MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY PHAN THỊ HỒNG THẮM A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF INTERPERSONAL MEANING IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE FABLES FROM MULTIMODAL PERSPECTIVE MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH Binh Dinh - 2019 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY PHAN THỊ HỒNG THẮM A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF INTERPERSONAL MEANING IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE FABLES FROM MULTIMODAL PERSPECTIVE Field: English Linguistics Code: 8 22 02 01 Supervisor: VÕ DUY ĐỨC, Ph.D BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN PHAN THỊ HỒNG THẮM NGHIÊN CỨU SO SÁNH NGHĨA LIÊN NHÂN TRONG TRUYỆN NGỤ NGÔN TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT TỪ PHƯƠNG DIỆN ĐA PHƯƠNG THỨC Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số: 8 22 02 01 Người hướng dẫn: TS. VÕ DUY ĐỨC STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby verify that the thesis titled “A comparative study of interpersonal meaning in English and Vietnamese fables from multimodal perspective” is my own work. No other person’s work has been used without acknowledgement in the thesis. This thesis contains no material which was previously published or written by another person, except where reference has been made in the text.
I have not submitted this thesis for the award of any degree, diploma in any university or any other institution. Quy Nhon city, 2019 PHAN THI HONG THAM ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Foremost, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Võ Duy Đức for his encouragement, source of valuable materials related to multimodal genre, for his continuous support, patience, enthusiasm and immense knowledge. His guidance helps me in all the time of writing this thesis, without which this thesis could not be carried out.
I would send my sincere thanks all the lecturers in the English master course for their perceptive judgments and discerning analysis, for their valuable lectures which provide important materials for this thesis. I am also grateful for source of materials and helpful suggestions on fabled genre in my thesis of my friends, who inspired me to do this thesis. Lastly, my sincere thanks go to my parents, my husband and my son for their love, helping and supporting me spiritually throughout the time this study is carried out. ABSTRACT This thesis aims at conducting a contrastive analysis of the Attitudinal and Interpersonal resources in fables written in English and Vietnamese based on the frameworks of Appraisal developed by Martin and White (2005) and Grammar of Visual Design of Kress and van Leeuwen (2006).
The data for this research were collected from 50 fables in English and in Vietnamese (25 in each language). In this study, a combination of variety methods such as qualitative, quantitative, descriptive, comparative, analytic and synthetic methods was employed to find out the correlations between fables in English and Vietnamese in terms of how Interpersonal meanings are verbally and visually conveyed. The findings of this study show some major similarities in employing evaluative languages in the fables. Specifically, negative Affect is used more commonly than positive Affect and positive Appreciation is used more often than negative one.
Moreover, the findings show that the image- producers in both EFs and VFs tend to focus on the contact of Offer. In addition, for Horizontal angle, the image-producer wants to employ more Oblique than Frontal angle in both EFs and VFs. Some differences were drawn out from the findings. The first difference is that the Affect is the most frequently used in EFs while Appreciation ranks first in VFs.
The next difference lies in the use of Judgement resources. Vietnamese writers tend to employ more negative Judgment while English writers tend to do the opposite. Lastly, for Visual results, the image- producer in EFs tends to employ Long Shot of Social Distance rather than Close shot and Medium shot; while in VFs, the largest percentage is illustrated by Medium shot. The results of this thesis make some pratical contribution to teaching and learning English in Vietnam.
TABLE OF CONTENT SUB- COVERS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT TABLE OF CONTENT LIST OF TABLES LIST OF FIGURES LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Significance of the Study. Aims and Objectives. Scope of the Study.
Organization of the Study. 4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Grammar of Visual Design. The Representational Meaning.
The Interactive Meaning. The Compositional Meaning. Validity and Reliability. 42 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS.
Findings of Verbal Analysis. Findings of Visual Analysis. 79 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS. Limitations of the study.
Suggestions for further research. 92 APPENDIX A APPENDIX B LIST OF TABLES Table Title Page number 2.1 The monoglossic and the heteroglossic 10 2.2 Sub- categories of Affect 16 2.3 Judgement-social esteem 17 2.4 Judgement- social sanction 18 2.5 Types of Appreciation 21 4.1 The general distribution of Affect, Judgment and 43 Appreciation in EFs and VFs 4.2 The distribution of sub- categories of Affect in EFs and 47 VFs 4.3 Social esteem and Social sanction in EFs and VFs 56 4.4 Sub-categories of Appreciation in EFs and VFs 64 4.5 Frequency of Demand and Offer in EFs and VFs 71 4.6 Demand and Offer in EFs 72 4.7 Demand and Offer in VFs 73 4.8 Frequency of Social Distance sub-types in EFs and VFs 75 4.9 Sub-types of Social Distance in EFs 77 4.10 Sub-types of Social Distance in VFs 78 4.11 Frequency of Frontal and Oblique in EFs and VFs 79 4.12 Frontal and Oblique in EFs 81 4.13 Frontal and Oblique in VFs 82 4.14 Frequency of types of Vertical angle in EFs and VFs 83 4.15 Types of Vertical angle in EFs 85 4.16 Types of Vertical angle in VFs 86 LIST OF FIGURES Figure Title Page number 2.1 An overview of Appraisal resources 9 2.2 Categories in the sub-system of Attitude 13 2.3 Main types of visual representational structure 23 2.4 Geometrical Symbolism process 25 2.5 Interactive Meaning in images 28 2.6 Contact of Offer 29 2.7 Picture taken from long shot 30 2.1 Frequency of Attitude in EFs and VFs 44 4.2 Sub- categories of Affect in EFs and VFs 48 4.3 Positive and Negative Affect in EFs and VFs 53 4.4 Sub- categories of Judgment in EFs and VFs 57 4.5 Positive and Negative Judgment values in EFs and VFs 61 4.6 Sub-categories of Appreciation in EFs and VFs 64 4.7 Positive and Negative Appreciation values in EFs and 67 VFs 4.8 Frequency of Demand and Offer in EFs and VFs 71 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFs: English Fables VFs: Vietnamese Fables 1 ` CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale There is no denying the fact that fables are popular and absolutely pivotal in children's literature since they teach children lessons with interesting animal characters. Fables are one type of folk literature with stories containing characters as either animals or humans.
Especially, fables play a crucial role in our society as well as contain moral lessons or values about life. According to Bonn (2010: 59-60) fable is “a prose or verse narrative intended to convey a moral. Animals or inanimate objects with human characteristics often serve as characters in fables”. Fables describe what is morally right or wrong, the world of animals or humans, mostly in the past, speaks of the moral lessons which are still relevant in present life and tells a variety of subject matters like the explanations of phenomena in real life or the teasing of bad habits of humans.
Regarding this feature, Bartens (2004) states that moral values are the basic standard of good and evil which governs or rules individual behaviors and choices. Indeed, moral value deals with a set of principle which is applied to evaluate the right or wrong in life. In literary works, moral value is seen as a lesson which might inspire the readers to be positive or to believe in better changes. Each story is a moral lesson and through the words and behaviors of characters, we can draw certain philosophies of life, in this case, fables in English and Vietnamese.
Among fables of various themes, images are also the attractiveness of fables. It is irrefutable that photos are effective tools for attracting readers, especially for children. Moreover, the combination of words and photos in 2 ` those fables assists comprehension of the stories. So, understanding and discovering the relationship between visual meaning and verbal meaning have become the interest of many researchers.
To the best of my knowledge, no research has been done on fables from multimodal perspective. For all these reasons, we decided to do the research entitled: “A comparative study of Interpersonal meaning in English and Vietnamese fables from multimodal perspective”. Significance of the Study The study is designed to examine Interpersonal and Attitudinal meanings in fables in English and Vietnamese. Analyzing evaluative language in EFs and VFs plays a crucial role in teaching and learning language since it is helpful and effective for teachers and learners of English who use language and images to analyze the highlights of the visual, especially for teaching the lessons of the literature of English and Vietnamese.
In addition, the findings of the study are also of great importance to Vietnamese learners of English in understanding and having profound lessons through the entertaining fables. They are also expected to contribute to the process of teaching and learning English in our country. Aims and Objectives 1. Aims The study aims at examining the interpersonal meaning in fables in English and Vietnamese from verbal and visual perspectives in order to help Vietnamese learners of English understand the importance of the fables and the distinctive characteristics of these evaluative meanings.
The findings of the study hope to draw what the writers do to attract readers and to compare the Attitudinal and Interpersonal meanings in fables in English and Vietnamese. Objectives The study attempts to achieve the following objectives: - Identify different Attitudinal values and Interpersonal features used in fables in English and Vietnamese based on Appraisal theory developed by Martin & White (2005) and Grammar of Visual Design of Kress and van Leeuwen (2006). - Compare the Attitudinal and Interpersonal meanings in fables in English and Vietnamese. - Find out the similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese fables in terms of how those meanings are conveyed in the stories.
Research Questions To accomplish the objectives mentioned above, the study tries to answer the following questions: 1. How do the images in English and Vietnamese fables carry interactional meanings? 2. How are Attitudinal resources used in the English and Vietnamese fables? 3. What are the differences and similarities between English and Vietnamese fables from verbal and visual perspectives? 1.
Scope of the Study The study focuses on analyzing the Attitude - one sub-system of Appraisal and Interpersonal meaning through 25 fables in English and 25 fables in Vietnamese. In term of Appraisal theory, the attitude is classified into Affect, Judgment and Appreciation which deal with how writers negotiate their attitude with the readers, how they express their feeling toward something or someone, and the way in which values are constructed. In terms 4 ` of Visual meaning, within the limited time, the study just focuses on Interactional meaning of these photos in the stories to find out the differences and similarities between English and Vietnamese fables from visual perspectives. Organization of the Study The study is organized into five chapters as follows: Chapter 1, Introduction, which presents the rationale, the significance of the study, the aims and objectives of the study, the scope of the study, research questions and organization on the study.
Chapter 2, Literature Review, presents some theoretical concepts of Appraisal and Grammar of Visual Design. Besides, it reviews some previous studies as well as the comments of these studies. Chapter 3, Methodology, describes method and procedure to carry out the study. It includes research method, research procedure for carrying on the study, description of samples, and the procedure of data collection and data analysis.