(Luận văn) grammatical cohesionin “ the wind in the willow” by kenneth grahame and their equivalents in google translate’svietnamese translations

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

LÊ THỊ NGỌC THẢO

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GRAMMATICAL COHESION IN “THE WIND IN THE

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WILLOWS” BY KENNETH GRAHAME AND THEIR
VIETNAMESE TRANSLATIONS

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EQUIVALENTS IN GOOGLE TRANSLATE’S

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CODE: 8.22.02.01

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FIELD: English Linguistics

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Supervisor: LÊ NHÂN THÀNH, Ph.D.

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BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

LÊ THỊ NGỌC THẢO

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LIÊN KẾT NGỮ PHÁP TRONG “GIÓ QUA RẶNG LIỄU”

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TRONG BẢN DỊCH TIẾNG VIỆT CỦA GOOGLE

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CỦA KENNETH GRAHAME VÀ TƯƠNG ĐƯƠNG

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TRANSLATE
Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh

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Mã số: 8.22.02.01

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Người hướng dẫn: TS. LÊ NHÂN THÀNH

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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I confirm that the thesis “Grammatical cohesion in “The Wind in the
Willow” by Kenneth Grahame and their equivalents in Google Translate’s
Vietnamese Translations” is my work except where reference is made in the text of
the thesis. No other person’s work has been used without acknowledgement in the
thesis.
This thesis has not been submitted elsewhere for the award of any degree or

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diploma.

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Binh Dinh, 2021

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Lê Thị Ngọc Thảo

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis was completed with the support of many people. First and

foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr. Le Nhan Thanh,
my supervisor, for his patience, guidance and professional advice during the
process of completing this thesis. Without his expertise and encouragement, I
would not have been able to finish this study.
I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to all my lecturers who have

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taken part in my MA course at Quy Nhon University and provided me with

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useful and interesting knowledge and experience as well as their inspiration

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which helped me conduct my research.

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Last but not least, I feel deeply indebted to my family members for

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their support and motivation whenever I needed to finish the thesis.

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ABSTRACT
The study aims to examine the quality of Google Translate’s
Vietnamese translations of the grammatical cohesive devices in “The Wind in
the Willow” by Kenneth Grahame in terms of translation errors. To fulfil this
aim, 10934 reference ties and 770 conjunction ties found in 2306 English
sentences containing the references and conjunctions in “The Wind in the
Willow” and their equivalents in GT’s Vietnamese translations were

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examined to classify the translation errors in the Vietnamese translations in

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terms of grammatical cohesion using Costa et al.’s (2015) model. The

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research employs both quantitative and qualitative content analysis in this

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study to collect data and analyze it to answer the research questions. The

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results of the study show that GT cannot achieve accuracy in translating the

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references with contextual meaning and GT shows better quality in translating

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the conjunctions than the references.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................. ii
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................... iii
ABBREVIATIONS......................................................................................... vii
LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................... ix
LIST OF FIGURES.......................................................................................... xi

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CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................... 1

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1.1. Rationale ................................................................................................. 1

1.2.1. Aim ................................................................................................... 3

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1.2. Aim and Objectives................................................................................. 3

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1.2.2. Objectives ......................................................................................... 3

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1.3. Research Questions ................................................................................. 4

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1.4. Scope of the Study .................................................................................. 4

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1.5. Significance of the Study ........................................................................ 5

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1.6. Organization of the Study ....................................................................... 5

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CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................... 7

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2.1. The Theory of Cohesion ......................................................................... 7

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2.1.1. Definition of cohesion. ..................................................................... 7

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2.1.2. Grammatical cohesion. ..................................................................... 8

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2.1.3. Previous studies. ............................................................................. 29

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2.2. Errors in translation............................................................................... 33

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2.2.1. Definition of translation errors ....................................................... 33

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2.2.2. Classification of translation errors. ................................................. 33

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2.2.3. Conceptual Framework. .................................................................. 36
2.3. Google Translate ................................................................................... 42

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2.3.1. Machine translation......................................................................... 43
2.3.2. Overview of Google Translate........................................................ 44
2.3.3. Previous studies on Google Translate............................................. 47
CHAPTER 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ............................................ 51
3.1. Research Methods ................................................................................. 51
3.2. Data Collection ..................................................................................... 56
3.3. Data Analysis ........................................................................................ 60
CHAPTER 4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ............................................ 64

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4.1. References and Conjunctions in “The Wind in the Willows” and

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their Equivalents in GT’s Vietnamese Translations. ................................... 64

4.1.2. Types of conjunctions ..................................................................... 71

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4.1.1. Types of references ......................................................................... 64

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4.2. Types of Translation Errors .................................................................. 78

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4.2.1. Semantic errors. .............................................................................. 79

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4.2.2. Lexis errors. .................................................................................... 82

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4.2.3. Orthographic errors. ........................................................................ 84

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4.2.4. Grammar errors. .............................................................................. 85

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4.2.5. Discourse errors. ............................................................................. 85

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4.2.6. No translation errors. ...................................................................... 86

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4.3. The Quality of Google Translate’s Vietnamese translations of

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English Grammatical Cohesive Devices...................................................... 87
CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION ........................................................................ 90

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5.1. Summary of the main Findings ............................................................. 90

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5.2. Limitation of the Study ......................................................................... 93

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5.3. Implication of the Study........................................................................ 93

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5.3.1. Implication for teachers and students of translation. ...................... 93
5.3.2. Implication for translators. .............................................................. 94

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5.4. Suggestions for Future Research .......................................................... 94
REFERENCES ................................................................................................ 95
APPENDICES

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ABBREVIATIONS
(a) Abbreviation
Abbreviation

Definition

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C.av

Conjunction: adversative

C.ca

Conjunction: causal

C.te

Conjunction: temporal

DE

Discourse errors

DER

Discourse errors of references

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Grammar errors

GEC

Grammar errors of conjunctions

GER

Grammar errors of references
Google Translate

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Conjunction: additive

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C.ad

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Lexis errors of references
Machine translation

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Neural machine translation

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NMT

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Lexis errors of conjunctions

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LER

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LEC

Lexis errors

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Orthographic errors

OEC

Orthographic error of conjunctions

OER

Orthographic error of references

R.co

Reference: comparative

R.de

Reference: demonstrative

R.pe

Reference: personal

SE

Semantic errors

SEC

Semantic errors of conjunctions

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SER

Semantic errors of references

SMT

Statistical machine translation

(b) Conventions
In the text:
ITALICS are used for emphasis, examples or technical terms; BOLD
words are used to mark the first use of technical terms.
In numbered examples:

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BOLD and UNDERLINED words in examples are the features under

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discussion.

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LIST OF TABLES
Names of tables

Table 2.1

Comparative Reference Items

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Table 2.2

Summary of the Conjunctive Relation of the Additive
Type

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Table 2.3

Summary of the Conjunctive Relation of the
Adversative Type

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Table 2.4

Summary of the Conjunctive Relation of the Causal
Type

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Table 2.5

Summary of the Conjunctive Relation of the Temporal
Type

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Table 2.6

Error Categories

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The Framework for the Analysis of Reference Items

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Table 2.8

The Framework for the Analysis of Conjunction

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Identifiable Characteristics of Translation Errors

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Number

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Table 2.7

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Table 2.9

Page

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Table 2.10 109 Languages Supported by Google Translate

Table 3.2

The Sample Table on the Frequencies of Conjunction
in “The Wind in the Willow” and Their Equivalents in
Google Translate’s Vietnamese Translations

Table 3.3

The Sample Table on the Frequencies of Each
Translation Error Type of Grammatical Cohesive
Devices

Table 3.4

The Sample Table in Translation Errors committed by
Google Translate according to Grammatical Cohesive
Devices

Table 4.1

The Frequencies of Reference in “The Wind in the
Willow” and Their Equivalents in Google Translate’s
Vietnamese Translations

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Table 3.1

The Sample Table on the Frequencies of Reference in
“The Wind in the Willow” and Their Equivalents in
Google Translate’s Vietnamese Translations

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Names of tables

Table 4.2

The Occurrences of Conjunction in “The Wind in the
Willow” and Their Equivalents in GT’s Vietnamese

Translations

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Table 4.3

The Frequencies of Each Error Type of Grammatical
Cohesive Devices in Google Translate’s Vietnamese
Translations

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Table 4.4

The Number of Occurrences of the Four Kinds of the
Semantic Errors

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Table 4.5

The Number of Occurrences of the Three Kinds of
Lexis Errors

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Table 4.6

The Number of Occurrences of the Three Kinds of the
Orthographic Errors

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Translation Errors committed by GT according to
Grammatical Cohesive Devices

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Number

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Table 4.7

Page

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LIST OF FIGURES
Number

Names of figures

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Figure 2.1 Exophoric and Endophoric Reference

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Figure 2.2 Google Translate Graphical User Interface

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Figure 3.1 The Interface of Word 2010 with the Navigation Pane

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Figure 4.1

Translation Errors committed by GT according to
Grammatical Cohesive Devices

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Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
Among subfields of discourse analysis, cohesion has received a lot of
special attention from linguists and researchers such as Halliday (1964),
Hasan (1968), Gleason (1968), Halliday and Hasan (1976), Gutwinski (1976),
Martin (1992), and many others. Although there are a lot of models of
cohesion, the framework suggested by Halliday and Hasan (1976) in

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Cohesion in English has been considered as the most influential model of

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cohesion. According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), cohesion refers to “the

cohesion in a text is used as a means to connect or relate one sentence to the

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linguistic means whereby texture is achieved” (p. 293). In other words,

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text semantically so that it is understood. Therefore, many researchers have

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focused on cohesion of news, stories, reports, or editorials (Hameed, 2008;

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Hidayat, 2016; Sudani, Tika & Sudana, 2017, among others.). However, only

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a few have studied and compared the grammatical cohesive devices in an

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English novel and their Vietnamese equivalents in Google Translate's

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translations. Fewer studies concern the study of evaluating the quality of

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Google Translate’s Vietnamese translations of the English novel in terms of

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the grammatical cohesive devices.

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Google Translate (GT) is a popular tool for free online machine
translation developed by Google and is regarded as a portable personal

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translator with millions of users in the world. It can translate multiple forms
of texts and media such as words, phrases, websites, speech, and even moving

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images from one language into 109 other languages. Although GT has been
improved a lot from statistical machine translation to neural machine

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translation to make better and accurate translations, it has still not been

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perfect with some limitations. Therefore, a lot of researchers from different
fields around the world have carried out many studies relating to GT. For
example, Aiken and Balan (2011) with the article An Analysis of Google
Translate Accuracy, Patil and Davies (2014) in Use of Google Translate in
medical communication: Evaluation of accuracy, Anggaira and Hadi (2017)
with Linguistic Errors On Narrative Text Translation using Google
Translate, Kol, Schcolnik, and Spector-Cohen (2018) in the article Google
Translate in Academic Writing Courses, and Aiken with the article entitled An

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Updated Evaluation of Google Translate Accuracy (2019). In Vietnam, there

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are also some researches discussing GT such as Nguyen Minh Trang (2019)

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with Using Google Translate As a Pronunciation Training Tool and Nguyen

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Thi Ngoc Giau (2019) with her Master’s thesis named Evaluating the Quality
I have been very interested in The Wind in the Willows, a children’s

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of English – Vietnamese Translation carried out by Google Translate.

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book by British novelist Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. Since its

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beginnings as a series of stories told to Kenneth Grahame’s young son, The

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Wind in the Willows has become one of the most favourite children’s books of

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all time. The novel is about the adventures of four anthropomorphised animals
- Toad, Rat, Mole, and Badger, which have enchanted readers of all ages,

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especially children for more than a century. Since the first publication,

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Kenneth Grahame’s masterpiece has been issued in over a hundred editions
and translated into many languages. It can be read in Afrikaans as Die Wind

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in die Wilgers, in Italian as Il Vento nei Salici, in Finnish as Kaislikossa
suhisee, in Portuguese as As Aventuras de Senhor Sapo and in dozens of other

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languages. This famous novel also has translations in verse, audio and video
adaptations, plays, films, picture books, pop-up books, knitting patterns,

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graphic novels and scholarly annotated editions. Therefore, The Wind in the

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Willows by Kenneth Grahame is a good data resource for my study.
With the aim to evaluate the quality of Google Translate’s Vietnamese
translations of the English grammatical cohesive devices, this study attempts
to make a comparative analysis of the grammatical devices used in The Wind
in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame and their Vietnamese equivalents
translated by Google Translate. When studying it, we not only focus on the

kinds of grammatical devices based on the framework of Halliday and Hasan
(1976) but also try to find out the translation errors in the Vietnamese

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translation made by Google Translate to see which kind of grammatical

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cohesive devices Google Translate translates more accurately. That is the

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reason why I choose the topic “Grammatical cohesion in ‘The Wind in the

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Willow’ by Kenneth Grahame and their equivalents in Google Translate’s

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Vietnamese Translations”.

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1.2. Aim and Objectives

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1.2.1. Aim

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This study aims to examine the quality of Google Translate’s

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Vietnamese translations of the grammatical cohesive devices in “The Wind in

1.2.2. Objectives

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the Willow” by Kenneth Grahame in terms of translation errors.

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In order to achieve this aim, the researcher:

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- identified the types of grammatical cohesive devices in “The Wind in
the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame,

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- identified the Vietnamese equivalents in Google Translate’s

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translations of the English grammatical cohesive devices, and

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- examined the translation errors in the Vietnamese translations of the
grammatical cohesive devices to see which type of the English grammatical

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cohesive devices Google Translate translates more accurately.

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1.3. Research Questions
To achieve the above aim and objectives, the researcher collected data
and analyzed it to answer the following questions:
1. What kinds of grammatical cohesive devices are used in "The Wind
in the Willow" by Kenneth Grahame?
2. What are the Vietnamese equivalents of these grammatical cohesive
devices in Google Translate’s Vietnamese translations?
3. What kinds of translation errors are committed in Google Translate’s

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Vietnamese translations of these grammatical cohesive devices?

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4. Which kind of grammatical cohesive devices does Google Translate

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translate more correctly?

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976, p. 6), grammatical cohesive

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1.4. Scope of the Study

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devices are divided into four sub-types, which are reference, ellipsis,

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substitution, and conjunction. However, within limited time and research
conditions, the study only focused on the references and conjunctions which

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are found a lot in “The Wind in the Willow” by Kenneth Grahame. Based on

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the framework of Halliday and Hasan (1976) in Cohesion in English, the
researcher investigated the grammatical cohesive devices including the

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references and conjunctions in the novel “The Wind in the Willow” by

translations.

Additionally,

the

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Kenneth Grahame and their equivalents in Google Translate’s Vietnamese
researcher

compared

references

and

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conjunctions in “The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame with their

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equivalents in Vietnamese translations made by Google Translate to classify

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translation errors in the Vietnamese translations in terms of grammatical
cohesive devices according to Costa et al.’s (2015) model that divides errors

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into five main linguistic categories (Orthography, Lexis, Grammar, Semantics

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and Discourse). After classifying translation errors, the researcher evaluated
the quality of Google Translate’s Vietnamese translations in terms of the
grammatical cohesive devices by pointing out which of these two
grammatical cohesive devices is translated more accurately by Google
Translate.

1.5. Significance of the Study
The study makes significant contributions to both theory and practice.
For theoretical aspects, the result of this study offers useful knowledge

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of references and conjunctions in “The Wind in the Willow” by Kenneth and

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Google Translate’s Vietnamese translation. Besides, this research also brings

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about insights into errors in these two kinds of grammatical cohesive devices

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made by Google Translate in its Vietnamese translations of “The Wind in the

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Willows” by Kenneth Grahame.

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For practical aspects, after analyzing errors in the references and

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conjunctions committed by Google Translate, the study helps teachers,
students and translators know which of these two cohesive devices is

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translated more correctly by Google Translate. Thanks to this, they will take

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careful note when using Google Translate in their translating relating to the
grammatical cohesive devices.

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1.6. Organization of the Study

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This study is organized into 5 chapters. Chapter 1 (Introduction)
presents the rationale, aim and objectives, research questions, significance of

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the study. Chapter 2 (Literature review) is concerned with the brief view of
theoretical background for the research including the theory of cohesion,

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errors in translation, Google Translate, and the review of related previous
studies. Chapter 3 (Methods) addresses the methods employed in the selection

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and the analysis of the data. Chapter 4 (Finding and discussions) reports and

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discusses the results from the analysis and draw conclusions. Chapter 5
(Conclusion) closes the study with a discussion of the study’s results, some
implications for teachers, students and translators, its limitations and a few
recommendations for further study.

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Chapter 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter reviews related theories as the background for the analysis
and discussion of the data in the study. It is concerned with the theory of
cohesion, errors in translation, and Google Translate.
2.1. The Theory of Cohesion
This section covers the theory about cohesion consisting of the
definition of cohesion and grammatical cohesion.

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2.1.1. Definition of cohesion.

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In the Dictionary of Language and Linguistics (1996), cohesion is defined

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as “the various linguistic means by which sentences ‘stick together’ and are
Besides, according to Cook’s (1989) words, “formal links between

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linked into larger units of paragraphs, or stanzas, or chapters” (p. 199).

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sentences and between clauses are known as cohesive devices” (p. 14).

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Similarly, Yule (2010, p. 143) considers cohesion as “the ties and connections

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that exist within texts”.

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According to the definitions provided above, cohesion is a semantic

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relation in a text that makes the text cohesive. Therefore, Halliday and
Hasan’s (1976) concept of cohesion in the book entitled Cohesion in English

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seems to be the clearest.

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The concept of cohesion is a semantic one; it refers to the
relations of meaning that exist within the text, and that define it

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as a text. Cohesion occurs when the interpretation of some
element in the discourse is dependent on that of another. The one

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element presupposes the other, in the sense that it cannot be
effectively decoded except by recourse to it. (Halliday & Hasan,

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1976, p. 4)

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Cohesion is realized through a lexicogrammatical system. In other
words, cohesion is expressed either through grammar or vocabulary. Thus,
cohesion comprises two main types: grammatical and lexical cohesion
(Halliday & Hasan, 1976, p. 6). However, only reference and conjunction of
grammatical cohesive devices, which are found almost everywhere in “The
Wind in the Willows”, are discussed in the following sections.
2.1.2. Grammatical cohesion.
Halliday and Hasan (1976) said that “grammatical cohesion means that

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some forms are realized through the grammar” (p. 6). Also according to

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Halliday and Hasan, there are four main types of grammatical cohesive

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devices, which are reference, ellipsis, substitution, and conjunction (p. 6).

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Among these four kinds of grammatical cohesive devices, the study only

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discusses references and conjunctions.

do

2.1.2.1. Reference.

oa

nl

w

According to Halliday (1994), “[a] participant or circumstantial

element introduced at one place in the text can be taken as a reference point

d

an

lu

for something that follows” (p. 288). Besides, the definition of reference was

u
nf

va

also presented by Halliday and Hasan (1976, p. 32), who define reference as a
semantic relation and who say that “since the relationship is on the semantic

ll
oi

m

level, the reference item is in no way constrain to match the grammatical class

z
at
nh

of the item it refers to.” In the words of Halliday and Hasan, there are two
main forms of reference, including situational reference (referring to a thing

z

gm

@

as identified in the context of situation) and text reference (referring a thing as
identified in the surrounding text. Halliday and Hasan also identified

l.
ai

m
co

situational and textual reference by contrasting exophora (or exophoric
reference) and endophora (endoforic reference), as shown in Figure 2.1.

an
Lu
n

va
ac
th
si

9

Reference

[situational]

[textual]

exophora

endophora

[to preceding text]

[to following text]

anaphora

cataphora

lu
an

Figure 2.1. Exophoric and Endophoric Reference (Halliday & Hasan, 1976, p. 33)

n

va

As it can be seen in Figure 2.1 that reference items can be exophoric or
Anaphoric reference refers to any reference that points “backwards” to

gh

tn

to

endophoric, and if it is endophoric, it may be anaphoric or cataphoric.

p

ie

previously mentioned information in the text whereas cataphoric reference

w

do

points the reader or listener “forwards” to the following information in the

oa

nl

text. For example,

d

(2.1) Who’s he? [speaker pointing at photograph]

lu

va

an

(2.2) She appealed to Philip. He turned the main tap.
(Thompson, 2014, p. 217)

u
nf

ll

In the first example, the hearer understands the meaning of “he” by

m

oi

relating it to something in the context of situation – the photograph of a man,

z
at
nh

so “he” in this example is exophoric. In the second example, on the other

hand, identifying the referent of “he” involves interpreting that it refers to the

z

gm

@

man mentioned as “Philip” in the previous text; therefore, “he” in the second
example is an endophoric and it is anaphoric because the meaning of “he”

l.
ai

m
co

referring to “Philip” has already been mentioned earlier in the text.
Halliday and Hasan (1976) state that there are three types of reference:

an
Lu

personal reference, demonstrative reference and comparative reference (p.

n

va
ac
th

si


10

37). These three types of reference are discussed in more detailed in the next
sections.
 Personal reference
Personal reference is reference by means of function in the speech
situation, through the category of PERSON. It has three classes: personal
pronouns (I, me, you, we, us, he, him, she, her, they, them, it, one), possessive
determiners (my, your, our, his, her, their, its, one’s), and possessive
pronouns (mine, yours, ours, his, hers, theirs, its) (Halliday & Hasan, 1976,

lu

pp. 37-38). For instance,

an

(2.3) Nam and Lan didn’t say a word. Perhaps they were angry.

va
n

(Van, 2006, p. 68)

to
tn

In the example above, “they” is a personal reference because it is a
 Demonstrative reference

p

ie

gh

personal pronoun referring to “Nam and Lan” in the previous text.

do

nl

w

Demonstrative reference is a form of verbal pointing at a referent by

an

lu

68).

d

oa

locating it on the scale of proximity in terms of space and time (Van, 2006, p.

va

There are three kinds of demonstrative references: the selective

ll

u
nf

nominal demonstratives, the definite article the and the adverbial

oi

m

demonstratives (Halliday & Hasan, 1976, p. 59).

z
at
nh

a. The selective nominal demonstratives
According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), there are four selective nominal

z

demonstratives: this, these; that, those. Halliday and Hasan say that these

@

gm

demonstratives commonly refer to anaphoric reference in English (p. 59).
Hasan, 1976, pp. 60-62):

m
co

l.
ai

There are three systematic distinctions between them (Halliday &

an
Lu

(i) This and these refer to something that is ‘near’ the speaker while
that and those denote something that is ‘not near’ the speaker.

n

va
ac
th
si


11

Both this and that are often anaphoric reference referring to something
that has been said before. In dialogue, this is often used to refer to something
the speaker has said and that to denote something said by his interlocutor
(Halliday & Hasan, 1976, p. 60). The following two examples show the
difference between this and that in terms of ‘near’ or ‘not near’ the speaker.
(2.4) There seems to have been a great deal of sheer carelessness. This
is what I can't understand.
(2.5) There seems to have been a great deal of sheer carelessness. -Yes,

lu

that's what I can’t understand.

an

(Halliday & Hasan, 1976, p. 60)

va
n

In (2.4), “this” is a demonstrative reference referring to “there seems

gh

tn

to

to have been a great deal of sheer carelessness” - the content of what has

ie

been said by the speaker. In (2.5), on the other hand, “that” is also a

p

demonstrative reference, but it refers to “there seems to have been a great

do

oa

nl

w

deal of sheer carelessness” said by the listener.
Halliday and Hasan (1976, p. 60) also say that in terms of time, that is

d
an

lu

associated with a past-time referent and this for one in the present or future.

months.

ll

u
nf

va

(2.6) We went to the opera last night. That was our first outing for

oi

m

(2.7) We're going to the opera tonight. This will be our first outing for

z
at
nh

months.

In (2.6), “that” is a demonstrative reference for “last night” (the past)

z

while in (2.7) “this” is a demonstrative reference for “tonight” (the future).

gm

@

(ii) This and that refer to count singular or mass nouns whereas these

l.
ai

singular noun.

an
Lu

(2.8) This man is my father.

m
co

and those refer to count plural nouns. In the example below, “this” denotes a

n

va
ac
th
si


12

(iii) A demonstrative as Modifier (demonstrative determiners) (this,
that, these, and those plus nouns, i.e., this book is a novel) may refer to any
class of noun while a demonstrative as Head (demonstrative pronouns) (this,
that, these and those without nouns, i.e., this is a novel) can not refer to a

human noun except in the special environment of a relational clause in which
one element is supplying the identification of the others.
b. The definite article the
The definite article the is an unmarked or non-selective referential

lu

deictic. Its meaning is that the noun it modifies has a particular referent and

an

that the information required for identifying this referent is identifiable

va
n

(Halliday & Hasan, 1976, p. 74). In other words, the noun which the definite

gh

tn

to

article the modifies is something like ‘you know which I mean, either because

ie

I have mentioned it, or because I am about to explain which one, or because

p

you are familiar with it from your own knowledge and experience’

do

oa

nl

w

(Thompson, 2014, p. 218).
According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), the function of the definite

d
an

lu

article the is to signal definiteness, without itself contributing to the

u
nf

va

definition, so it does not contain the content. The definite article the creates a
cohesive link between the sentence in which it occurs and the referential

ll
oi

m

information. It does not contain that information in itself, and it does not say

z
at
nh

where the information is located (p. 74).

The demonstrative reference the may be exophoric or endophoric

z

identifiable in one of two ways.

l.
ai

gm

@

(Halliday & Hasan, 1976, p. 71). If it is exophoric, the modified item is

m
co

(i) The modified item is a specific individual or subclass which is
identifiable in the particular situation. As in “Look! The bus is coming”, the

an
Lu

bus is interpreted as “the bus we are both expecting”.

n

va
ac
th
si