VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FALCULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES A STUDY ON THEME —- RHEME AND COHESIVE TIES IN THE SHORT STORY “THE LAST LEAF” BY Oˆ°HENRY NGHIEN CUU VE TO CHUC DE THUYET VA CAC MOI LIEN KET TRONG TRUYỆN NGAN CHIEC LA CUOI CUNG CUA O°HENRY M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.15 Hanoi — 2013 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FALCULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES VŨ THỊ THANH NGA A STUDY ON THEME —- RHEME AND COHESIVE TIES IN THE SHORT STORY “THE LAST LEAF” BY O°HENRY NGHIEN CUU VE TO CHUC DE THUYET VA CAC MOI LIEN KET M. Minor Programme Thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60. Hoang Van Van Hanoi — 2013 DECLARATION I, hereby, certify the thesis entitled “A STUDY ON THEME - RHEME AND COHESIVE TIES IN THE SHORT STORY “THE LAST LEAF” BY O°HENRY” is the result of my own research for the Minor Degree of Master of Arts at the University of Language and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, and this thesis has not, wholly or partially, been submitted for any degree at any other universities or institutions.
Hanoi, 2013 Vii Thi Thanh Nga ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deep gratitude towards my supervisor, Prof. Hoàng Van Van, for his constant and invaluable assistance without which my study would be far from finished. I greatly wish to acknowledge my thanks to Dr. Đỗ Tuan Minh whose research on Thematic Structure in English and Vietnamese has helped me much during my study.
I am also greatly indebted to all my colleagues at Ben Tam High School who provided me with valuable materials and enthusiastic support on the aspect of my research. Finally, my sincere thanks go to my beloved family for their love, encouragement, and support while I was carrying out this research. Hanoi, August 2013 Vii Thi Thanh Nga ii ABSTRACT This study is an attempt to apply systemic functional grammar to investigating a short story “The Last Leaf’ by O’Henry in terms of the theme — rheme structure and cohesive ties. Based on the theory of systemic functional grammar as developed by Halliday, the study focuses on the analysis of O’Henry’s story “The Last Leaf” in terms of the textual metafunction which is represented via theme - rheme pattern, and cohesion (grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion) of the text.
The findings show that in terms of theme - rheme pattern, topical theme which forms unmarked one is the most striking feature of the text. We can also realize how the author develops the text and creates a surprise ending which makes the story one of O’Henry’s masterpiece. Moreover, grammatical cohesion represented by reference and conjunctive devices and lexical cohesion shown via repetition, synonyms, meronyms and antonyms make the text more cohesive and coherent. The analysis proves that systemic functional grammar is the smartest choice for those whose concern is for the structure and meaning of a particular text.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF MARKERS AND ABBREVIATIONS LIST OF TABLES CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .Rationale of the Study 20. cece cece cence eee cece nent e SH nent beeen aetna ve 1 1.Aims of the Study. ch nh nh và 3 1.Scope of the Study. HH HH nh nh tk Kkt 3 1.Method of the Study .c CS HS ST nh nh nh khen 3 1.
SH SH KH nh kệ 4 1.Design of the Study .cQQQ SH HS HH TK nh KH nh nh nh hy4 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND.c c nn SH SH HT Ki nà TH ni nà nen 5 2. The Linguistic Sysfem. c2 SH SH HE nh nh nhe 5 2. HH nh TH nh ni tk kh ng 6 2.
cà enone nents 6 2. cece eee eee neneee ee eneneneee eens 8 J, O70)`| ce 11 2. Concept of Coheslon. Types of CoheSIOn.
c2 n SH nh nh.--c eee een nent Een eta 18 II. CHAPTER 3: THEME — RHEME AND COHESIVE TIES IN THE SHORT STORY “THE LAST LEAF” BY O? HENRY 3.- SH Ki Km kế 19 3. The Context of the Chosen Texf. The Analysis of the text in terms of Theme — Rheme.---- Q2 ene SE nhe21 3.
cece eee ce ee nent ee eee SH nh khe 24 3. Marked and Unmarked Theme. The Cohesion of the TeXf.- cọ eee bene nese eee eee 29 3. SH SH nh nh nh kh 39 IV.
Implications for the Study. Suggestions for Further Study. con Ơn HH HỘ HH HH HH HH HH mm 46. I LIST OF MARKERS AND ABBREVIATIONS REP Repetition ANT Antonym MER Meronym HYP Hyponym SYN Synonym COL Collocation R.C Comparative Reference 7 Anaphoric reference + Exophoric reference r Cataphoric reference vi LIST OE TABLES Table 1: Mood Type and Unmarked Theme Selection (Halliday, 2004: 78).
10 Table 2: Reference of the T€X{. SH SH HH nh ene ene nena en 30 Table 3: Substitution of the T€X{. cece ee ee eee S SH nh sg 36 Table 4: Ellipsis of the TeX{. c2 SH nh nh nh 37 Table 5: Conjunctive Devices of the Texf.
37 Table 6: Lexical Devices Summary. 39 vil CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the Study The theory of systemic functional linguistics was originally formulated by M. Halliday in the early 1960s.
This is a new model and method of description of language known as Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) in which everything can be explained, ultimately, by reference to how language is used. Different from formal grammar which focuses on written language and deals with rules of correct usage rather than with meaning and context of the text, functional grammar centers on both written and spoken language and emphasize how linguistic structures express meaning and views language as a communicative resource, not as grammatical rules. It is considered “an effective tool of analysis, which solves the issues left out by traditional grammar” as it helps understand human language more deeply. Systemic Funtional Grammar is a system of meanings associated with three Metafunctions, each indicating how the language was structured to be used.
These three Metafuctions are related to 1) Interpersonal meanings, which focus on the social function of language, more specifically, the participants; 2) Ideational meanings, focusing on how language 1s used, that is, the verbal choices, and; 3) Textual meanings, which focus on how the message is organized, that is, what information is chosen to appear first (or last) in a sentence or text. It is the third metafuntion (Textual) that involves the concepts of Theme and Rheme which is one in two things of the basic for my research. Theme has been studied by many grammarians such as Mathesius (1975); Halliday and Hasan (1976); Fries (1981); Firbas (1986); Halliday (1985, 1994); Downing (1990); Davies (1987), Eggins (1994); Matthiessen (1995); Thompson (1996) and many others. Accoding to Halliday (1994: 34), Theme is “what the message is concerned with, the point of departure for what the speaker is going to say”.
“The Theme is what I, the speaker, choose to take as my point of departure. Theme + Rheme is speaker — oriented” (Halliday, 1994: 299). For Halliday, the thematic organization of clauses is the most significant aspect for the development of a text. By analyzing the thematic structure of a text it is possible to observe its nature and understand how the writer exposed his concerns with the organization of the message.
Eggin (1994: 273) also says that thematic meanings are related to the potential which the clause confers to its constituents to be differently organized in order to reach different purposes. Based on these theories, many researchers have tried to analyze a text clause by clause to gain an insight into its texture and understand how the writer made clear to us the nature of his underlying concerns. I would like to try myself to analyze the theme-rheme structure of the short story “The Last Leaf” by O’Henry who is famous for short stories and their unexpected endings with the hope of exploring how the writer develop the text and what the purpose is. Cohesive ties of the text are also of great concern to me in this study.
Cohesion relates to the “semantic ties” within text whereby a tie is made when there is some dependent link between items that combine to create meaning. Using the short story “The Last Leaf” as a basis, the textual aspect of meaning through cohesion will be analyzed. As regards practical purposes, understanding the theme-rheme structure and how cohesion functions within text to create semantic links could be beneficial to students of English as a second or foreign language to help “decode” meaning. For those reasons, I have decided to choose “A study on Theme-Rheme and Cohesive Ties in the short story “The Last Leaf” by O’Henry” as the title of my MA Thesis, using Halliday’s functional grammar as a theoretical framework.
Aims of the Study The aim of this stury is to use systemic functional framework to explore how O’Henry organized and developed his story “The Last Leaf’ in terms of the theme — rheme patterns and cohesive ties. To realize this aim, the following two questions are raised for exploration. How is the text organized and developed in terms of theme-rheme patterns? 2. How are the different cohesive ties of contexts hung together to make the text cohesive? To answer these questions, I will review some fundamental concepts for the study: linguistic system, metafunctions and cohesion in chapter two.
In chapter three, I will analyze the theme-rheme patterns and the main cohesive ties in the story. Scope of the Study As a minor thesis, not all aspects of functional grammar are explored but only some of them such as linguistic system, metafunctions and cohesion. The focus of the study, however, does not lie in the theoretical findings but hopefully, on this fundamental theory, will enlighten the text analysis. Methods of the Study With a view to analyzing theme-rheme and cohesive ties of an English text, descriptive and analytical methods are used.
The former is concerned with the description of the main areas of functional grammar and the latter deals with the analysis of the text for discussion. Data collection The text is taken from one of the most famous short stories by O’Henry “The Last Leaf’ in his collection “The Trimmed Lamp and Other Stories” which was first published by Philips & Co. in 1907 in New York. Design of the Study This thesis is divided into four chapters as follows: ¥Y Chapter one — Introduction — presents the rationale of the study, the aims of the study, scope of the study, methods of the study, data collection, and the research design.
¥ Chapter two — Theoretical Background — supplies some fundamental and theoretical concepts for the study: linguistic system, metafunctions and cohesion analysis. vx Chapter three — The Analysis of the short story “The Last Leaf” by O’Henry focuses on its thematic structure and cohesive ties. ¥ Chapter four — Conclusion — summarizes the results of the study and offers some suggestions for teaching and learning as well as for further studies. CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDS 2.
Introduction This chapter will explore some basic concepts that are considered to set the theoretical orientation for the study: the linguistic system, metafunctions and cohesion. Examples are taken from grammar books by such famous linguists as Halliday (1985, 1994), Halliday and Hasan (1976), Geoff Thomson (1996), Hoang Van Van (2002, 2005 & 2006), and other researchers like Đỗ Tuan Minh (2006), etc. The linguistic system Language is viewed as systems of meaning potential in human interaction that are realized by various structures formed in certain contexts which are studied under register. In systemic grammar, register is conceptualized in terms of three parameters: field, tenor and mode.