MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY PHAN THÁI THỊ LỆ THU THE ATTITUDINAL RESOURCES IN THE FILM KONG: SKULL ISLAND BY JORDAN VOGT-ROBERTS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8.01 Supervisor: NGŨ THIỆN HÙNG, Ph. e BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN PHAN THÁI THỊ LỆ THU NGHĨA THÁI ĐỘ TRONG PHIM KONG: ĐẢO ĐẦU LÂU BỞI JORDAN VOGT-ROBERTS Chuyên ngành : Ngôn Ngữ Anh Mã số : 8.01 Người hướng dẫn: TS. NGŨ THIỆN HÙNG e i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby certify this thesis “The Attitudinal Resources in the Film Kong: Skull Island by Jordan Vogt-Roberts” is my own work. This thesis contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole, or in part of a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma except where reference is made in the text of the thesis.
No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the thesis. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution. Bình Định, September 2019 Phan Thái Thị Lệ Thu e ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I gratefully acknowledge my deep indebtedness to all of my teachers who have provided me with useful and interesting lectures, which have helped me to lay the foundation for this thesis. In particular, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Dr.
Ngũ Thiện Hùng- my supervisor. Without his enthusiastic guidance, helpful advice, and enormous encouragement, this thesis would have been far from being accomplished. I also give special thanks to all of my classmates, M.A students of English course 20th at Quy Nhơn University who gave me their help during the time I studied and conducted my thesis. Finally, I can say that I owe my debt to my whole beloved family for their continuous encouragement and support during the years of my study.
Without them, I am sure I would not be able to finish my thesis. From the bottom of my heart, I have to say many thanks to you for being such a great family and for everything. e iii ABSTRACT The present study examined sub-categories of Attitude- Affect, Judgement, and Appreciation- expressed in the subtitles of the film “Kong: Skull Island” by Jordan Vogt-Roberts in the light of Appraisal Theory. The study aimed to investigate the syntactic and semantic realizations of Attitude sub-categories from over 350 samples collected from the subtitles of the film.
The thesis employed the descriptive method to fully describe the realizations of Attitude sub-categories in terms of syntax and semantics to achieve the setting goals. The findings of the research demonstrated that Attitude sub- categories could be identified in various group and phrase structures in which nominal groups and adjective groups are more favourable. The study also worked out typical functions of Attitude sub-categories as components in transitivity processes. Semantically, the findings indicated that all Appraisal evaluating criteria were expressed in the film and significantly the positive values are dominant.
This is the interpersonal meaning which the film contributes to nurture its viewers’ insights to the reality of the world in the era of digital technology. The study apparently contributes to help us understand the sub-categories of Attitude in the film and provides the teachers and university students majoring in English with practical implication to evaluate a discourse fragment and interpret a discourse fragment in the light of Appraisal Theory and in line with Systemic Functional Linguistics. e iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS.
iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vi LIST OF TABLES. vii LIST OF FIGURES. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES.
Aims of the study. Objectives of the study. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY. SCOPE OF THE STUDY.
ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY. Systemic functional linguistics. Attitude as a category encoding attitudinal meaning. Syntactic realizations of attitude - experimental elements of clause as representation.
Structures of word groups and phrases. Procedure of data collection. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. SYNTACTIC REALIZATIONS OF ATTITUDE SUB-CATEGORIES 44 4.
Syntactic realizations of affect. Syntactic realizations of judgement. Syntactic realizations of appreciation. SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ATTITUDE RESOURCES IN KONG: SKULL ISLAND IN VIEW OF APPRAISAL.
Semantic features of affect markers. Semantic features of judgement markers. Semantic features of appreciation markers. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS.
To the teachers. To the learners. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH.
89 e vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Aff : Affect App : Appreciation Cap : Judgement: Capacity Comp : Appreciation: Composition Exp : Explicit Hap : Affect: Un/Happiness Imp : Implicit Inc : Affect: Dis/Inclination Judg : Judgement Norm : Judgement: Normality Prop : Judgement: Propriety Ri : Appreciation: reaction-impact Rq : Appreciation: reaction-quality Sat : Affect: Satisfaction Sec : Affect: In/Security SFL : Systemic Functional Linguistic SFG : Systemic Functional Grammar Ten : Judgement: Tenacity Val : Valuation Ver : Judgement: Veracity (-) : Negative (+) : Positive e vii LIST OF TABLES Table Title Page number number 2.1 Judgement - Social Esteem 18 2.2 Judgement - Social Sanction 19 2.3 Types of appreciation 22 2.4 Typical functions of group and phrase classes 26 2.5 The principle categories of ‘relational’ clause 28 4.1 Summary structures of affect nominal groups 48 4.2 Summary structures of affect adjectival groups 52 4.3 Summary structures of affect adverbial groups 53 4.4 Summary structures of appreciation adjectival groups 66 4.5 Summary of group and phrase structures of attitude sub- 68 categories 4.6 Distribution of group and phrase structures in attitude 70 sub-categories 4.7 Un/happiness realizations of affect 72 4.8 Dis/satisfaction realizations of affect 73 4.9 In/security realizations of affect 74 4.10 In/security realizations of affect 75 4.11 Occurrence frequencies of affect semantic values 75 4.12 The semantic realization of Social Esteem 77 4.13 The semantic realization of Social Sanction 78 4.14 Occurrence frequencies of judgement semantic values 78 4.15 Occurrence frequencies of appreciation semantic values 81 4.16 Summary of semantic realizations of attitude sub- 82 categories e viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page Title number number 2.1 An overview of appraisal resources 14 2.2 The affect system and its lexical instanciations 16 2.3 The system of appreciation and its lexical instanciations 21 2.4 Judgement and appreciation as institutionalized affect 24 2.6 Components of a process 27 2.7 Material process in active and passive clause 27 2.8 Illustration of mental processes 28 2.10 Experiential structure of part of a nominal group 30 2.11 Qualifier in nominal group 32 2.12 Nominal group, showing multivariate structure 32 2.13 Experiential structure of the verbal group 33 2.14 Verbal group with marked polarity and contrastive tense 33 2.15 Pre-modification in the adverbial group 33 2.16 Adverbial groups with embedded post-modifiers 34 2.1 Affect verbal groups as process in desiderative mental 46 process 4.2 Affect verbal groups as process in emotive mental process 46 4.3 Affect verbal groups as process in passive material process 47 4.4 Affect nominal groups as processed in possessive relational 49 process 4.5 Affect nominal groups as existent in existential process 49 4.6 Affect adjectival groups as attributes in attributive relational 52 e ix processes 4.7 Affect prepositional phrases as attributes in attributive 53 relational processes 4.8 Judgement in form of simple nominal groups 55 4.9 Judgement in form of complex nominal groups 55 4.10 Judgement nominal groups in relational process 56 4.11 Judgement nominal groups in marked relational process 56 4.12 Judgement nominal groups in possessive relational 57 processes 4.13 Judgement adjectival groups as attributes in attributive 58 relational processes 4.14 Judgement adverbial groups as circumstance in material 58 process 4.15 Appreciation nominal group: Deictic + Thing 60 4.16 Appreciation nominal group: Deictic + Thing+ Post- 61 modifier 4.17 Appreciation nominal group: Deictic + Pre-modifier +Thing 63 4.18 Appreciation nominal group: Deictic + Pre-modifier + 64 Thing+ Post-modifier 4.19 Appreciation nominal clauses as identifier in relational 64 process 4.20 Appreciation nominal clauses as identifier in existential 64 process 4.21 Appreciation nominal clauses as goal in material process 65 4.22 The occurrence frequencies of attitude sub-categories 69 e 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1. RATIONALE Human beings and nature have had a close relationship. They depend on nature over the process of evolution and demonstrate many forms of nature connectedness. This includes emotional attachment to nature, perception of themselves as a part of nature, and activities aimed at nature discovery.
Fortunately, the relation of life with nature has attracted a lot of attention of film directors. And most of their works gain noticeable achievements. There is such an action, adventure, sci-fi, fantasy film from the set of Kong: Skull Island by Jordan Vogt-Roberts. The main theme of the film is that scientists, soldiers and adventurers unite to explore a mythical, uncharted island in the Pacific Ocean.
Cut off from everything they know, they venture into the domain of the mighty Kong, igniting the ultimate battle between man and nature. As their mission of discovery soon becomes one of survival, they must fight to escape from a primal world where humanity does not belong. Released in March 2017 with the budget of 185 million USD, Kong: Skull Island is the first Hollywood film made with most of the scenes in Vietnam. “It’s such a beautiful part of the world.
I find that people on that side of the world have that general graciousness that we lack here (in the US)” Vogt-Roberts states and hopes that people will walk out of Kong: Skull Island wanting to discover Vietnam for themselves. It is sincerely believed that the film will have a positive impact on tourism, filming, and a general understanding of how stunning and beautiful the country is. e 2 Apart from the film review, Kong: Skull Island with its English subtitles not only refreshes viewers’ mood and state of mind but also fulfils their further purposes such as improving their English competence. It is mentioned that film is an excellent learning and teaching tool.
It is true that filming plays an important role in enriching the moviegoers’ languages in use and in helping them build up the attitude about life later. John and Karl (2012) stated that understanding film might be a capacity that was not particularly concerned with film at all, but rather forms part and parcel of a more general ‘senseseeking’ behaviour in humans. This, after all, would explain why films appear to be much more broadly and readily comprehensible than, for example, texts written in some particular natural language. Researching linguistic objectives in the framework of Appraisal Theory proposed by Martin and his colleagues has been becoming more and more popular so far.
To linguistic disciplines such as discourse analysis, applied linguistics and other related fields, this linguistic theory contributes an approach to investigate how speakers or writers express their opinions for things and ideas. The theory developing the model of personal meaning within the paradigms of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) helps to further explore the interpersonal meaning of language in the scope of discourse as well as rhetoric and communicative effects by judging the speakers’/writers’ stance and their communication messages in the relation to the hearers/readers. Appraisal Theory addresses not only the means by which speakers/writers overtly encode what they present as their own attitudes but also the means by which they more indirectly activate evaluative stance and position the readers/listeners to supply their own assessments. These evaluations reveal both speakers’/writers’ feelings and their status or authority e 3 as construed by the text (Hunston, 2000).
Therefore, this is a potential approach to discover the attitude, the evaluation as well as the personal meaning a speaker implies in his words. Although there have been several studies using the Appraisal Theory for analyzing the texts in terms of attitudinal aspects, but a study on subtitles in films has not been received much attention from linguistics and researchers. This paved the way for the empirical exploration of a broader range of distinguishable modes than previously considered.