1 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ THÚY HẰNG A STUDY ON EXPANSION EXPRRESSED IN PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S INAUGURATION SPEECH NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ BÀNH TRƯỚNG ĐƯỢC THỂ HIỆN TRONG DIỄN VĂN NHẬM CHỨC CỦA TỔNG THỐNG BARACK OBAMA MA MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60 22 15 Hanoi -2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ THÚY HẰNG A STUDY ON EXPANSION EXPRRESSED IN PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S INAUGURATION SPEECH NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ BÀNH TRƯỚNG ĐƯỢC THỂ HIỆN TRONG DIỄN VĂN NHẬM CHỨC CỦA TỔNG THỐNG BARACK OBAMA MA MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60 22 15 SUPERVISOR: PROF. HOÀNG VĂN VÂN Hanoi -2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 6 NOTATIONAL CONVENTIONS Boundary Markers ||| : clause complex boundary || : clause boundary Types of dependency 1, 2, 3, ….: Hypotaxis Logico-semantic relations Expansion: = : Elaboration + : Extension × : Enhancement Projection: " : Locution ' : Idea Others 1st, 2nd, 3rd, ….: number of clause complex in the text (1), (2), (3), …: number of clause in the text LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 7 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Declaration i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii Notational conventions iv Part A: INTRODUCTION 1. Aims of the study 2 3. Scope of the study 2 4.
Methods of the study 3 6. Design of the study 3 Part B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Theoretical background 1. An overview of systemic functional grammar 4 1. Three metafunctions of the language 6 1.
Clause and clause complex 9 1. Clause simplex and clause complex in systemic functional 9 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Relationship between clauses in clause complex 10 1. Logico-semantic relation 12 1.
Summary 14 Chapter 2: Expansion and its relations between clauses in clause complexes in English 2. Types of expansion 15 2. Summary 25 Chapter 3: Expansion relations between clauses in President Barack Obama’s inauguration speech 3. The chosen text 26 3.
Field, Tenor, Mode 27 3. Tenor 28 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Expansion relation in the speech 29 3. Summary 40 Part C: CONCLUSION 1.
Suggestions for further study 42 REFERENCES 43 APPENDIX 1 The inauguration speech of president Barack Obama I APPENDIX 2 Classification of expansion relation between VI clauses in the clause complexes in the speech. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 10 Part A INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale In confirming the importance of grammar in language study, the British linguist, David Crystal (2004) states: “Grammar is the structural foundation of our ability to express ourselves. The more we are aware of how it works, the more we can monitor the meaning and the effectiveness of the way we and others use language.
It can help foster precision, detect ambiguity, and exploit the richness of expression available in English. And it can help everyone--not only teachers of English, but teachers of anything, for all teaching is ultimately a matter of getting to grips with meaning.” These above sentences show us how important and valuable grammar is. It is one of the most effective ways to help human understand the nature of language. Therefore, it comes as no surprise to know that grammar has attracted great attention of many linguistics.
As a result, there are many approaches to grammar and all of them have both advantages and drawbacks. Among the many trends of grammar, systemic functional grammar, which is developed by M.K Halliday, and other linguists such as R., is considered to be the most effective one. This kind of grammar is concerned with both spoken and written language and focuses on functions of language. In comparison with traditional grammar, which focuses on written language and is concerned with rules of correct usage, systemic functional grammar is indeed the most useful tool of analysis.
In Vietnam, systemic functional grammar has been studied by many grammarians such as Cao Xuân Hạo (1991) with Tiếng Việt: Sơ thảo ngữ pháp chức năng, Hoàng Văn Vân (2005) with Ngữ pháp kinh nghiệm của cú tiếng Việt: Mô tả theo quan điểm chức năng hệ thống. We, students at Department of postgraduate studies, Vietnam national university - Hanoi college of foreign language, has also had a chance to learn systemic functional grammar and discover the interesting features of this new trend of grammar. Systemic functional grammar, in fact, has given me much impression and inspired me to study about one LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 11 phenomenon in language in terms of functional grammar – that is expansion in clause complex. There are two main reasons for my choice of the topic of the thesis – 1.
Firstly, expansion is a kind of logico-semantic relation between clause complexes in English. Therefore, the study of expansion will undoubtedly help us to understand the features behind a text more deeply and comprehensively. This understanding, actually, is of great use to the teaching and learning of English. Secondly, Barack Obama is the first African-American president in USA who has gained much popularity in the world.
I would like to choose the inauguration speech of Barack Obama to analyze from the perspective of functional grammar in order to better my knowledge of expansion and also to see how the logico-semantic relations in the speech reflect the speaker‟s intention. Aims of the study Within the framework of an MA thesis, the study attempts to: - examine some basic notions in functional grammar and clarify types of expansion relations in a clause complex. - study how expansion relations are expressed in President Barack Obama‟s inauguration speech. - offer some implications for teaching and suggestions for further study.
Scope of the study This study does not cover all aspects of the relation above the clause due to its complexity. Only one of the two subtypes of the logico-semantic relations between clauses – expansion- is taken into consideration. Data collection Data will be collected from clauses in President Barack Obama‟s inauguration speech. The examples used in the study are taken from grammar books by famous grammarians like Halliday (1994), Morley (2000) Thompson (1996)….
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Methods of the study The aims of the study are to investigate the nature of expansion relation in English and analyze a chosen text from functional grammar perspective. Therefore, the descriptive and analytical methods will be employed as the principal mothods in the thesis. The descriptive method is resorted to when mentioning some basic notions.
The analytical method is applied to analyze the chosen text. Design of the study The study is divided into 3 parts: Part A – introduction - presents the rationale for choosing the topic, the aims of the study, the scope and data collecion of the study as well as the design of the study. Part B- development – is the main part of the thesis, consisting 3 chapters: Chapter 1, Theoretical Background, provides some fundamental and theoretical concepts which are relevant to the purposes of the study. Chapter 2 is aimed at examining the expansion relation in English.
In this chapter, expansion relation is investigated in detail, with a view to formulting a framework for the analysis of the chosen text. Chapter 3 deals with the representation of expansion relation in the chosen text – the inauguration speech of President Barack Obama. The aim of this chapter is to find out how different types of expansion are used in the text and to see whether they express the intention of the speaker clearly and accurately. Part C – conclusion – summarizes the results of the study, provides some implications for teaching and learning English, and makes some suggestions for further study.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 13 Part B DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND This chapter re-examines some basic concepts of systemic functional grammar and of the relations in clause complex in order to establish a theoretical framework for the study. The chapter is divided into 4 parts: (1) an overview of systemic functional grammar, (2) the concepts of function, micro-function, macro-function and metafunction,(3) three metafunctions of language and (4) clause and clause complex in English. An overview of systemic functional grammar Systemic functional grammar (SFG) is a model of grammar developed by Michael Halliday in the 1960s. It is part of a broad social semiotic approach to language called systemic linguistics.
It is systemic in the sense that it sees grammar as a non-arbitrarily motivated network (system) of potential choices. Halliday (1994:15) states „language is a network of systems, or intrrelated sets of options for making meaning'. It is functional in the sense that it attempts to explicate the communicative implications (function) of a selection within one of these systems. In comparison with formal or generative approaches to grammar, functional approaches to grammar treat language in different way.
Systemic functional grammar pays attention to the communicative aspect of language, meanwhile formal or generative grammar focuses on lnguage cognition. The roots of Systemic Functional Grammar lie in sociology and anthropology rather than psychology and computer science. Systemic functional grammar has two components: Systemic grammar and functional grammar. They are two inseparable parts for an integral framework of linguistic theory.
“ Systemic grammar aims to explain the interal relations in language as a system network, or meaningful potential. And this network consists of subsystems from which language users make choices. Functional grammar aims to reveal that language is a means of social interaction, based on the position that language system and the forms that make it up are inescapably determined by the uses of functions which they serve” (Hu Zhuanglin, 1988:307) LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 14 Functional grammar has a number of features which make it suitable for studying language variation. Firstly, it is based on the notion of choice - it models grammar as a set of options (a repertoire or resource).
This means that it presents grammar to teachers and students as a set of tools they can use rather than a set of rules about what not to do. Secondly, functional grammar looks at the way in which grammar is used to construct texts in their context of use - it is concerned in other words with real language not just with the made up examples of language that can be found in many language tests, exercises, work sheets or traditional grammar books. Its application is not restricted to the analysis of isolated sentences - it explains the way in which sentences are structured to construct whole texts such as stories, essays and reports which students learn to read and write in primary and seconday school. Thirdly, functional grammar is concerned with the way in which grammar is organised to make meaning.
Because it is concerned with meaning, it can be related directly to the concerns of teachers and students in all subject areas. Overall, functional grammar is concerned with the way that the different kinds of meaning that contribute to grammatical structure are comprehensively addressed. It is concerned with resources for - analysing experience - what is going on, - analysing interaction - who is communicating with whom - analysing the ways in which messages are constructed Because the study of language structure has not been an explicit part of teacher education for some decades, a technical approach to language is unfamiliar to many teachers. However the resources described above are regularly used by speakers and writers to make meaning in speech and writing.
Bringing these resources to consciousness provides a powerful tool for teachers and students to use in comprehending and composing texts within contexts. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Functions In systemic functional grammar, there are three types of functions: micro-function, macro- function and metafunction. Micro-function is the first function/use of a child's protolanguage.