BINH DUONG PROVINCIAL PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY -------------------- PHAN HOANG DIEM TRUC ANALYSIS OF VERBAL PRESENTATION OF THE SERIES OF PICTURE BOOKS: “TWIGGLE STORY” MAJOR: ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAJOR CODE: 8220201 MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE Supervised by Nguyen Vu Phuong, PhD BINH DUONG PROVINCE - 2021 0 0 BINH DUONG PROVINCIAL PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY ---------------------- PHAN HOANG DIEM TRUC ANALYSIS OF VERBAL PRESENTATION OF THE SERIES OF PICTURE BOOKS: “TWIGGLE STORY” MAJOR: ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAJOR CODE: 8220201 MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE Supervised by Nguyen Vu Phuong, PhD BINH DUONG PROVINCE - 2021 0 0 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to send thanks to all the lectures in Foreign Languages Department at Thu Dau Mot university for helping me to enrich my knowledge, offering me precious lessons, positive encouragement, and enthusiastic supports. Especially, from the bottom of my heart, I would like to express my appreciation to my supervisor -Dr. Nguyen Vu Phuong, who always teaches, supports, and assists me to complete this study. Furthermore, I am also sincerely grateful to my classmates for the happiness and difficulties we shared throughout the course.
These would become unforgettable memories in my life. Last but not least, I would like to extremely express my gratitude to all of the members of my family for supporting me to overcome all challenges in my life, including this postgraduate journey. I 0 0 STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY I hereby certify that I write this thesis entitled “Analysis of verbal presentation of the series of the picture books: “Twiggle story.” Apart from the act of consulting references which is considered as the information of reliable studies, this thesis is not plagiarism or made by other researchers. Anything related to other’s work is written in the quotation, the source of which is listed in the references.
This thesis has not been submitted for the award of the degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution, organization, or publisher. If this pronouncement proves incorrect, I am willing to accept any academic punishment, including the withdrawal or cancelation of my academic degree. Signature Phan Hoang Diem Truc II 0 0 ABSTRACT The thesis investigated the verbal presentation of the picture books: “Twiggle Story” by the four authors, Domitrovich, Greenberg, Kusché, and Cortes (2004). Even though most picture books combine both verbal and visual modes of expression, the main aim of this study is to analyze the verbal mode of the series of the picture book “Twiggle Story” by describing different functions of the three language metafunctions.
Through the Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) theory, the study researched how the authors of the selected picture books implement the ideational functions of language as regards subordination, coordination, and modification. The study also explored the use of interpersonal functions of language in line with mood, modality, and person. In addition, it examined the theme and the rheme of the textual functions and how coherence is built by making use of the textual function of language in the selected picture books. The study used a qualitative content analysis research design to achieve the research purpose.
The study found that ideational metafunction aims to give extra information and create interconnection in the two picture books. With the interpersonal metafunction, the four authors reveal the characters’ points of view in the stories. The textual metafunctions are used to create logic and build coherence in the picture books. Based on the findings of the study, it is obvious that text analysis relied upon the three language metafunctions, and a text without the components of language metafunctions can be limited in meanings, so it is suggested that using different elements of these metafunctions in exploring verbal presentation should be extensively examined.
Key words: Systemic Functional Linguistic, Metafunctions of language, ideational functions, interpersonal functions, textual functions, picture books. III 0 0 TABLES OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. I STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY. III LIST OF FIGURES.
VII LIST OF TABLES.VIII LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.IX CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY.2 THE RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY.3 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM.4 PURPOSES OF THE STUDY.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY.7 SCOPE OF THE STUDY.8 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY.6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. DEFINITION OF PICTURE BOOKS.2 PICTURE BOOKS AND CHILDREN.4 DISCOURSE-SEMANTIC MODEL OF SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS.1 Theme and Rheme .8 HALLIDAY’S S YSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS .9 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF THE STUDY .1 Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) theory .2 Principal elements of SFL .10 REVIEW OF PREVIOUS STUDIES .1 R ESEARCH DESIGN – Q UALITATIVE .1 Data selection and the author .2 Summary of the selected stories .1 Implementation of logical functions in line with modification, coordination and subordination .2 Implementation of interpersonal functions in line with mood, modality and person .3 The use of theme and rheme to build coherence.4 The use of cohesion to be coherence.5 The use of other features to build coherence and perform the textual function .1 Author’s implementation of the ideational functions of language in with modification, coordination, and subordination. The use of the interpersonal function of language in line with mood, modality and person. How the textual metafunction is used to build coherence in the selected picture books.
115 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS .3 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY.4 RECOMMENDATION FOR FURTHER STUDY. 133 VI 0 0 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 The levels of discourse-semantics.2 The functional model of language.3 The (sub)systems of Context of situation, Discourse Semantics and Lexico- grammar.4 The semiotic framework.1 The parallel progression pattern of the seven extracts.2 Extract 8, the zig-zag progression pattern.3 Extract 9-12, the parallel and zig-zag progression pattern.98 VII 0 0 LIST OF TABLES Table 2.2 Theme and Rheme.1 The similarity and difference of word orders in English and Vietnamese SVC structures in the series of picture books “Twiggle Story”. 121 VIII 0 0 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS SFL Systemic Functional Linguistics ELT English Language Teaching ESP English for Specific Purposes DCT Data Collecting Tables ICL Information Check List MF Turtle Makes Friends LT Turtle Learns To Do Turtle CASEL Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning IX 0 0 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter discusses the background of the study, the rationale of the study, the statement of the problem, the purpose of the study, research questions, significance of the study, the scope of the study, and organization of the study.1 Background of the study As claimed by Evans (2015), there are a great number of research papers related to picture books according to their thematic diversity and potential. Regarding picture books, Lewis (2001) states that the words in picture books are associated with images to make meaning for the whole story and the words are also influenced by pictures.
Similarly, the images of picture books express the meaning of the text. According to Bader (as cited in Aripze & Styles, 2003), reading picture books is sophisticated for children since picture books are designed simultaneously with graphic arts and the primary texts for children. Picture books primarily focus on the role of design and the connections between text and images. This means that picture books are special genres with typical features and there are two main types of languages in picture books: the written and the visual one.
The meaning of picture books is conveyed by the convergence of these two elements. Various studies into picture books have frequently been approached in many years and most studies mainly examine the impact of picture books on the acquisition of children’s literacy or the multimodal analysis of picture books. For instance, a study by Aripze and Styles (2003) explored the ability of young children to see and understand what they were looking at as a sophisticated means of multimodal reading. Additionally, Fletcher and Reese (2004) clarify that picture books provide children with a great deal of vocabulary which is about the reality of children’s daily life.
Landers (1987) explains that picture books play a vital role in children’s life owing to their 1 0 0 literary value and picture books also contribute to children's development of the reading process. According to Nicholas (2007), most young children must have the competence in understanding as well as reading, writing, listening, and speaking at an early age, so those lacking experiences of reading and writing ability often lag behind rather than children who are spending their time developing their literacy on reading picture books. Furthermore, Nicholas (2007) also hypothesizes that kindergarten students could attain to learning new vocabulary by reading or listening to picture books. According to Robbins and Ehri (1994), the advance of children’s vocabulary depends on the growth of their age, since students starting reading with small new words will drop behind those with larger vocabularies.
Furthermore, Center (2005) states that it is essential for children to experience reading and listening to books as it assists young children to know the way of gaining meaning from written text. This infers that the verbal mode of picture books plays a vital role in the acquisition of children’s language skills. Therefore, the researcher of this study attempted to investigate various features of the verbal model in picture books to understand and clarify specific elements of linguistic in picture books. Furthermore, a large number of studies on picture books have been carried out and most studies are in terms of exploring the interaction between visual elements and verbal mode in picture books.
In the Vietnamese context, a few studies focus only on the verbal presentation of picture books. Furthermore, according to Butt, Fahey, Feez, Spinks and Yallop (2000), language is a set of ‘meaning-making resources’ that plays a vital role in humans’ communication and is considered as a means to convey information to each other. Thus, the purpose of this study is to mainly analyze the verbal mode in texts of the two selected picture books in order to have a deep comprehension in terms of characteristics of verbal presentation. There are various investigations in analyzing text by using Functional Systemic Linguistic theory (SFL).
Therefore, the researcher of this study also utilized Functional Systemic Linguistic to examine deeply how different functions of three metafunction languages are presented in the series of picture books “Twiggle Story.2 The rationale for the study 2 0 0 A variety of studies in terms of picture books were conducted by many scholars and educators. Those studies primarily explored the multimodal approach of picture books or the relationship between verbal and visual elements in picture books. In addition, due to the lack of studies on verbal analysis only on picture books in the Vietnamese context, the researcher of this study endeavors to bridge the gap by investigating the verbal presentation in the two selected picture books. Additionally, the series of picture books “Twiggle Story” are chosen to analyze in this study since these picture books have not been officially investigated by any scholars.
Moreover, the implementation of verbal components in the two picture books is appropriate for young children, and the picture books offer young children a load of descriptive words in terms of people, things, feelings, emotions, and friendship. Through these picture books, young learners know how to describe people, sensations, or the lesson of friendship. Hence, through these picture books, this study was conducted to reveal how linguistic constituents are presented in the two picture books by using various elements of the different metafunctions of language to help young children comprehend easily.3 Statement of the problem Jalongo (2004) claims that children’s picture books are drastically essential in the lives and education of young children in some ways. Commonly, children are keen on reading picture books as they utilize simple language and these narrative books are written with vocabulary which is easy for children to understand.
Apart from verbal elements, Jalongo (2004) also elucidates that the visual mode is also employed in picture books and associates with the verbal presentation to make the meaning of the story vibrant.