Đặc điểm của tham thể trong câu hành vi tiếng Việt và tiếng Anh

v LÝ LUẬN NGÔN NGỮ

ĐẶC ĐIỂM CỦA THAM THỂ
TRONG CÂU HÀNH VI TIẾNG VIỆT
VÀ TIẾNG ANH
NGUYỄN THỊ TÚ TRINH*; PHAN VĂN HÒA**; TRẦN HỮU PHÚC***
Đại học Ngoại ngữ, Đại học Đà Nẵng, ✉
**
Đại học Ngoại ngữ, Đại học Đà Nẵng, ✉
***
Đại học Ngoại ngữ, Đại học Đà Nẵng, ✉

*

TÓM TẮT
Bài viết này thảo luận các đặc điểm của tham thể trong câu hành vi tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt bằng
cách mô tả, lý giải cấu trúc từ vựng-ngữ pháp, nghĩa ý niệm theo khung lý thuyết ngữ pháp chức
năng của Halliday và Matthiessen (2004); Martin et al (1997) và so sánh đối chiếu theo 3 nội dung
này. Chúng tôi lưu ý đến vấn đề từ vựng-ngữ pháp, nghĩa và sự chọn lựa ngôn từ thông qua các
lớp nghĩa của tham thể. Mỗi loại tham thể được phân tích và diễn giải theo hai bình diện: (i) cấu
trúc – theo cấp bậc và (ii) ngữ nghĩa – theo vai. Để làm sáng tỏ hơn vấn đề, chúng tôi phân tích
các đặc điểm tham thể trong câu hành vi trên cơ sở cứ liệu gồm mười sáu tiểu thuyết và truyện
ngắn tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt thế kỷ XIX và XX. Kết luận nêu bật những kết quả mới trong công
trình nghiên cứu và đề xuất giải pháp.
Từ khóa: câu hành vi, ngữ pháp chức năng, tham thể.

1. INTRODUCTION
Being one of the three core elements in
ideational meaning analysis, participants are key
elements and play an important role in meaning
contributions. We examine the characteristics

of participants in terms of lexico-grammatical
diversity and their meanings across our selected
data. We suggest a different interpretation of both
types of lexico-grammar and their meanings. To
investigate the characteristics of participants in
English and Vietnamese is believed to create
two benefits. First, the results can better clarify
the meaning frame in the behavioral process in
general and the role of participants in this type

18

KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ

Số 08 - 7/2017

of process in particular. Second, in language
teaching, we frequently face some indeterminate
and problematic cases when analyzing and
categorizing English and Vietnamese participants
in behavioral clauses; so shedding light on this
matter enables a different view of ideational
meaning to have a better understanding of the
extent of these meanings in contexts and to offer
a more effective way of teaching these meanings
to students.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Halliday and Matthiessen (2000) give an indepth explanation to how human beings construe

LÝ LUẬN NGÔN NGỮ v

their experience of the world. In many cases, functionalists like Bloor and Bloor (1995), Eggins
(1994), Fowler (1996), Martin (1997), etc., and cognitive linguists like Langacker (1987), Lakoff
and Johnson (1980), amongst others, have a common ground that the construction of experience is
usually thought of as knowledge, represented in the form of conceptual taxonomies, schemata, scripts
and others. For this recognition, analyzing the characteristics of participants in behavioral process
from the semantic-functional view is necessary. In Vietnamese, Hoàng Văn Vân (2012), considered
the first, successfully adopts functional grammar’s framework to describe the experiential grammar
of Vietnamese clauses of the system of TRANSITIVITY. However, Hoàng Văn Vân does not draw
comparisons of the characteristics of participants between English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses.
So our study differs in that we make a contrastive analysis of participants in English and Vietnamese
behavioral clauses in terms of lexico-grammar and ideational meaning.
3. METHOD
3.1. Data collection
Qualitative approach is adopted in this study because our attention is paid to interpreting English
and Vietnamese participants in behavioral clauses. In other words, we focus on analyzing and making
sense of characteristics of participants in English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses rather than
seeking to count things.
To determine behavioral clauses within this study, we start with behavioral processes because
we look at behavioral clauses from Halliday’s viewpoint. Tables 1 and 2 illustrate the raw lists of
behavioral processes in English and Vietnamese.
Table 1: A list of English behavioral processes


English behavioral processes
smile, laugh, twitch, shiver, kiss, embrace, dance, play, hug, stutter, mumble, stammer, chat, mutter, moan,
chatter, chat, talk, gossip, whine, whinge, ponder, puzzle, work out, mediate, ruminate, think, cogitate,
scowl, shudder, grin, gasp, cry, giggle, mumble, look at, watch, stare, gawk, view, look over, observe,
dream, listen, taste, sniff, sing, frown, insult, slander, praise, flatter, yell, scream, tremble, sweat, cough,

yawn, sneeze, breathe, sleep, shit, hiccup, burp, faint, grimace, snort, snore, sniff, gasp, sigh, sob, snarl,
cry, stare, blush, groan, nod, blink
Table 2: A list of Vietnamese behavioral processes

Vietnamese behavioral processes
thở, cười, gật gù, gật đầu, cau mày, khóc, rên rỉ, than van, nhăn mặt, gầm gừ, nhăn nhó, rùng mình,
ngắm, ngắm nghía, ho, ngáp, hắt xì, thở, ngủ, nấc, ợ, ợ hơi, xỉu, mơ, hít vào, quỳ, nằm, khịt mũi, ngáy, co
rúm, co, rùng mình, vã mồ hôi, toát mồ hôi, run, ngửi, khụt khịt, nhảy, ôm, chơi, nói lắp, cà lăm, bi bô, tán
gẫu, ê a, tâm sự, nói, lo, làu bàu, than vãn, lầm bầm, lẩm bẩm, lăng mạ, sỉ vả, sỉ nhục, vu khống, vu oan,
phỉ báng, ca ngợi, tán dương, tâng bốc, xu nịnh, hò hét, hò la, bợ đỡ, dằn vặt, ngắm, xem, nhìn, trố mắt,
quan sát, theo dõi, liếc nhìn, liếc xéo, nghe, nếm, sờ, trầm tư, mơ, điều đình, dàn xếp, tư lự, trầm ngâm,
ngẫm nghĩ, cân nhắc, băn khoăn, khao khát, quắc mắt, cau có, rùng mình, run, nháy/chớp (mắt)
KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ

Số 08 - 7/2017

19


v LÝ LUẬN NGÔN NGỮ
After building up our raw English and
Vietnamese behavioral lists, we adopt bottomup approach to recognize behavioral clauses in
English and Vietnamese novels and short stories.
“Jane Eyre”, “The Great Gatsby”, “Tender is the
night”, “Sons and Lovers”, “Women in love” and
“The rainbow” are the five English novels written
by Bronte, Fitzgerald and Lawrence. In their
works, the characters, their personal experience
and behaviors are brilliantly described via the
lively wording of the talented writers. Besides,

ten Vietnamese novels and stories such as “Sống
mòn”, “Dế mèn phiêu lưu ký”, “Tắt đèn”, “Chí
Phèo” and “Số đỏ” are carefully selected due to
their popularity and wonderful narrative device
of personal experience and behaviors. We decide
to collect data from stories and novels but not
in other genres since stories and novels reflect
the reality via the lens and skillful wording of
talented writers.
In this paper, sampling is a crucial step and
we decide to adapt random sampling technique.
Wordsmith 5.0 and Navigation pane in Word
documents and PDF are used as powerful tools
to select behavioral clauses. Concord function
in Wordsmith 5.0 is exploited to collect English
behavioral clauses while Search engine is used
to pick up Vietnamese behavioral clauses since
Wordsmith 5.0 is not applicable to Vietnamese
texts. These are two main reasons for choosing
Wordsmith 5.0 and Navigation pane because
the above novels and short stories are already
available in electronic form so it is advantageous
and time-saving for us to process them. In
addition, we can work on and store a huge
amount of collected data effectively.
1427 English behavioral clauses are
collected and saved from the six novels. As for
Vietnamese data collection, Navigation pane is
used to select Vietnamese behavioral clauses and
1330 Vietnamese behavioral clauses are selected

and saved.

20

KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ

Số 08 - 7/2017

3.2. Data analysis
A framework for data analysis is offered
in this section. All selected English and
Vietnamese participants in behavioral clauses
are analyzed and categorized in terms of lexicogrammar and ideational meaning and then a
comparison of them in English and Vietnamese
is made. Theoretically, the relationships
between lexico-grammar and function are very
close but complex. In other words, function
(or meaning) is realized or expressed through
lexico-grammar or linguistic expressions
and according to Fontaine (2013) there is
not a one-to one relationship between them.
4. TYPES OF PARTICIPANTS
ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

IN

This section is devoted to discussing two main
types of participants in English and Vietnamese
namely: Behaver and Range (Behavior,
Phenomenon, Scope and Verbiage/Target).

4.1. Behaver in English and Vietnamese
Semantic roles are associated with partially
specified grammatical functions. Behaver is
often realized by (i) nouns subdividing into
proper nouns, common nouns and pronouns and
(ii) noun phrases in English.
(1) All the men laughed. (Lawrence, 1919)
(2) The Hindu grinned, and murmured shyly.
(Lawrence, 1920)
(3) He groaned inwardly, under its bondage.
(Lawrence, 1920)
In (1), “All the men” is a noun phrase (NP)
while “The Hindu” in (2) falls into a subclass of
nouns labeled as proper nouns which are often
capitalized and tell us about the individual name
of a person, a place or a thing and “He” in (3)
belongs to proper nouns.


LÝ LUẬN NGÔN NGỮ v

In Vietnamese behavioral clauses, Behavers
are also realized by both nouns and nouns
phrases as following:
(4) Thất vọng, chị Dậu rũ người ngồi im.
(Ngô Tất Tố, 1937)
(5) Chúng tôi nằm co quắp vào nhau. (Tô
Hoài, 1941)
(6) Những kẻ khác thì ngồi than vãn, khóc lóc
hoặc cãi vã nhau cho qua ngày. (Tô Hoài, 1941)

“Chị Dậu” and “Chúng tôi” in (4) and (5) fall
into subclass of nouns namely: proper nouns and
pronouns whilst “Những kẻ khác” is interpreted
as noun phrases. It can be seen that there is some
similarity in lexico-grammar. Both English and
Vietnamese Behavers are realized by nouns or
noun phrases.
Behaver is often fucntioned as an agent.
Theoretically, a person or animal having
behaviors, usually endowed with consciousness
is labeled as Behaver as follows:
(7) Helen sighed as her reverie fed. (Bronte, 1847)
(8) Gerald watched them with the steady
twinkle in his eyes. (Lawrence, 1920)
However, in our selected data, the Behaver,
the participant involved with the behavioral
process, does not have to be a conscious
participant as in:
(9) The wind sighed low in the firs . (Bronte, 1847)
(10) The stars shuddered and broke upon the
water. (Lawrence, 1919)
(11) The ash tree moaned outside in a cold,
raw wind. (Lawrence, 1919)
(12) The cigarette trembled between his lips
with laughter as he spoke. (Lawrence, 1919)
Obviously, on semantic grounds of these
participants, “the wind”, “the stars”, “the ash

tree” and “the cigarette” are non-human entities
without our common senses and behaviors like

tremble, sigh, moan or shudder. Traditionally,
these cases are treated as personification - a form
of figurative language that is used as a literary
technique. Personification means attributing
human characteristics to something that is
not human. By using human characteristics
to describe an object, animal, or even a place,
personification can make descriptions more
unique and figurative. Within experimental
analysis framework, these non-conscious beings
are treated as conscious and these cases are also
considered as figurative expression strategy
(Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004, p. 203).
Consider
Vietnamese:

the

following

examples

in

(13) Dọc sông, những chòm cổ thụ dáng
mãnh liệt đứng trầm ngâm lặng nhìn xuống
nước. (Võ Quảng, 1974)
(14) Biển đêm sóng vỗ thật dữ dội, nó gào
thét từ phía mạn Bắc như một cái loa. (Trang
Trang, 2012)

In (13) and (14), “những chòm cổ thụ” and
“sóng” are conventionally examples of nonhuman entities – but they can be construed as
Behaver (so endowed with consciousness in
process of behaving).
Last but not least, “conscious beings”
typically means a person or people but they may
also be represented by a part of the body. For
examples:
(15) His eyes glanced momentarily at me
and his lips parted with an abortive attempt at a
laugh. (Fitzgerald, 1925)
(16) Her lip trembled, her face broke, and,
snatching up the child. (Lawrence, 1919)
(17) Her eyes, shuddering, appealing, gone,
almost distracted, pleaded to him suddenly.
(Lawrence, 1919)
KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ

Số 08 - 7/2017

21


v LÝ LUẬN NGÔN NGỮ

As in above three examples, “eyes” and “lip” represent the action of behavior as involving a
human’s organ rather than the whole person. Halliday (2000, p. 93) argues that “this is a departure
from the norm of language; it owes its effect, that of deconstructing the whole person as a potentially
independent agent”.
Parts of our body can be construed as Behaver in Vietnamese clauses. It is reflective of that

our organisms behave in our everyday physical actions and observable emotion associated with
individuals. For examples:
(18) Mặt lão đột nhiên co rúm lại. (Nam Cao, 1957)
(19) Hắn vừa đi vừa tủm tỉm cười, hai con mắt nhỏ tí, gà gà đắm vào bóng chiều. (Kim Lân, 1962)
(20) Hai con mắt tư lự nhìn ra phía trước. (Kim Lân, 1962)
Lexico-grammar and the semantic roles of Behaver are briefly illustrated in figure 1. The next
section provides a discussion of Range in English and Behavioral clauses. (see Figure 1)
4.2. Range in English and Vietnamese
According to Halliday and Matthiessen (2004), there are six subtypes of Range namely: Scope,
Behavior, Phenomenon, Verbiage, Attribute and Value. Generally speaking, Halliday and Matthiessen
(2004) suggest that Range specifies the domain of the process and defines one of the two things:
Either it is a restatement or continuation of the process itself or.
It expresses the extent or “range” of the process.
In behavioral clauses, Range is subdivided into four categories namely, ‘Behavior’, ‘Phenomenon’,
‘Scope’ and ‘Verbiage/Target’. Range is often realized by nouns or noun phrases in grammatical
terms in English. The detailed discussion on Range in English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses is
made in the next section.

22

KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ

Số 08 - 7/2017


LÝ LUẬN NGÔN NGỮ v

4.2.1. Behavior in English and Vietnamese

BEHAVER + BEHAVIORAL PROCESS+

RANGE-BEHAVIOR
Behavior is always realized by noun phrases
in both English and Vietnamese as in:
(21) Still she dreamed her young dream.
(Lawrence 1919)
(22) Nụ cười đong đưa, tung tẩy trên khóe
mắt. (Nguyễn Ngọc Tư 2011)
Behavioral
clauses
can
contain
a
second participant in Behaver^Behavioral
process^Range model. That is a Range: a
restatement of the process (Eggins, 2004,
tr. 218). This participant is labeled as the
Behavior elaborating the process. Halliday and
Matthiessen (2004, p. 204) argue that Behavior
in behavioral clauses are analogous to the Scope
of material clauses. For examples:
(23) She sighed a sigh of ineffable
satisfaction. (Bronte, 1847)
(24) Yet her mouth gave a little grimace at
the words. (Lawrence, 1920)
(25) He caught
(Lawrence, 1920)

little,

short

breaths.

These three clauses involve two participants.
“She”, “her mouth” and “he” are interpreted as
Behaver while “a sigh of ineffable satisfaction”,
“a little grimace” and “little, short breaths” are
labeled as Range-Behavior. It is noticeable that
(23), (24) and (25) are conventional examples of
“dummy processes” which can be semantically
“mixed” into Range. These processes are called
“dumb” since the meanings of these processes
don’t make any contributions to the meaning of
the clause. In other words, they are significant
at syntactical ground but useless at semantic
ground. The meaning of the whole clause can
be understood with these processes and they
become “dumb” in meanings (Trinh et al, 2017).

For examples:
Sigh a sigh – sigh (v)
Give a grimace – grimace (v)
Catch breaths – breathe (v)
Smile a smile – smile (v)
Consider
Vietnamese:

the

following

examples

in

(26) Một nụ cười khô đét nở trên cặp môi
héo hắt của Lan. (Nguyễn Công Hoan, 1933)
(27) Bà lão thở nhẹ ra một hơi dài. (Kim
Lân, 1962)
In these two above cases, “Một nụ cười khô
đét”, “một hơi dài” are represented in the role
of behavior which can be either physiology or
psychology like breathing, coughing, smiling,
staring and others in situational context. “Dummy
processes” are still available in Vietnamese asin:
Thở một hơi – thở (v)
Nở một nụ cười – cười (v)
Ném một cái nhìn – nhìn (v)
Trao một nụ hôn – hôn (v)
Trao một cái ôm – ôm (v)
Nhảy một điệu nhảy – nhảy (v)
Mơ một giấc mơ – mơ (v)
It is worth noting that Behavior is a
subcategory of range. Behavior is either an
agent or an object in English and Vietnamese
behavioral clauses.
(28) His shuddering became less. (Lawrence, 1919)
(29) His mouth closed, and a frown came on
his face. (Lawrence, 1919)
(30) Chị Tiên nở một nụ cười trên môi thắm.

(Thạch Lam, 2004)
We have discussed the characteristics of
Range – behavior in terms of lexico-grammar
and participant role, the next section will cover
the second role of Range – Phenomenon.
KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ

Số 08 - 7/2017

23


v LÝ LUẬN NGÔN NGỮ
4.2.2. Phenomenon in English and Vietnamese

BEHAVER + MENTAL-BEHAVIORAL PROCESS+ RANGE-PHENOMENON
Like Behavior, phenomenon is also realized by noun phrases as in:
(31) She sat down on the ground near me, embraced her knees with her arms. (Bronte, 1847)
(32) Bà lão khẽ thở dài đứng lên, đăm đăm nhìn người đàn bà. (Kim Lân, 1962)
(33) Xuân rơm rớm nước mắt. (Nguyễn Công Hoan, 1933)
There is another participant which is not a restatement of process, but is interpreted as Phenomenon
enhancing the process. Phenomenon of our experince includes some entities such as person, creature,
object, substance or abstraction. Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p. 204) identify two types of
phenomenon in mental clauses: Macrophenomenon which is an act and Metaphenomenon which is
a fact. But they argue that in: I am watching you. (Halliday and Matthiessen 2004, p. 251), “you”
labelled is a participant, like the phenomenon of mental clauses. Since this is restricted to “watch”,
it can be interpreted as “phenomenon”. In our study, it is suggested that Range-phenomenon are in
existence in Behaver^Behavioral process^ range – phenomenon modal as in:
(34) I laughed at him as he said this. ‘I am not an angel’. (Bronte, 1847)
(35) We all looked at the subject again. (Fitzgerald, 1925)

(36) He turned around and stared at the scene – his wife and Catherine scolding and consoling
(Fitzgerald, 1925).
(37) Vợ hắn thấy Chí Phèo thở ra mùi rượu. (Nam Cao, 1957)
It can be seen that Range can often be preceded by a preposition in English and this causes
some difficulties in analyzing clauses in a functional framework. It remains to figure out whether an
element of the clause is functioning as a participant or a circumstance. Especially in English, there
are a considerable numbers of phrasal verbs. It definitely causes some trouble to decide whether
to interpret a structure as process + circumstance or process + participant-range. What is more
comprehensive analysis of the following?
(38)

sniffed, and sniffed

She

Behaver Process behavioral

at the bottle

Or She

Cir: location

sniffed, and sniffed at the bottle

Behaver Process behavioral

Range

(Lawrence, 1919)

(38)

He

glanced

at me

and frowned

slightly

Behaver

Process behavioral

Cir: location

Process behavioral

Cir: manner

24

KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ

Số 08 - 7/2017

LÝ LUẬN NGÔN NGỮ v

Or

He

glanced at

me

and frowned

slightly

Behaver

Process behavioral

Range

Process behavioral

Cir: manner
(Fitzgerald, 1925)

(39)

He

is putting

on a cheerful smile.

Behaver

Process behavioral

Cir: location

He

is putting on

a cheerful smile.

Behaver

Process behavioral

Range

Or

(Lawrence, 1920)
The stance we take is that preposition is jointly bonded with a verb. Therefore, it performs a
function as part of the process, as with sniff at the bottle consisting of process sniff at + Range bottle,
glanced at me with process glanced at + Range me and is putting on a cheerful smile with process is
putting on + Range a cheerful smile. There is no simple analysis criterion for deciding every example.
But in behavioral clauses, these cases are firmly considered Participant – Range. We look at these
indeterminate cases from the same viewpoint with Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) and Martin el al

(1997). Martin et al (1997) argue that “often it will be obvious that the preposition must count as part
of the process realization” (Martin et al, 1997, p. 128).
In Vietnamese, the ambiguity of phrasal verbs in analyzing behavioral clauses is far less
complex. It is definitely not a case of Verb + Preposition. For example, Vietnamese verb “nhìn” is
one word and it is often accompanied by Vietnamese prepositions such as “vào”, “lên”, “xuống”
and “ra”. But these prepositions aren’t firmly fixed with verbs to form phrasal verbs as in English.
They can, however, be used compositionally to add more meaning. In this light, these examples are
interpreted as follows.
(40)

Chí Phèo

đứng lại

và

nhìn

nó

Behaver

Process
Behavioral

Conjunctive
adjunct

Process Behavioral

Range-phenomenon
(Nam Cao, 1957)

KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ

Số 08 - 7/2017

25


v LÝ LUẬN NGÔN NGỮ
(41)

Tôi

đưa

mắt

nhìn

Behaver

Process
Material

Range

Process
Behavioral

lần
cuối
Cir:
Time

phong cảnh

nơi tôi ở.

Range-phenomenon Cir: Location
(Tô Hoài, 1941)

(42)

Y

nhìn

vào
gương

Behaver

Process
Behavioral

vừa

Cir:

Location

xoa nắn

mặt

vừa

càu nhàu

ConjuncRangeConjunctive Process
Process
tive
phenomenon
adjunct
Behavioral
Behavioral
adjunct
(Nam Cao, 1956)

(43)

Lão

lừ

mắt

nhìn

trừng trừng

vào mắt nó.

Behaver

Process
Behavioral

Rangephenomenon

Process
Behavioral

Cir: Manner

Cir: Location
(Nam Cao, 1956)

(44)

Tôi

ngoảnh nhìn

lên

Behaver

Process Behavioral

Cir: Location
(Tô Hoài, 1941)

(45)

Đôi mắt

nhìn

xuống

như sợ nguời ta nhìn vào cả tâm hồn

Behaver

Process Behavioral

Cir: Location

Cir: Manner

4.2.3. Scope in English and Vietnamese

(Nam Cao, 1956)

BEHAVER + MATERIAL-BEHAVIORAL PROCESS + RANGE-SCOPE
Scope is a unique participant role in material clauses. However, behavioral clauses are partly like
the material in terms of “doing” processes. It is suggested that Scope is still available in behavioral
clauses and is always realized by nouns or noun phrases in both English and Vietnamese as in:

(46) They shake the hearthrug against the fence (Lawrence, 1919).
(47) Chị Nhà Trò ôm vai tôi cảm động (Tô Hoài, 1941).

26

KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ

Số 08 - 7/2017


LÝ LUẬN NGÔN NGỮ v

Consider the following examples.
(48) I mentally shake hands with you for your answer. (Bronte, 1847)
(49) He bent and kissed her heavy, sad, wide mouth. (Lawrence, 1915)
(50) She sat down on the ground near me, embraced her knees with her arms. (Bronte, 1847)
Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p. 192) state that “the Scope may construe an entity which exists
independently of the process but indicates the domain over which the process takes place”. As in
(48), (49), (50) where “hands”, “her heavy, sad, wide mouth”, “her knees” are labeled as Scope.
In our experience, “hands”, “mouth”, “knees” do exist independently of the act of “shake”, “kiss”,
“embrace” and that explains why these participants – Scopes can enter into different kind of process
(compare shake hands with put/clean/clap/fold/stretch/touch hands).
(51) Xuân nhồm nhoàm nhai mía. (Vũ Trọng Phụng, 1938)
(52) Viên Quản đập bàn. (Vũ Trọng Phụng, 1938)
The Scope in Vietnamese material-behavioral process may be construed as a separate and
independent element. In (51), (52) where Process “nhai” + Rang - Scope “mía” and Process “đập”
+ Range – Scope “bàn” are formed. The final subcategory of Range – Verbiage or Target will be
presented in the next section.
4.2.4.Verbiage or target in English and Vietnamese

BEHAVER + VERBAL-BEHAVIORAL PROCESS + RANGE-VERBIAGE/TARGET
Like Behavior, Phenomenon and Scope, Verbiage and Target are also realized by nouns or noun
phrases in English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses as in:
(53) She chattered to the elder Marmora. (Fitzgerald, 1937)
(54) Rồi hắn chửi đời. (Nam Cao, 1957)
In terms of participant roles, within Verbal-behavioral clauses Range is subdivided into two kinds
namely: “Verbiage” and “Target”. Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p. 255) state that Verbiage is the
function that corresponds to what is said. Here are some examples of verbiage in English.
(55) Colonel Dent and Mr. Eshton argue on politics. (Bronte, 1847)
(56) He wanted to talk about Daisy. (Fitzgerald, 1925)
There is some trouble to analyze (54) and (55) in terms of Range – “Verbiage” or Circumstance
– “Matter”. There appear only two possibilities of interpreting them: either Range-Verbiage or
Circumstance – Matter.
(55a)

Colonel Dent and Mr. Eshton
Behaver

argue on

politics

Process: Verbal – behavioral

Range-Verbiage

Or (55b)

Colonel Dent and Mr. Eshton

argue

on politics

Behaver

Process: Verbal – behavioral

Cir - Matter

KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ

Số 08 - 7/2017

27


v LÝ LUẬN NGÔN NGỮ
(56a)

He

wanted to talk about

Daisy

Behaver

Process: Verbal – behavioral

Range-Verbiage

He

wanted to talk

about Daisy

Behaver

Process: Verbal – behavioral

Cir - Matter

Or (56b)

To shoot the troubles, we are inclined to Range-Verbiage interpretation. It is highly likely that
“politics” and “Daisy” in (55) and (56) should be treated as Range-Verbiage since we examine these
two examples from a viewpoint that prepositions in English in these two cases are firmly fixed with
processes and play roles in processes. Nevertheless, the situation is less ambiguous in Vietnamese.
For examples
(57) Người ta bàn ra tán vào rất nhiều về việc công Xuân Tóc Ðỏ của chúng ta. (Vũ Trọng Phụng, 1938)
(58) Bà than thở về chiến tranh, sinh ra khó làm ăn. (Nam Cao, 1956)
In (57) and (58), “việc công Xuân Tóc Ðỏ của chúng ta”, “chiến tranh” are preceded by preposition
“về”. The question is whether preposition “về” is bound to verbs to form: Process “bàn ra tán vào
về” + Range – Verbiage “việc công Xuân Tóc Ðỏ của chúng ta” or it is fixed to noun phrases to
form: Process “bàn ra tán vào” + Circumstance – Matter “về việc công Xuân Tóc Ðỏ của chúng ta”.
Compared to English prepositions, Vietnamese prepositions are independent of process and freely go
within the clauses. That is to say they do not combine with verbs to make phrasal verbs in Vietnamese.
From this perspective, (57) and (58) should be interpreted as follows.

về việc công Xuân Tóc Ðỏ của chúng ta.

Người ta bàn ra tán vào

rất nhiều

Behaver

Circumstance - Cir - Matter
Manner

Process: Verbal – behavioral

Bà

than thở

về chiến tranh, sinh ra khó làm ăn.

Behaver

Process: Verbal – behavioral

Cir - Matter

Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p. 265) argue that Target construes the entity that is targeted by
the process of saying. Now that Verbal-behavioral processes are partly like verbal processes, this
function is still available in both English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses. For examples,
(59) He said the conductor had insulted Rosemary. (Fitzgerald, 1937)

(60) They insulted me as coarsely as they could in their little way. (Bronte, 1847)
(61) Sometimes she praised his work. (Lawrence, 1919)
(62) John Reed hated his school, and abused his master. (Bronte, 1847)
(63) Nó chửi tất cả làng Vũ Đại. (Nam Cao, 1957)
The lexico-grammar and semantic roles of Range are briefly illustrated in figure 2.

28

KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ

Số 08 - 7/2017


LÝ LUẬN NGÔN NGỮ v

5. SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES IN TERMS OF LEXICO-GRAMMATICAL
CHOICES AND FUNCTION OF PARTICIPANTS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
The analysis of collected data revealed some similarities and distinctive differences between
English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses. At lexico-grammatical level, it is clear that both English
and Vietnamese participants are realized by nouns or noun phrases. In terms of the function of
participants in behavioral clauses, there are different kinds of participant roles within two typical
models of behavioral in English and Vietnamese in table 3 and 4.
Table 3: English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses with one participant.

Participant

Process

Behaver
Behavior

Behavioral process

Table 4: English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses with two participants.

Participant 1

Process

Participant 2

Behaver

Behavioral process

Range - Behavior

Behaver

Mental - behavioral process

Range - Phenomenon

Behaver

Material - behavioral process

Range - Scope

Behaver

Verbal- behavioral process

Rang - Verbiage/Target

However, there are some distinctive features in interpreting participants in English and Vietnamese
behavioral clauses in terms of ideational meaning. Firstly, trouble occurs when analyzing RangeKHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ

Số 08 - 7/2017

29


v LÝ LUẬN NGÔN NGỮ
Phenomenon or Circumstance-Location in
Behaver^Mental-behavioral process^Range –
Phenomenon modal. This is attributable to the
favored grammatical construction – Phrasal
verbs in English. Functional analysts must
make a decision on whether they are Range
- Phenomenon or Circumstance – Location.
The situation is less complex in English since
phrasal verbs are not common in Vietnam. Last
but not least, we face the problem of interpreting
process^Range – Verbiage modal because of the
tremendous numbers of phrasal verbs in English.
6. CONCLUSION

In this paper, an attempt has been made to
examine participants in English and Vietnamese

in terms of lexico-grammatical realization
and participant roles. A qualitative method
is adopted to interpret them. It is safe to say
that there is a very wide range of participant
meanings. The analysis of collected data revealed
some similarities and distinctive differences
between English and Vietnamese participants in
behavioral clauses. We interpret and identify two
typical kinds of English and Vietnamese lexicogrammatical realization of participants: nouns
and noun phrases and two participant roles:
Behaver and Range (Behavior, Phenomenon,
Scope and Verbiage/Target). Behaver often has
function of agent of the process in both English
and Vietnamese behavioral clauses since it is
about a person or an animal having behaviors,
usually endowed with consciousness while
Range often occurs after the processes and is
considered the second participants in behavioral
clauses. The contrastive analysis between English
and Vietnamese circumstances in this study
shows that there is a borderline of Range and
circumstances in English due to the prevalence
of English phrasal verbs whilst there is no trouble
in analyzing and labeling Vietnamese Range. It
is hoped that functional analysts should take
these distinctive features into consideration when
interpreting behavioral clauses./.

30

KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ

Số 08 - 7/2017

References:
1. Nam Cao (1943), Lão Hạc, NXB Văn học,
Hà Nội.
2. Nam Cao (1956), Sống mòn, NXB Văn
học, Hà Nội.
3. Nam Cao (1957), Chí Phèo, NXB Văn
học, Hà Nội.
4. Tô Hoài (1941), Dế mèn phiêu lưu ký,
NXB Kim Đồng, Hà Nội.
5. Thạch Lam (2004), Tuyển tập truyện ngắn
Thạch Lam, NXB Giáo dục, Hà Nội.
6. Kim Lân (1962), Vợ nhặt, NXB Văn học,
Hà Nội.
7. Vũ Trọng Phụng (1938), Tuyển tập Vũ
Trọng Phụng, Tập 1, NXB Văn học, Hà Nội.
8. Võ Quảng (1974), Quê Nội, NXB Kim
Đồng, Hà Nội
9. Ngô Tất Tố (1937), Tắt đèn, NXB Văn
học, Hà Nội.
10. Nguyễn Ngọc Tư (2011), Cánh đồng bất
tận, NXB Trẻ, Hà Nội,
11. Trang Trang (2012), Mưa nhỏ hồng trần,
truy cập ngày 12/3/2017, com.vn/>.
12. Nguyễn Thị Tú Trinh, Phan Văn Hòa,
Trần Hữu Phúc (2017), “Some suggestions on

how to identify and classify behavioral processes
in English and Vietnamese”, VNU Journal of
Foreign Studies, Vol.33, No.3, pp. 1-13.
13. Hoàng Văn Vân (2012), An experiential
grammar of the Vietnamese clause, Ha Noi,
Vietnam Education Publishing House.
13. Bloor, T.& Bloor, M. (1995), The
Functional Analysis of English: A Hallidayan
Approach, Edward Arnold.
14. Eggins, S. (1994), An introduction into
Systemic Functional Linguistics, London and
New York: Continuum.
15. Fontaine, L. (2013), Analyzing English


LÝ LUẬN NGÔN NGỮ v

Grammar: A Systemic Functional Introduction.
Cambridge University Press.

C. (1997), Working with Functional Grammar.
London: Edward Arnold.

16. Fowler, R. (1996), On critical linguistics.
Texts and practices: Readings in critical
discourse analysis. London: Routledge.

20. Bronte, C. (1847), Jane Eyre, Smith,
Elder & Co, of London, England.

17. Halliday M.A.K. & Matthiessen,
C.M.I.M. (2000), Construing experience
through meaning: a language-based approach
to cognition, Open linguistics series, Continuum
International.
18. Halliday, M.A.K. & Matthiessen,
C.M.I.M. (2004), An introduction to Functional
Grammar. 3rd ed. London, Arnold.
19. Martin, J. R., Matthiessen, C. & Painter,

21. Fitzgerald, F. S. (1925), The Great
Gatsby, Scribner, New York.
22. Fitzgerald, F. S. (1937), Tender is the
night, Scribner, New York.
23. Lawrence, D.H. (1915), The Rainbow,
Collector’s Library, China.
24. Lawrence, D.H (1919), Sons and Lovers,
Dover publications, Inc, New York.
25. Lawrence, D.H (1920), Women in love,
Dover publications, Inc, NewYork.

CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTICIPANTS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
BEHAVIORAL CLAUSES
NGUYEN THI TU TRINH, PHAN VAN HOA, TRAN HUU PHUC
Abstract: This article is devoted to interpreting the characteristics of participants in behavioral
clauses in English and Vietnamese in terms of lexicogrammatical structures and ideational
meanings within the framework elaborated by Halliday and Matthiessen (2004); Martin et
al (1997) as well as making comparisons of them. Attention has been paid to interpreting a
wide range of lexicogrammatical choices and strands of function of participants. Each type of
participants is interpreted (i) structurally according to rank, and (ii) semantically according to

ideational meaning. Analysis of participant’s characteristics is conducted on six English and ten
Vietnamese 19th and 20th century novels and short stories. The conclusion points out some new
results and suggests some practical applications.
Keywords: participants, behavioral clauses, functional grammar.
Received: 24/5/2017; Revised: 12/6/2017; Accepted for publication: 28/6/2017

KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰ

Số 08 - 7/2017

31