A study of construing the experience of rage in english and vietnamese novels from functional grammar perspective

Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 5, No 2 (2019) 225-241

A Study of Construing the Experience of Rage in English
and Vietnamese Novels from Functional Grammar
Perspective
Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh*
Abstract: Among basic human emotions, rage or anger is probably the most common
experience of human life in the real world. The aims of this paper are twofold: to explore
how rage as a part of daily human experience is construed in English and Vietnamese
novels within the framework of functional grammar elaborated by Halliday and
Matthiessen (2014) and to compare functional realization of rage in the two languages on
lexico-grammar and ideational metafunction ground. In other words, based primarily on
the collected data of 15 English and Vietnamese novels, this study focuses on analyzing
how the lexico-grammatical resources constitute emotional experience of rage congruently
and metaphorically in English and Vietnamese.
Keywords: Functional Grammar; Rage; Lexico-Grammar; Metafunction; Functional
realization.
Received 13th August 2018; Revised 17th January 2019; Accepted 15th April 2019
DOI: />
1. Introduction

universality of emotion via the non-verbal
channel. Another interesting debate arises
from the question of whether or not
emotions are universal. Ekman (1993)
showed that the expressions of the six
„basic‟ emotions are cross-culturally
universal. In addition to body language,
actions and reactions to show rage or anger,
this kind of emotion can be construed via
verbal channels. The non-verbal channel of

rage or physical signs of rage include feeling
hot or flushed, a clenched jaw, staring or
baring teeth while the verbal channel of rage
can be realized by a wide variety of
linguistic expressions such as he is filled
with rage and scorn, he flies into a rage, or
he stormed out of the room in a rage.
Linguists have worked with emotional
construal from various perspectives and

The language of emotion is a vital part of
the experience of emotion. Some basic
human emotions such as happiness, sadness,
rage, disgust, anger, and fear - seen from
psychology - are considered universality
among different countries (see Figure 1).
The experience of emotion, particularly
rage, a feeling of intense, violent, or
growing anger, sometimes associated with
the fight-or-flight response has caught the
attention of many psychologists and
linguists.
Numerous
psychological
researchers namely Darwin (1872), Ekman
(1984) and Plutchik (2003) focused on the


Southern Connecticut State University, the USA;
email:

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frameworks. Lakoff (1987) and Kövecses
(2000), for instance, looked at emotional
construal from conceptual metaphor and
cognitive perspective while Halliday &
Matthiessen (2014) viewed emotional
realization from functional framework.
Halliday & Matthiessen (2014) discussed
that human emotion is construed in mental
clauses and the inner experience of an
emotion such as people love (hate, want)
money is „mental‟. However, less attention

has been paid to make a contrastive analysis
of the functional realization of the
experience of rage in the two languages,
English and Vietnamese. This study is
devoted to three questions: (i) How is rage
construed in English? (ii) How is rage
construed in Vietnamese? and (iii) What are
the similarities and differences in the
functional realization of rage in English and
Vietnamese?

Figure 1: Wheel of emotions (Plutchik 2003)


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1.1. Theoretical Background
Functional grammar is underpinned in
this study by the fact that language is a
social phenomenon existing within a
particular environment. Thus, language
depends on the context in which it is
created. However, once it is created, it
becomes part of that context. This leads to a
close relationship between the context and
the language. Halliday and Matthiessen
(2000:586) stated that emotion is seen as a
location in vertical space: be up/ down, be
high/ low, depress somebody, lift
somebody's spirits, spirits soar; fall in love,
love deeply, abhor/ detest/ dislike deeply.
Emotion as liquid/ gas (contained in a
body): explode, vent one's anger, blow one's

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top, to boil over, to smoulder, to cool down,
and to keep the lid on.
Human emotion in the Hallidayan
approach

What is an emotion? Different
researchers from a wide range of approaches
define it differently; have different opinions
as to what should be included under the
label, and also how “emotions” differ from
other related notions. Halliday and
Matthiessen (2014) divided mental process
into four sub-types: perceptive, cognitive,
desiderative and emotive. The examples of
the four subtypes of the mental process are
illustrated as follows:

(2.6)
He

saw

the car.

Senser

Process: mental-perceptive

Phenomenon

(Halliday and Matthiessen 2014: 256)
(2.7)
He

knows

the car.

Senser

Process: mental-cognitive

Phenomenon
(Halliday and Matthiessen 2014: 256)

(2.8)
He

wants

the car.

Senser

Process: mental-desiderative

Phenomenon

(Halliday and Matthiessen 2014: 256)
(2.9)
He

likes

the car.

Senser

Process: mental-emotive

Phenomenon

(Halliday and Matthiessen 2014: 256)

Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 83)
stated: “a configuration is referred as a
structure in functional grammar”. A clause

represents a pattern of experience,
conceptualized as a configuration (Halliday
& Matthiessen, 2000: 11). Experientially, a


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configuration consists of three elements:
Process, Participant and Circumstance. In
other words, these three elements are
organized in configurations that provide the
models or schemata for construing our
experience of what goes on. For example,
(2.9) construes emotion “joy” and can
represent a configuration of „Senser +

Mental process + Phenomenon‟.
1.2. Previous Studies
Language and thought are two faces of
the same coin. Emotions are integral parts of
thought and beliefs. The study of emotion
has a very long history. Darwin‟s The
Expression of the Emotions in Man and
Animals (1872) showed his evidence of the
universality of basic emotion. Darwin stated
that “it follows, from the information thus
acquired, that the same state of mind is
expressed throughout the world with
remarkable uniformity”. In the 20th century,
Ekman (1984) conducted research studies of
the universality of basic emotion. However,
the language used to express these basic
emotion, and the norms of each society and
culture could have dialects that differ subtly
from each other. Language plays a crucial
role in emotion because language enables us
to construe our experience of emotion and
makes meaning of sensations from the body
and the world in a given context. Lakoff and
Kövecses argue the more current approaches
viewing emotion from a cognitive
perspective. Lakoff (1987) viewed anger
from conceptual metaphor. He offered some
mappings of anger such as ANGER IS
INSANITY: The man was insane with rage,
ANGER IS AN OPPONENT IN A STRUGGLE: I

was struggling with my anger, ANGER IS A
CAPTIVE ANIMAL: He unleashed his anger,
ANGER IS A BURDEN: He carries his anger

around with him, and ANGRY BEHAVIOR IS
AGGRESSIVE ANIMAL BEHAVIOR: Don't snarl
at me!. Kövecses (2000) studied how human
emotions are "constructed" from individuals'
embodied experiences in different cultural
settings. The view proposed here
demonstrates how cultural aspects of
emotions, metaphorical language about the
emotions, and human physiology in emotion
are all part of an integrated system and
shows how this system points to the
reconciliation
of
the
seemingly
contradictory
views
of
biological
reductionism and social constructionism in
contemporary debates about
human
emotions.
Halliday (2000) and Halliday &
Matthiessen (2014) suggested a paradigm of
English emotional expressions viewed from

the Transitivity system. For example, “I was
fascinated by it” is a „mental‟ clause.
Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) argued that
the domain of emotion could be realized by
both as a Process in a mental clause (e.g.
she liked it; it pleased her) and as an
Attributive in a „relational‟ one.
There has been an increasing interest in
the study of the language of emotion in
English in general. However, few attempts
have been made to offer in-depth analysis of
rage itself. Particularly, the absence of
linguistic studies on the language of rage in
Vietnamese as well as a contrastive analysis
of the language of rage in English and
Vietnamese is striking. The relation between
language and emotion has been the object of
linguistic analysis from various perspectives
and languages used to construe universal
emotions like love, disgust and rage is
distinct from each other. It is hoped that this
article will make some contributions to the
study of rage within linguistics.


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229

gained much popularity with readers” (Eikrem

1999: 21). Novels are considered to be trusted
research instruments used in studies in such
areas as contrastive linguistics, translation,
and sociolinguistics. In addition, novels
reflect reality via the lens and skillful
wording of talented writers.

2. Methods
With the aim of interpreting English and
Vietnamese
clauses
construing
the
experience of rage, collecting them in
English and Vietnamese novels plays a
crucial role. Qualitative and quantitative
methods were adopted in this study to
complement the main goal of the study. The
study was carried out in novels but not in
other genres because “they are examples of
authentic materials that were published and

Table 1 and Table 2 show two lists of
seven English novels and eight Vietnamese
novels used in this study.

Table 1: A list of eight English novels
No.

Titles of the novels

Authors

Year
publication

1

Pride and prejudice

Jane Austen

1813

2

David Copperfield

Charles Dickens

1850

3

Wuthering Heights

Emily Bronte

1847

4

Vanity fair

William Makepeace Thackeray

1848

5

Crime and punishment

Fyodor Dostoevsky

1867

6

Sons and lovers

David Herbert Lawrence

1919

7

To the lighthouse

Virginia Woolf

1927

of

Table 2: A list of eight Vietnamese novels
No.

Titles of the novels

Authors

1

Tắt đèn (When the light is out)

Ngô Tất Tố

1937

2

Đôi bạn (Two friends)

Nhất Linh

1936

Nguyễn Huy Tưởng

1942

Phùng Quán

1988

3
4

Đêm hội Long Trì (Long Tri festival
night)
Tuổi thơ dữ dội (The fierce childhood)

Year
of
publication

5

Hồn bướm mơ tiên (Heart of a butterfly
in a dream of immortality)

Khải Hưng

1933

6

Bến không chồng (River watering place
of unmarried women)

Dương Hướng

1991

7

Cánh đồng bất tận (Endless fields)

Nguyễn Ngọc Tư

2005

8

Thời xa vắng (A time far past)

Lê Lựu

1986


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The initial step involves recognizing English and Vietnamese clauses construing experience
of rage. The selection of these clauses began with selecting expressions that realize rage
experience presented by an Oxford Dictionary of English (Stevenson 2010) and Vietnamese
rage experience suggested by a Vietnamese dictionary (Phê et al. 2003). Table 3 and 4
illustrate the example lists of English and Vietnamese expressions construing rage.

Table 3: Examples of English expressions construing rage
English expressions construing rage
anger, angrily, angry, annoyance, annoyed, browned off, cross, detest, enrage, furious, fly into a
rage, fly into a temper, frustrated, grumpy, hatred, irate, irritable, lament, mad, madden, outrage,
rage, resent, resentment, savage, savagely, snappy, sore, spunky, sulk, surly, throw a tantrum,
wrathful, writhe, wroth and others.

Table 4: Examples of Vietnamese expressions construing rage
Vietnamese expressions construing rage
bực (to get annoyed), bực bội (to get irritated), bực dọc (to get annoyed), bực mình (to get
irritated), bực tức (to resent), căm (to bear resentment), căm giận (to get outrage), căm phẫn (to get
outrage), căm thù (to bear deep resentment), căm tức (to fret with resentment), cáu (to get furious),
cáu kỉnh (to get surly), cơn uất ức (rage), điều căm tức (rage), giận (to get furious), giận cá chém
thớt (do not cut off your nose to spite your face), giận dỗi (to rage), giận dữ (to get angry), giận hờn
(to get angry), hờn dỗi (to sulk), hờn giận (to sulk), mối giận (anger), nổi cáu (to get mad at), nổi
đóa (to get mad at), nổi giận (to get furious), nổi khùng (to get mad at), nổi nóng (to get angry), nổi
sung (to get mad), nổi tam bành (to fly into a rage), nổi trận lơi đình (to throw a tantrum), nỗi uất
ức (writhe), oán (to resent), oán ghét (to resent), oán giận (to resent), oán hận (to resent), oán hờn
(to resent), oán trách (to lament), phát cáu (to get furious), sự căm giận (hatred), sự phẫn nộ
(hatred), tấm tức (to grow angry), tức (to get furious), tức điên người (to fly into a temper), tức
giận (to get annoyed), tức khí (to get angry), tức mình (to get irritated), tức tối (to get furious), tức
tưởi (to get annoyed), tưng tức (to get annoyed), uất (to anger), uất hận (to anger), uất nghẹn (to
resent), uất ức (to writhe) and others.

The bottom-up approach was adopted to
recognize clauses construing rage in seven
English and eight Vietnamese novels.
Wordsmith 5.0 (Scott 1998) and Navigation
pane (Word office 2010) in Word
documents and PDF were used as powerful

tools to select clauses construing rage. The
Concord function in Wordsmith 5.0 was
exploited to collect English clauses
construing rage while the Search engine was
used to pick up Vietnamese clauses
construing, because Wordsmith 5.0 was not

applicable to Vietnamese texts. There are
two main reasons for choosing Wordsmith
5.0 software (Scott 1998) and Navigation
pane (Word office 2010); because the above
novels are already available in electronic
formats, so it is advantageous and timesaving for us to process them. In addition,
the study can work on and store a huge
amount of collected data effectively. After
processing the English and Vietnamese
expressions construing rage in Table 3 and
Table 4 in Wordsmith 5.0 and Navigation


Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh / Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 5, No 2 (2019) 225-241

pane, 740 English and 720 Vietnamese
clauses were stored, labeled and analyzed
within the system of TRANSITIVITY
developed by Halliday & Matthiessen
(2000, 2004, 2014) and Matthiessen et al.
(2010). The interpretation of the collected
clauses construing rage was demonstrated at
both lexico-grammatical and ideational

metafunction levels. The lexico-grammar
analysis involves identifying nominal
groups, verbal groups, adverbial groups,
pronouns and prepositional phrases at each
rank level while ideational metafunction
involves analyzing and determining typical
configuration or functional realization of
rage in the English and Vietnamese data on
Halliday‟s functional grammar account.
Then, the study investigated the types and
frequencies of functional realization of rage
and presented similar and distinctive
characteristics of these terms between the
two collected data.

231

3. Findings and discussion
3.1. The functional realization of rage in
English
This section is devoted to identifying
how rage is realized in English on lexicogrammatical and ideational metafunction
ground and showing the frequencies of
functional realization of rage in English to
highlight the choices of wording in the
collected data. The experience of rage can
be construed in English in numerous ways.
Rage is construed by Process, Phenomenon,
Attributive or Circumstance.
Rage: Mental process

Human experience of rage is often
realized by mental process encoded by verbs
such as anger, rage, detest, enrage, madden,
and storm. For example:

(3.1)
Amalia Ivanovna

raged about

the room, shrieking, lamenting.

Senser

Mental process

Phenomenon

(Dostoevsky 1867)
(3.2)
He

stormed at

her.

Senser

Mental process

Phenomenon

(Lawrence 1919)

The „Senser‟, “Amalia Ivanovna” and “He” in (3.1) and (3.2) are conscious entities who
experience a feeling of violent rage that is difficult to control. The second participants “the
room, shrieking, lamenting” and “her” labeled Phenomenon may be animate or inanimate
objects.
Rage: Phenomenon
Experience of rage is nominalized and encoded by such nouns as rage, annoy, storm, fury
and is labeled Phenomenon. For example:


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(3.3)
His sudden rages

rather

amused

her.

Phenomenon

Circumstance

Mental process

Target

(Lawrence 1919)

The study reveals that most of the experience of rage is construed as “things” and these
“things” can be seen as not only emotions but also physical entities which can be blown or
watched as in the following examples:
(3.4) Its first fury was blown over (Thackeray 1848).
(3.5) He waited until the children were silent, watching with children’s rage. (Lawrence
1919)
(3.6) Her anger was turned against herself (Austen 1813).
Process + Range construction: Perhaps the most widespread use of a faded metaphor
(Derewianka: 2003) is the Process + Phenomenon construction where what would be
represented congruently as a Process (e.g. look) is represented metaphorically as the Range
(e.g. have a look) together with a lexical empty verb. There are some examples of an ideational
metaphor of rage in our collected data. Let us consider the following examples:
(3.7) You flew into a rage about it (Dostoevsky 1867).
Congruently, (3.7) could be rewritten something like:
(3.7a) You raged at it.
(3.7) chooses the Process + Phenomenon construction of “fly into + a rage” where the
Process “rage” has now become a noun accompanied by the lexical verb “fly”. (3.7) is agnate
with (3.7a). According to (Ravelli 1999:77), “any metaphorical expression has an agnate form
which shows its congruent realization. The rewording of a metaphorical expression into a
congruent one is referred to as unpacking "the grammatical metaphor”. These examples could
be regarded as cases of an ideational grammatical metaphor of rage.
Rage: Attributive
Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) stated that in the Attributive mode, an entity has some
class ascribed or attributed to it. Structurally, we label this class the Attributive, and the entity

to which it is ascribed is the Carrier – the „Carrier‟ of the „Attributive‟ It is a central
grammatical strategy for assessing by assigning an evaluative Attributive to the Carrier. For
example:
(3.8)
We

are

still

angry

after yesterday.

Carrier

Process: intensive

Circumstance

Attributive

Circumstance

(Dostoevsky 1867)


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233

(3.9)
She

was

fiery and furious.

Carrier

Process: intensive

Attributive

(Lawrence 1919)

(3.8) and (3.9) have Attributive “angry” and “fiery and furious” and Carrier of the
attribution “We” and “She”. The relational processes are realized by “are” and “was”. It can be
seen that the experience of rage often realized by an adjective is construed a qualitative
Attributive of an entity in relational clauses (e.g. angry/ fiery/ furious/ mad). The lexical verbs
in the verbal groups realizing relational processes could be grow/ look/ feel/ get/ go/ seem/
drive/ turn into as in:
(3.10) He grew grievously irritable. (Bronte 1847)
(3.11) Then the play went fast and furious. (Lawrence 1919)
(3.12) He seemed quite angry at being spoken to. (Austen 1813)
It is noticed that relation clauses falling into Attributive ones are not reversible such as he
was furious  furious was he and the interrogative probe for such clauses is how? or what ...
like? E.g. How do you feel? What is he like?
Rage: Circumstance
Experience of rage realized by either prepositional phrases (e.g. in a fury, with rage) or

adverbial groups (e.g. angrily, furiously, and savagely) as in:
(3.13)
Rawdon Crawley

fumed

with rage and mortification.

Behavior

Process: Behavioral

Circumstance

(Thackeray 1848)
(3.14)
He
Behavior

looked

angrily
Circumstance

at

him.
Phenomenon

Process: Behavioral

(Dostoevsky 1867)

Particularly, 238 in 246 Circumstances in our collected data are realized by prepositional
phrases. A prepositional phrase construing rage functioning as Circumstance can be replaced
by a verb or and an adjective serving as Process or Attributive. For example:
(3.15) Glorvina cried with rage at the failure = Glorvina cried and raged at the failure.
(Process) (Thackeray 1848).
(3.16) You were in such a fury. = You were furious (Attributive) (Thackeray 1848).
Table 5 and Figure 2 demonstrate the frequencies of functional realization of rage in the
English collected data.


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Table 5: Types and frequencies of functional realization of rage in investigated English novels
Functional Realization of Rage - English
Types

Frequencies

Process

75

10%

Phenomenon

208

28%

Attributive

196

27%

Circumstance

261

35%

Total

740

100%

Figure 2: Types and frequencies of functional realization of rage in investigated English novels

Functional realization of rage in English
Process
10%

Circumstance
35%

Phenomenon
28%
Attributive
27%

The functional realization of rage could serve as a Process in mental clauses, as a
Phenomenon in mental or behavioral ones, as an Attributive in relational ones and as
Circumstance in 6 kinds of clauses (Mental, Material, Verbal, Behavioral, Relational and
Existential). A close look at Figure 2 reveals that Circumstance (35%) accounted for over onethird of the percentage of functional realization of rage, Attributive came second with 27%
while Process and metaphorical expressions make the smallest percentage 10% and 5%
respectively.
3.2. The functional realization of rage in Vietnamese
This section explores how rage is construed in Vietnamese at lexico-grammatical and
ideational metafunction level. Types and frequencies of functional realization of rage in
Vietnamese are discussed in the following sub-sections.
Rage: Mental process
Rage is often realized by mental processes encoded by verbs such as bực (to get annoyed),
bực bội (to get irritated), bực tức (to resent), cáu (to get furious), giận dữ (to get angry), nổi
khùng (to get mad at), and others in Vietnamese. For examples:


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235

(3.17)
Dũng

mỉm cười

nhưng

lắc

đầu

bực tức.

Dung

smile

but

shake his head

irritated

Senser/Behavior

Process:
Behavioral

Phenomenon

Behavioral
process

Process:

Mental

„Dung smiles but shakes his head and gets irritated‟ (Nhất Linh 1936).
(3.18)
Quỳnh Hoa
Quynh Hoa
Senser

giận

sôi lên.

rage

boil up

Mental process

Circumstance- Manner

„Quynh Hoa flies into a rage" (Nguyễn Huy Tưởng 1942)
The Sensers in (3.17) and (3.18) refer to conscious human beings who are capable of
angering, raging or storming. In Vietnamese, besides non-verbal channels such as intonation,
facial expressions or gestures, there are numerous verbs which realize rage and express the
degree of rage. The degree may be either low “giận” (anger) or high “oán giận”(outrage).
Rage: Phenomenon
In Vietnamese, experience of rage is nominalized and encoded by such nouns as nỗi bực
tức (rage), cơn giận (anger), sự giận dữ (anger), nỗi uất ức (writhe), nỗi uất giận (hatred) and is
labeled Phenomenon. For example:
(3.19)

Sau khi
After

đã trút

nỗi uất giận

lên

đầu thằng

ông

thấy tủi phận.

vented

anger

on

head guy

he

see self-pity

Senser

Process: mental

con trai út, thằng Sài,
youngest
Circumstan
ce- Time

Process:
Behavioral

Phenomenon

Target

Sai

„After venting his anger on the youngest son, Sai, a wave of self-pity comes over him‟ (Lê
Lựu 1986).
“Trút nỗi uất giận” (venting anger) is worthy of mention since it is tremendously found in
everyday spoken language. Here we consider them as examples of faded ideational metaphor
in Vietnamese with the nominalization of the behavioral process “uất giận” (to anger). Let us
consider further examples where rage is construed and labeled Phenomenon.


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236

(3.20)
Nỗi uất ức đau buồn
Writhe

sorrow

vì

sắp bỏ lại thành phố quê hương cho quân giặc, cũng

because near leave

city

hometown for enemy,

also

nặng trĩu trong tim các chiến sĩ nhỏ tuổi này khơng kém gì với các chiến sĩ lớn tuổi khác
heavy

in

heart soldiers

young

this no less than

soldiers

old

different

„Writhe and sorrow of young soldiers at leaving the hometown for the enemy is as big as that
of old soldiers‟ (Phùng Quán 1988).
Rage: Attributive
Vietnamese adjectives such as “giận dữ” (anger) are exploited to construe the domain of
rage as in:
(3.21)
Lý trưởng

vẫn

giận dữ.

Ly-truong

still

angry

Carrier

Circumstance

Attributive

„Ly truong still gets angry‟ (Ngô Tất Tố 1937).
In (3.21) we have an Attributive “giận dữ” (angry) and a Carrier of attribution “Lý trưởng”
(Ly truong). It is noticed that the relational process is absent in this Attributive relational
clause. Relational process is often omitted in many Vietnamese Attributive relational clauses.

Rage: Circumstance
In Vietnamese, experience of rage realized by adverbial groups (e.g. cáu kỉnh (irritably),
một cách giận dữ (angrily)) is labeled Circumstance-Manner as in
(3.22)
Dũng

cầm

lá thư

vẫy

mạnh

mấy cái,

đứng dậy

lẩm bẩm

Dung

hold

letter

wave

strong

few things

stand up

mutter

một cách bực
tức
irritably

Actor/
Behav
ior

Proce
ss:
Mater
ial

Scope

Proces
s:
Materi
al

Cir:
Manner

Cir: Extent

Process:
Behavioral

Process:
Behaviora
l

Circumstance
-Manner

„Dung holds the letter, waves it strongly, stands up and mutters irritably‟ (Nhất Linh 1936).


Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh / Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 5, No 2 (2019) 225-241

237

(3.23)
Quận chúa

đẩy

cái bàn tay

và

giết

Princess

push

hand

and

kill

người ấy

ra

rồi

nói

out

then

say

person

phàm phũ

một
cách
giận dữ.

angrily

abominable
Actor/
Behavior

Pro:
Materi
al

Goal

Conj
uncti
ve
adjun
ct

Proc
ess:
Mate
rial

Goal

Cir:
Conjunc
locati tive
on
adjunct

Proces
s:
Verbal

(Circumstan
ce-Manner)

„The princess pushes his abominable and sinful hands away and says angrily‟
(Nguyễn Huy Tưởng 1942)
The Circumstances “một cách bực tức” (irritably) and “một cách giận giữ” (angrily) in
(3.22) and (3.23) followed by the processes “lẩm bẩm” (mutter) and “nói” (say) and construe
the way in which the processes “lẩm bẩm” (mutter) and “nói” (say) are actualized. The
Circumstances “một cách bực tức” and “một cách giận giữ” shows us strong feelings about
something that one dislikes very much or about an unfair situation.
Table 6 and Figure 3 demonstrate the frequencies of functional realization of rage in
English collected data.
Table 6: Types and frequencies of functional realization of rage in investigated Vietnamese novels
Functional Realization of Rage - Vietnamese
Types

Frequencies

Process

516

72%

Phenomenon

177

24%

Attributive

19

3%

Circumstance

8

1%

Total

720

100%


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Figure 3: Types and frequencies of functional realization of rage in investigated Vietnamese novels

Circumstance
Attributive 1%
3%
Phenomenon
24%
Process
72%

Functional realization of rage in Vietnamese
As can be seen from figure 3, rage labeled Process made up the largest proportion of 72%.
Next comes Phenomenon 27%. By comparison, Attributive and Circumstance accounted for
the lowest percentage 3% and 1% respectively.

3.3. Similarities and differences in the functional realization of rage in English and
Vietnamese
3.3.1 Similarities in the functional realization of rage in English and Vietnamese
From the analysis above, the experience of rage is realized by four elements namely
Process, Phenomenon, Attributive or Circumstance in both English and Vietnamese data.
English and Vietnamese Process, Phenomenon, Attributive and Circumstance are realized by
verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs respectively. Table 7 compares the functional realization
or configuration of rage on the lexico-grammar plane in the English and Vietnamese data.
Table 7: A contrastive analysis of English and Vietnamese functional realization of rage
The functional realization of rage

English

Vietnamese

1

Process





2

Phenomenon





3

Attributive





4

Circumstance





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239

3.3.2. Differences in the functional realization of rage in English and Vietnamese
Figure 4: Types and frequencies of functional realization of rage in investigated English and Vietnamese novels
600
500
400
English

300

Vietnamese
200
100
0
Process

Phenomenon

Attributive

Firstly, the differences in functional
realization of rage in English and
Vietnamese are less marked but can be
identified in the frequencies of the core
elements. On the whole, the experience of
rage construed by Process is the most

common in the Vietnamese data while
Circumstance gains the most popularity in
number. It is clearly seen that Process
accounts for the largest percentage with 516
cases in the Vietnamese data, but it just
makes up a modest percentage with 75 cases
in the English data. In the second category,
there is a small gap in the number of
Phenomenon in the English and Vietnamese
data. However, regarding Attributive and
Circumstance, there is a number of
significant differences in the frequencies in
the English and Vietnamese data. Attributive
and Circumstance are sometimes found in
the Vietnamese collected data with 19 cases
and 8 cases respectively. Secondly, in
addition to the wide discrepancy in the
frequencies of elements in the English and
Vietnamese data, differences exist in some
aspects of rage functional realization.
Prepositional phrases such as “
construing rage are

Circumstance

tremendous in English, but it is not found in
Vietnamese. It is commonly considered an
example of a metaphor of emotion construal
(see 3.1). Finally, in Vietnamese, there
appears a link between the use of ideational

metaphor and humans‟ emotional construal.
“Vợ ôm bực bội về nhà” (Wives often bring
frustration home), “bực bội” (frustration) human‟s rage is metaphorically turned into a
concrete thing going with the process “ôm”
(bring/hold). In this case, the ideational
metaphor has the power to turn rage into an
entity which Scan be physically embraced or
held. This expression provides us with
experience of nominalized language in daily
conversation and shows the emotional
impacts on the listeners. The writer has his
intention of turning the emotion “rage” into
a concrete entity to depict the outrage
efficiently.
4. Conclusion
In this paper, an attempt has been made
to examine functional realization of rage in
English and Vietnamese novels on lexicogrammatical and ideational metafunction


240

Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh / Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vol 5, No 2 (2019) 225-241

planes. Qualitative and quantitative methods
were adopted to interpret them. Rage is
construed by Process, Phenomenon,
Attributive or Circumstance in both English
and Vietnamese. The analysis of collected
data revealed some similarities and

distinctive
differences
between
the
functional realization of rage in English and
Vietnamese novels. Four typical elements of
English and Vietnamese lexico-grammatical
realization of rage in English and
Vietnamese are interpreted and identified:
Process, Phenomenon, Attributive or
Circumstance. Among them, Circumstance
is the most available in the English collected
data (35%) but the least in Vietnamese ones
(1%). After conducting a contrastive
analysis between functional realization of
rage in English and Vietnamese novels, it
can be seen that prepositional phrases
construing rage are not found in the
Vietnamese data, but this case is relatively
common in English data and rage is
metaphorically turned into a concrete thing
in Vietnamese data. Translators should take
this metaphorical case of rage into
consideration in translation.
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