. - Students mentioned in the study are all first year ones from Faculty of Foreign Languages of Thai Nguyen University. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Methods of the Study As the title of this the study has suggested, the following steps should be taken so as to make full analysis of the research paper.
Firstly, the original of ―Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen‖ by O. Henry will be searched on some famous and reliable websites for reading. There are some versions from Bookworm or A Ladder Edition, in which the story was re-written in simpler ways to meet with different reading levels of readers. However, in this paper we would analyze the original one by O.
Henry through which his ways of writing complex clauses can be seen better. Secondly, related issues such as Systemic Functional Grammar, Clause and especially notions about Clause Complex in the light of Functional Grammar will be made clear. This would make it easier for readers to understand when the analysis of the story is shown. Thirdly, ―Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen‖ will be analyzed in order to see what kind of expansion and what devices to connect clauses the author used in his writing.
Finally, the results of the analysis and difficulties in studying writing of first year students will be discussed in details to come to the suggestions about teaching writing for students in Faculty of Foreign Languages of Thai Nguyen University. In order to achieve the goals of the study, two successive methods will be applied for better research results. They are descriptive and analytical. The general research methodology adopted in the paper is inductive.
Design of the Study This thesis is designed in five chapters. Chapter one, Introduction, presents the rationale for choosing the topic, the aims, scope of the study and methods to be applied in the paper. Chapter two, Theoretical Background, provides a careful examination of the fundamental, theoretical concepts and necessary knowledge as those about the author O‘ Henry, issues about Systemic Functional Grammar, Clause Complex, which are relevant to the purposes of this study. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Entitled Expansion in “Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen” and Suggestions in Teaching Writing, chapter three, which is the focus of the study, is aimed at describing the ways clauses are linked in a sentence.
This part is further divided into three sections. Each section describes one aspect of expansion found in the stories. After analyzing cases of expansion found, some suggestions for teaching writing for first year students are given out, applying expansion relationship. The last chapter, Conclusion, is set up to summarize the whole paper and provide some suggestions for further research.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2. Henry and his work 2. Henry was the penname of William Sidney Porter who was born on September 11, 1862, in Greensboro, North Carolina. His middle name at birth was Sidney; he changed the spelling to Sydney in 1898.
His parents were Dr. Algernon Sidney Porter (1825–1888), a physician, and Mary Jane Virginia Swaim Porter (1833–1865). They were married April 20, 1858. When William was three, his mother died from tuberculosis, so he and his father moved into the home of his paternal grandmother.
As a child, Porter was always reading. He read everything from classics to dime novels. His favorite work was One Thousand and One Nights. Porter graduated from his aunt Evelina Maria Porter's elementary school in 1876.
He then enrolled at the Lindsey Street High School. His aunt continued to tutor him until he was fifteen. In 1879, he started working in his uncle's drugstore and in 1881, at the age of nineteen, he was licensed as a pharmacist. At the drugstore, he also showed off his natural artistic talents by sketching the townsfolk.
Porter traveled with Dr. Hall to Texas in March 1882, hoping that a change of air would help alleviate a persistent cough he had developed. He took up residence on the sheep ranch of Richard Hall, James' son, in La Salle County and helped out as a shepherd, ranch hand, cook and baby-sitter. While on the ranch, he learned bits of Spanish and German from the mix of immigrant ranch hands.
He also spent time reading classic literature. Porter's health did improve and he traveled with Richard to Austin in 1884, where he decided to remain and was welcomed into the home of the Harrells, who were friends of Richard's. Porter took a number of different jobs over the next several years, first as pharmacist then as a draftsman, bank teller and journalist. He also began writing as a sideline.
Porter led an active social life in Austin, including membership in singing and drama groups. Porter was a good singer and musician. He played both the guitar and mandolin. He became a member of the "Hill City Quartet," a group of young men who sang at gatherings and serenaded young women of the town.
Porter met and began courting LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Athol Estes, who was seventeen years old and from a wealthy family. Her mother objected to the match because Athol was ill, suffering from tuberculosis. On July 1, 1887, Porter eloped with Athol to the home of Reverend R. Smoot, where they were married.
The couple continued to participate in musical and theater groups, and Athol encouraged her husband to pursue his writing. Athol gave birth to a son in 1888, who died hours after birth, and then a daughter, Margaret Worth Porter, in September 1889. Porter's friend Richard Hall became Texas Land Commissioner and offered Porter a job. Porter started as a draftsman at the Texas General Land Office (GLO) in 1887 at a salary of $100 a month, drawing maps from surveys and field notes.