NGHIÊN cứu về cụm từ ĐỒNG vị TRONG TIẾNG ANH – PHÂN TÍCH đối CHIẾU với TIẾNG VIỆT
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Declaration
I certify that all the material in this minor thesis which is not my own work has been
identified and acknowledged, and that no material is included for which a degree has already
been conferred upon me.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my great gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Nguyn Huy of
Hanoi Junior Teacher Training College, for his enormously helpful advice, constant and
tireless help and support throughout this thesis.
I wish to acknowledge my gratitude to teachers at Hanoi National University – College
of Foreign Languages whose lectures on the area of grammar have enlightened the arguments
in this study.
I am also grateful for the support of Mrs. Mai, my former teacher, in collecting
and evaluating the statistics in the thesis.
Finally, I would like to thank my family, especially my brother whose talent in
computer programmes has saved the thesis many times, and friends who have supported and
encouraged me during the course.
Hanoi, September, 2006
Ninh Phng Lan
Abstract
Basing on grammatical theories, especially functional ones, this study aims at
describing the nature, the main characteristics of appositive phrases in English and then
identifying classes into which these phrases are divided.
The second aim of this study is trying to find out the similarities and the differences
between appositive phrases in the two languages English and Vietnamese. And from the
findings, a further study about appositive phrases in both languages may be possible.
After the theoretical part, an achievement test is done in order to investigate the ability
of acquiring English appositive phrases among Vietnamese high school students, so that some
suggestions for research about the syllabus as well as course book design could be drawn out
to make language learners be able to learn English appositive phrases better.
Contents
Declaration
i
Acknowledgements
ii
Abstract
iii
Contents
iv
Part 1 - Introduction
1. Rationale
1
2. Objectives
2
3. Scope of the study
2
4. Methods of the study
2
5. Design of the study
3
6. Theoretical background
3
6.1. History of the subject study
3
6.2. Theory of Grammar
4
6.2.1. Definitions
4
6.2.2. Schools of Grammar
6
6.2.2.1.
Traditional Grammar 6
6.2.2.2.
Descriptive Grammar 7
6.2.2.3.
Transformational Generative Grammar 9
6.2.2.4.
Systemic Functional Grammar 11
Part 2 - Development
Chapter 1 - Functional Grammar and Syntax
14
1.1. Functional Grammar
14
1.1.1. Halliday’s Functional Grammar
14
1.1.2. Vietnamese Functional Grammar
17
1.2. Syntax
17
1.2.1. Definition
17
1.2.2. Syntactic theory and structure
18
Chapter 2 - Appositive Phrases
19
2.1. Noun Phrases
19
2.1.1. Phrases and types of phrases
19
2.1.2. Noun phrases - Definition and types
20
2.2. Apposition
20
2.2.1. Definitions
20
2.2.2. Appositive phrases and relative phrases
22
2.2.3. Types of appositive phrases
22
2.2.3.1.
Full and partial appositive phrases 23
2.2.3.2.
Strict and weak appositive phrases 24
2.2.3.3 Non-restrictive and restrictive appositive phrases 24
2.2.3.4.
Combination 25
2.2.4. Structure of appositive phrases
26
2.2.5. Scale of strict non-restrictive appositive phrases
27
2.2.5.1.
Equivalence 28
2.2.5.2.
Attribution 31
2.2.5.3.
Inclusion 31
2.2.6. Summary
32
2.2.7. Appositive phrases in Vietnamese Functional Grammar
33
2.2.7.1.
Definition 33
2.2.7.2.
Types of appositive phrases in Vietnamese Functional Grammar 34
Chapter 3 - Investigation
36
3.1. Test design
36
3.1.1. Description of syllabus and course book
36
3.1.2. Objectives of the test
37
3.1.3. Format of the test
37
3.2. Test implementation
38
3.3. Test result
38
Part 3 - Conclusion
1. Conclusion
42
2. Implementation
43
3. Suggestion for further study
43
References
I
Appendixes
Appendix 1: Achievement test
IV
Appendix 2: List of informants
IX
Appendix 3: Sample test on English appositive phrases in High School
course book
XIV
Appendix 4: Table of test results
Part 1
INTRODUCTION
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In traditional English grammar, words and sentences (morphology and syntax) were
considered as two basic grammatical elements that built up the grammar theory and most of
studies about grammar were set around these two phenomena. However, right from that time,
there have also been new linguistic issues indicating the fact that there are other linguistic
items lying between words and sentences, even overlapping these two items, or lying beyond
sentences. The need for studies about those phenomena has led to new schools of grammar
with more reasonable concepts established. According to these concepts, apart from words and
sentences, phrases are also one of the most essential linguistic factors in the grammar of the
English language.
A phrase is a syntactic construction which typically contains more than one word, but
which lacks the subject-predicate structure found in a clause (David Crystal – The Cambridge
Encyclopeadia of the English Language, 1995). So, a phrase is just a group of words forming a
grammatical unit which can appear in different places in a clause or a sentence and hold
various functions one of which is apposition whose function indicates the relation between
two or more phrases (appear in the same clause or sentence) of the same reference and the
same grammatical status. In fact, when studying English grammar, appositive phrases are not
focused as much as the other phrases. Moreover, they are sometimes mistaken to relative
phrases which cause lots of difficulties to language learners. A detail study about appositive
phrases, therefore, may partially deal with those problems and suggest some ways of acquiring
and applying the so-called English appositive phrases.
Also, it is important to remember that some particularities could be recognized easily
through analysis done with the target language (English) but the others that could not be
touched upon if the research is done with the target language only, will be found out and
clarified if a contrastive analysis (based on both target language and source one, which is
Vietnamese in this case) is implemented. It means a comparison between two languages is
necessary throughout the study. That is the reason for contrastive analysis trend of the study.
Additionally, as this study focuses on the appositive function a phrase takes in a clause
or a sentence, functional grammar in contact with syntax may be the best choice to follow
among plenty of schools of grammar. With syntax and functional grammar, the construction,
the specific functions that an appositive phrase takes and the relationship between it and other
elements of a clause or a sentence could be put in a closer and a more detail view. Therefore,
functional grammar and syntax are the main stream of our study.
With al the above mentioned, we have come to the decision of doing “A study of
appositive phrases in English in comparison to Vietnamese”.
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The study, as entitled, focuses on English appositive phrases in comparison to
Vietnamese ones not only about the structure but also about the use. Thus, the study is aimed at:
Identifying and pointing out the nature of English appositive phrases through
functional grammar with basic concepts such as noun phrases, references and then coming
to clarify structures and types of appositive phrases in English.
Giving the description and characteristics of English appositive phrases and their
equivalent realizations in Vietnamese to work out the similarities and differences between the
two languages in terms of both theory and practice.
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Due to the duration of time limit and the length as well as the references available, this
thesis does research on English appositive phrases in sentences in contrast to Vietnamese
equivalents and concentrates mainly on the materials and documents available to students at
High School (especially their textbooks and practice books) and also the errors
those students may encounter in using English appositive phrases in writing.
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Due to the main aims of the study, a systemic contrastive analysis on the aspects of
function of the two languages is carried out throughout the progress. Also, the thesis makes
use of the English language as the target language and the Vietnamese one as the source
language (the base language). Besides, techniques on statistics, on systemic functional analysis
and on error analysis are applied as well.
In order to serve the targets stated before, a linguistic contrastive analysis is carried out
mainly on the phrase level with the focus on Noun Phrases as well as on the sentence level.
The sources for the analysis are from materials and references written by linguists in English
and in Vietnamese as well as some bilingual reference books available in Vietnam. This will
help to make clear both the similarities and the differences between two language systems
(English and Vietnamese).
The use of translationally equivalent structures of English and Vietnamese allow the
differences and similarities of appositive phrases in the two languages to be detected so that
some reasonable predictions can be extracted. Moreover, a survey of the use of appositive
phrases is in process with the help of 100 students from Nh©n ChÝnh High School and the
application of statistic techniques to confirm the predictions.
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This study consists of three parts, excluding the appendixes and the references.
Part one, Introduction, consists of the background for the study, the aims, the scope of
the study and the method of study. It also introduces a literature review about the history of the
subject studied, different concepts about schools of grammar.
Part two, Development, is the heart of the study which deals with appositive phrases in
English and in Vietnamese under the influence of functional grammar, syntax and contrastive
analysis. This part is divided into three chapters coping with functional grammar (in
Halliday’s theory) and syntax, appositive phrases in the two languages, and an investigation
done on appositive phrases respectively.
The last part is the conclusions as well as some suggestions for implementation
achieved from all the discussion in the thesis.
The appendixes show the exercises used in the survey done to compare appositive
phrases in English and in Vietnamese.
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Appositive phrases are not very important grammatical unit both in English and in
Vietnamese. However, linguists in general and grammarians in particular still pay much
attention to this type of phrase, especially when study English. Discussions about appositive
phrases can be found in Halliday’s An Introduction to Functional Grammar (1994) as he
analyzes charateristics of nominal group. Geoff Thompson in his Introducing Functional
Grammar (1996) and Rodney Huddleston in Introduction to the Grammar of English (1995)
also give valuable ideas about appositive phrases. However, one of the most detailed
discussion is that given by Quirk R., Greenbaum S., Leech G., Swartvik J. in their two useful
books A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, Longman (1987) and A Grammar
of Contemporary English, Longman (1987). In Vietnamese grammar, appositive phrases are
not taken into appropriate consideration as in English. There have not been any detailed
analysis or discussion about this type of phrase though ideas for it can be seen in works
written by
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There have been many different concepts about grammar. Some linguists understand
the grammar of a language as a book written about it and believe that grammar is found only
in written language – spoken language has no grammar or at least fluctuate so much that they
are only partially grammatical. In fact, grammar exists in both written and spoken forms as
language users need grammar to organize their transforming structures. There are also beliefs
that some languages have grammar while the others do not. However, it is common to know
that every language has its own grammar whose factors that make language differ from the
others. Thus, a question about how to understand the term grammar properly is raised.
F. Palmer in his book Grammar defined grammar, in the widest sense, as a complex
set of relations that link the sounds of the language (or its written symbols) with the meanings,
the messages they have to convey. Then, he also stated another definition which described the
grammar of a language is “a device that specifies the infinite set of well-formed sentences and
assigns to each of them one or more structural descriptions.” This means that grammar tells us
what are all possible sentences of a language and provides us with a description of those
sentences. Palmer continued with the statement that within linguistics, the term ‘grammar’ was
understood as a technical tool to distinguish it from phonology - the study of sounds, and
semantics - the study of meaning. However, in modern concepts, the term ‘grammar’ is
understood in a broader meaning which enables the appearance of some degrees of phonology
and semantics with the syntax as the centre concept. Quirk et al shares this point of view when
he stated in A Grammar of Contemporary English (1987) that grammar is a complex set of
rules specifying the combination that words make when forming larger units.
Another definition is shown in the “Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and
Applied Linguistics” (J. C. Richards, J. Platt and H. Platt, 1993) that “Grammar is a
description of the structure of a language and the way in which linguistic units such as words
and phrases are combined to produce sentences in the language. It usually takes into account
the meanings and functions these sentences have in the overall system of the language. It may
or may not include the description of the sounds of a language.” With this definition, it is clear
to learn that the objects of grammar are not limited within words and sentences but include
other linguistic units outside these two basic ones.
Additionally, each school of grammar, in turns, develops more in defining this term.
Transformational Grammar though agrees with the above opinion, adds an idea that grammar
itself is the one that describes the speaker’s knowledge of the language and looks at language
in relation to how it may be structured in speaker’s mind and which principles and parameters
are available to the speaker in producing the language. Meanwhile, in functional sense by
Halliday, grammar is seen as the consistence of syntax and vocabulary, plus morphology if the
language has word paradigms.
Briefly, the term grammar is used in a number of different senses - the grammar of a
language may be considered as a full description, which is variously delimited, of both
structure and meaning of the sentences or of one of these two linguistic units of the language.
However, whatever grammar is understood, there is still an agreement that this term is used to
indicate the syntax, the meaning (semantics), and phonology in which the first one is taken as
the core of the grammar of a language.
The following part is about some main schools of grammar, with their distinguished
features, which are helpful in understanding what the core if grammar is. They are traditional
grammar, descriptive grammar, transformational - generative grammar and systemic -
functional grammar.
6.2.2.1. Traditional grammar:
Traditional grammar is the one developed from the earlier grammar of Latin or Greek,
which were applied to some other languages inappropriately, as the background. Dated back to
the eighteenth century, grammarians invented the so-called normative rules (traditional
grammar) and then reinforced them by their nineteenth- and even twentieth- centuries
successors. Along with the development of traditional grammar, scholars have summarized
some major characteristics of this type of grammar which could be seen in Palmer’s useful
book Grammar (1990).
Firstly, many traditional grammar books have taken for granted that all languages have
the same grammar, and usually it was assumed that this was identical with Latin grammar.
Thus, traditional grammar is said to be prescriptive, logical - which are major features of Latin
grammar - rather than descriptive. Secondly, traditional grammar not only concerns with
correctness but also prescribes the rules of correctness in the sense of absolute and
unchanging term. In other words, it is the rules that tell language users how they ought to
speak and write. These rules have been drilled into generations of learners and made them
learn in order to become standard language users. Thirdly, traditional grammar considers
written language as primary (in Greek, grammar means to write) and spoken language is only
a rather poor version of the written one. Finally, there is a belief of the source of traditional
grammar (normative rules) that what were used to be required in language still ought to be
required, the older form being tactically accepted as “better”. So, it forces languages into Latin
framework, assuming that Latin provides a universal frame into which all languages fit.
However, since the very first time of traditional grammar, there appeared some paradoxical
point of views, especially when comparing English grammar and traditional one (which was
based on Latin grammar). It is obvious that English is different from Latin in the way of using
language, forming vocabulary, ordering language units in a sentence Therefore, there is no
reason for English to follow the Latin rules, particularly in terms of grammar.
Beside general theory, traditional grammar also introduces some specific concepts of
linguistic items such as words, nouns, phrases, sentences. Some of them are probably
unintelligible to most people though they may have some dim recollection of them from their
schooldays. Others would be more familiar to everyone as they are widely being used in many
school textbooks today.
Words, for example, are often not defined properly though other grammatical elements
in terms of it are identified rather clearly. In traditional grammar, words are clearly identified
by the spaces between them, sentences are simply composed of words and parts of speech are
just classes of words. As the result, the function of syntax if to state what words can be
combined with others to form sentences and in what order. According to this type of grammar,
eight parts of speech are identified (nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions,
conjunctions, interjections) while, however, there are serious objections to this classification.
It is clear that these parts are defined notionally and are extremely vague. Moreover, the
number of the parts of speech seems to be quite arbitrary.
Toward other elements of grammar, traditional grammar sometimes give definitions of
sentences and clauses which show that they consist of words while, at the same time, words
could be grouped into units smaller than clauses and sentences. For this, most linguists call
phrases. There are many types of phrase among which Noun Phrase is the most typical one. It
may take the position of the subject or the predicate in a clause or a sentence. It may be the
head one, but sometimes it is like a repetition or a replacement. That is the land for the seed of
appositive phrases to grow.
6.2.2.2. Descriptive grammar (Immediate Constituent Grammar/ Structural Grammar):
According to David Crystal, descriptive grammar is an approach that describes the
grammatical constructions that are used in a language, without making any evaluative
judgements about their standing in society. In other words, it describes how a language is
actually spoken or written, and does not state or prescribe how it ought to be spoken or
written. This type of grammar is very common in linguistics where it takes the role of a
standard practice to investigate a ‘corpus’ of spoken and written materials, and to describe in
detail the patterns they contain.
Rooted in American linguists’ history study about the language of the Indian in North
America, this type of grammar was most developed under strong influence of Bloomfield and
Fries’ theory on Behaviourism from 1930s to 1950s which described language in a technical
process. Therefore, descriptive grammar only focuses on the yes/no answers given by the
native speakers about the target language and leaves aside different meanings and functions of
the described units which may perform variously in different contexts. This approach also
does not identify the location and density of the linguistic units.
Additionally, this type of grammar only bases on the syntagmatic relation, the identical
and different performances of linear relationship to analyze the language items. However, such
a relationship can only be used if a border between language items is already identified on a
linear chain - the condition that is not always fulfilled.
In terms of syntax, descriptive grammar does not go further than the edge of dividing
sentences up into immediate constituents (ICs analysis) which can also be divided into smaller
ICs themselves like the following example:
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S: type of sentence structure NP: type of nominal structure
VP: type of verbal structure V: type of verb
Det.: type of determiner adv: type of adverb
adj: type of adjective Nmod: noun modifier Nhead: head noun
However, this work is not easy because with the same sentence there may be at least
two ways of dividing into ICs of which the best one is very difficult to decide or may be none
of the ways is suitable. Furthermore, this type of analyzing language is not properly helpful
not only in explaining cases of language items which are different in form but similar in
meaning and visa versa but also in indicating types and actual sources of the ICs. Additionally,
this type of grammar does not tell language users how to form other new sentences which have
not been attested in some corpus of data.
In short, though descriptive grammar has distributed undoubtful achievements to
linguistics such as the requirements of objectivity and proceduralization in studying a
language as well as some new concepts which are widely accepted as ICs and ICs analysis, its
trend of using only linear relationship, ICs analysis and excluding the meanings and functions
of linguistic items has prevented descriptive grammar from analyzing and explaining deep
structures/phenomena of the language studied. Therefore, descriptive grammar may be taken
in the very first stage of researching a language, not the main threat throughout the whole
process.
6.2.2.3. Transformational generative grammar:
Transformational Generative Grammar is a theory of grammar which was proposed by
the American linguist Noam Chomsky in 1957 and then developed by him and other linguists.
A transformational generative grammar tries to show, with a system of rules, the knowledge of
a language whose native speakers use in forming grammatical sentences and looks at the
language in relation to how it may be structured in speaker’s mind, and which principles and
parameters are available to the speakers when producing the language. This theory is, without
question, the most influential theory of linguistics in general and grammar in particular since
the theory of descriptive grammar, which developed before it, could not help to describe all
aspects of a language.
Although Chomsky first introduced this important theory to the world in his Syntactic
Structures, however, the ideas had been appeared in his The Logical Structure of Linguistic
Theory which was not published until 1975. The theory was, undoubtedly, revolution in
linguistic perception and methodology to all other scholars. In fact, it is designed to
distinguish between the grammatical sentences and the ungrammatical ones.
Chomsky has developed his ideas over the years but all of the changes are based on the
same background which was known as universal grammar – a theory which claims to account
for the grammatical competence of every adult no matter what language he or she speaks (This
means that there is a set of principles which apply to all languages and also a set of parameters
that can vary from one language to another, but only within certain limits). According to Jack
C. Richards, John Platt and Heidi Platt, Chomsky has made changes in his theory and finally
stated four main parts that make up Aspect Model or Standard Theory as follows:
a. The base component, which produces or generates basic syntactic structures into
sentences called deep structures.
b. The transformational component, which changes or transforms these basic
structures into sentences called surface structures.
c. The phonological component, which gives sentences a phonetic representation so
that they can be pronounced.
d. The semantic component, which deals with the meaning of sentences.
These four components form a kind of relationship as shown in a diagram as below:
At first, Chomsky believed that only base component affected the semantic
interpretation. Then, in Chomsky and others’ late works, there is a fact that both
transformational and phonological components also have some effect on the semantic
interpretation. (A Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, 1993).
In base component, Chomsky distinguishes between “discovery procedure” and
“evaluation procedure” and points out these two processes must be equally implemented when
analyzing a language so that the competition of the deep structure could be assured.
Toward transformational component, Chomsky introduces two new concepts:
competence and performance. He defined competence as a person’s internalized grammar of
a language or the ability to create and understand sentences, including those have never ever
been heard before. In other words, competence is the ideal speaker-hearer’s knowledge of a
language. Whereas, performance is defined as a person’s actual use of language. With this
theory, it is quite clear stating that speakers are creative. They may produce and understand
new sentences or sentences that they have never ever encountered before in their life all the
time. Hence, studying transformation generative grammar is studying the linguistic
competence and linguistic performance.
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Chomsky also suggested a solid relationship between deep structures and surface
structures. He stated that people were born with a highly restricted set of principles of
language (deep structure) - this explains why children can learn a language so quickly. And
the task of linguists is to establish such principles. Though deep structure is rather similar in
every language user, the actual sentences uttered are not the same. Each person has his/ her
own way of expressing what he/she is thinking (surface structure). Thus, the link between
deep structure and surface structure is formed and called “transformations”. A deep structure
can be transformational rules.
In conclusion, Chomsky’s Transformational Generative Grammar is a great revolution
in comparison to descriptive/structural grammar. It has solved the problems of syntax and
meaning - the one that descriptive/structural grammar had not solved before. This type of
grammar also brought a new look on linguistic components and their relationship as well as
partly explained that people’s ability of learning and using language was an inborn capacity.
However, there are undoubtedly some drawbacks found in this type of grammar. The first
thing is that Chomsky and others of Transformational Generative Grammar have paid a lot of
attention to the psychological aspect of language and a little to the sociological aspects of
language. Therefore, this grammar fails to explain why people use different sentences in
different contexts in order to express the same idea or opinion. Secondly, it is the language
competence that suggests the speaker’s ability of producing and understanding new sentences
while in fact, people often fail in coping with unfamiliar sentences or structures.
6.2.2.4. Systemic - Functional Grammar:
Systemic Functional Grammar is developed on the background of a theory about the
systemic linguistics which owes many ideas to the Prague Club (1926-1953). This is an
approach to grammatical analysis which based on a series of systems. Each system, in turn, is
a set of options one must choose at each relevant point in the production of utterance.
Systemic linguistics, then, is developed by Halliday and is defined as an approach that sees
language in a social context. The theory behind this approach is functional rather than formal
and it considers language as a resource used for communication, not as a set of rules.
(Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, Jack C. Richards, J. Platt and H.
Platt, 1993). In this way, the scope of systemic linguistics is wider than that of many other
linguistic theories such as Transformational Generative Grammar. This theory also points out
that phonology and lexicogrammar (words and grammatical structures) are closely related to
meaning and can not be analyzed without reference to it. An essential concept of the theory is
that each time language is used, no matter in what situation, the user is making constant
choices expressed by intonation, words, structures, etc.
Basing on this point of view, S.C. Dik proposed his functional grammar (FG) which
functions as the background for later study on this school. Dik argues that FG is about the
organization of natural languages and it is based on functional notion about such languages.
He also discusses some super-theoretical principles such as constituent ordering; subject-
predicate model of FG. Dik also displays clause models, underlying clause structures and
expression rules in FG. Another functional grammarian, Van Valin, however, focuses on
functional relationships. He argues that syntax could be divided into two types of relation:
relational syntax (pointing out the relationship exists among core elements of the sentence)
and unrelational syntax (showing the hierarchical arrangement of phrases, clauses and
sentences). There are, according to Van Valin, three functional relations in FG: semantic
functional relation, pragmatic functional relation and syntactic functional relation.
Different from the others, Halliday has established his own Functional Grammar,
which then makes new revolution in linguistics as well as in grammatical notion and built up a
so-called Hallidain school of grammar which then will be discussed further in the next part.
In brief, in accordance with each period of the development of linguistics in general
and grammar in particular, there is a typical school of grammar which functions as the
influential theory guiding linguists and grammarians in their studies. That is the traditional
grammar with a set of prescriptive rules, the descriptive school with its only focus on the
physical structure of language, or transformational generative one which takes care of both
structures and meanings but only spycholinguistically, and then functional grammar which ahs
solved almost problems raised from the previous schools both spycholinguistically and
sociolinguistically. And though different in ways of approaching grammar, all the schools
meet at the aim of describing grammar’s components with all their internal relationships as
well as external ones with other linguistic items outside grammar. From the above analysis,
Halliday’s functional grammar with its revolution theory (analyzing language in its social
context) is performing itself as the most dominant means of studying languages.
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Functional Grammar (FG) - a new but dominant school of grammar, as stated before, is
based on the traditional functional linguistics. This theory of grammar is based on the
background that FG looks at how language works in terms of the functional relationships in its
constituent parts, and the system of choices which language users make whenever language is
used and has been rapidly developed recently by Halliday an many other scholars.
From systemic theory of language, which serves as scale and categories of grammar,
Halliday develops into his own functional grammar and makes it the most influential approach
recently. Concerning with this type of grammar, Halliday does not state a concrete definition
of the term directly but splits the term into smaller parts and explains each of those parts
respectively. He clarifies that it is “functional grammar” because the conceptual framework on
which it is based is a functional rather than a formal one; and that it is functional in three
distinct although closely related senses: in its interpretation 'of text', 'of system', and 'of the
elements of linguistic structures' (An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Halliday, 1994).
First, FG is functional in the sense that it is designed to account for how the language
is used. According to Halliday, everything that is said or written unfolds in some context of
use. Moreover, through centuries of using language as a tool to express every need that human
had or desired to have in life, they regularly shaped language in a system that could best
satisfy those needs. It means that language had been set functionally with respect to human’s
needs. Therefore, functional grammar can be said to be "essentially a 'natural' grammar, in
the sense that everything in it can be explained, ultimately, be reference to how language is
used" (An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Halliday, 1994).
Then, in functional traditional linguistics, semantics, grammar and phonology are the
terms used for levels (strata) of a language while in formal linguistics, those terms are
semantics, syntax and phonology. However, in the terminology of linguistics, syntax is just
one part of grammar because grammar consists of syntax and vocabulary, plus morphology if
the language has word paradigms. Therefore, in order to make explicit whether syntax and
vocabulary are parts of the same level in the code of linguistics, it is necessary to refer to that
level as “lexicogrammar” or “grammar” in short.
There is another reason for not using the term “syntax” instead of “grammar” in
functional grammar. The term “syntax” has a long history of existence which began from
ancient Greece. This word suggests that a language is interpreted as a system of forms to
which meanings are then attached in a particular direction as from morphology syntax
meaning. In functional grammar, on the other hand, the direction is reserved. “A language is
interpreted as a system of meanings, accompanied by forms through which the meanings can
be realized.” (An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Halliday, 1994)
Following from Halliday (1973) and other linguists give idea that all languages are
organized around two main kinds of meaning whose fundamental components are functional
ones called “metafunctions” in the terminology as follows:
“- The ideational (reflective) function: organizes the speaker’s or writer’s experience
of the real or imaginary world.
- The interpersonal (active) function: indicates, establishes, or maintains social
relationships between people.
- Combining with these two main functions is another one that Halliday calls “textual
function” which creates written or spoken texts which cohere within themselves and which fit
the particular situation in which they are used.” (A Dictionary of Language Teaching and
Applied Linguistics, J.C. Richards, J. Platt and H. Platt, 1993).
- Moreover, in later work on clauses (1995), Halliday gives an idea of the forth
function - logical function - which constructs the logical relations in the text.
Surely, a text is a semantic unit, not a grammatical one but the meanings are realized
through wordings - grammar. This means that the relationship of grammar to semantics is very
natural, not arbitrary. And without a theory of wordings (a grammar), there is no way of
making explicit one’s interpretation of the meaning of the text as well as no way to identify
where semantics or grammar begins and ends. That is the reason for the development of
functional grammar to be pushed in the direction of semantics.
In terms of rank, Halliday follows the systemic functional grammar and defines that
English grammar, or English lexicogrammar is full system, has five-unit rank scale:
sentenceclausegroup/phrasewordmorpheme. The importance of this rank-based
theory is that it allows a unit of a particular rank to realize a functional element of the rank
immediately above: a group will serve to realize an element of group structure, for example.
Additionally, this theory allows for a rank-shift in more complex structures. It means that a
unit can function as part of another of equal or lower rank or each unit is a multifunctional
one. However, among these five units of grammar, Halliday, as well as other linguists of his
theory, considers ‘clause’ as the central/ the heart of functional grammar. Therefore, five units
can be reclassified into; above-clause clause below-clause and much attention will be
given to the clauses with discussions on the internal characteristics, the functions of clauses,
the differences between clause complex and sentence, the relationships between clauses or
between clauses and elements below them, the expansion of clause.
Towards phrases in functional grammar, Halliday puts them into the same rank with
groups but states that groups and phrases are different from each other in the sense that group
is the expansion of a word while phrase is a contraction of a clause. Though they start from
opposite ends, the two achieve roughly the same status on the rank scale as units that lie
somewhere between the rank of a clause and that of a word. Therefore, phrases can be treated
in a similar way as groups that are divided into: nominal group, verbal group, adverbial group,
conjunction group, preposition group and prepositional phrase among which the nominal and
verbal groups take much of his care with detailed discussions on their functional elements.
In short, Halliday’s functional grammar has properly covered main issues of linguistics
on the whole as well as grammar in particular. His functional grammar is built up on the back
ground of systemic functional linguistics and put in the communicative approach, thus, it
somehow brings language users to the nature of language and of learning or using a language
that is to satisfy the needs of ‘communication’; and looks at language in a rather complete way
- view language, study language as the language really is. Halliday has also solved linguistic
issues that raised from previous schools of grammar. It has answered the question about the
sociological aspects of language, explained the reasons why language users could or could not
cope with unfamiliar sentences or structures when they use language, etc. Halliday and other
functional grammarians also propose the level of grammatical units with clauses as the core of
all and others are put around this heart of grammar. However, in describing and explaining
groups and phrases, Halliday has not given a clear cut with specific criteria to identify these
two terms perfectly. As the result, the two terms overlap each other and that causes a lot of
misunderstanding among not only grammarians but also language users.
In Vietnam, FG is not a traditional as well as the most influential school of grammar
like traditional grammar in the past and transformational generative grammar recently.
However, since FG rooted in Vietnamese grammatical life, it has been discussed among
grammarians like ! "# $ 7# 21 and has proved its
outstanding characteristics in comparison to other schools of grammar in Vietnam and created
its own distinguish features.
Moreover, while Halliday and other functional grammarians in the world consider
clauses as the core of grammar, Vietnamese ones - especially8take sentences
as the heart of FG. Under the influence of Benveniste’s point of view (1961) that “sentence is
the basic unit of utterance, and of text”, Vietnamese functional grammarians prove that in
terms of discourse, sentences are the smallest units which can be used n communication but in
terms of syntax, they are the largest units containing all possible grammatical relationships. As
the result, sentences can be defined as “the largest unit of grammatical organization within
which parts of speech and grammatical classes are said to function” (Dictionary of Language
Teaching and Applied Linguistics, J.C. Richards, J. Platt and H. Platt, 1993).
Conclusively, Vietnamese FG agrees with English FG in basic theoretical background,
in technical terms and in major progress of study, but by choosing sentences as the heart
among grammatical units, Vietnamese FG has made itself rather different from that of
English.
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The term syntax is from the Ancient Greek sýntaxis, a verbal noun which literally
means “arrangement” or “setting out together”. Traditionally, syntax was the name of a branch
of grammar dealing with the ways in which words, with or without appropriate inflections, are
arranged to show connections of meanings within the sentence. The term syntax is then
developed by Maggie Tallerman as sentence construction (how words group together to make
phrases and sentences) and as a part of grammar. Maggie also added that syntax “is also used
to mean the study of the syntactic properties of languages; in this sense it's used in the same
way as we use "stylistics" to mean the study of literary style” (1998). In fact, the former
definition is accepted more popularly than the second one.
In English, as well as in other languages, the arrangement of words (syntax) is a vital
factor on determining the meaning of a sentence. However, as Van Valin et al. stated, not only
syntax but also morphology take part in the process of determine the meaning of a sentence.
The roles of syntax or morphology are minor or major depend on which language is analyzed.
This means that the cross-linguistic study of syntax cannot be carried out without paying any
attention to morphology and the functional overlap between two terms syntax and morphology
which can be summarized in only one word “morphosyntax”.
As stated, syntax has come through a long development with different notions which were
based on different backgrounds. According to Van Valin et al., the current work in syntax - both
theoretical and descriptive - now is carried out under a certain linguistic background whose goals
are describing, explaining linguistic phenomena and understanding the cognitive basis of
language. These goals exist in an interaction that the former is the condition or the supporter for
the latter. The first linguistic background comes from Chomsky’s theory of universal grammar
(syntactocentric view of language). He considers syntax as the central aspect of language, the
phonological and semantic aspects are derivative of and secondary to syntactic structures. Thus,
language appears as an abstract object whose structures are to be studied independently mainly in
terms of psycholinguistics. Therefore, issues raised in three goals of linguistic study has not been
solved in Chomsky’s theory. This means that there needs to be a more appropriate approach to this
situation - systemic functional linguistics, the theory that makes up the so-called communicative-
and-cognitive point of view. In this theory, the status of syntax, as Van Valin et al. state, "…is an
issue with respect to which theories within this perspective differ.".
In terms of structures, syntax focuses on two main sub objects: clause structures and
phrase structures (sentence structures are also taken into consideration, but not much). Each
