A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF INTERPERSONAL MEANING IN AMERICAN AND VIETNAMESE SITCOMS

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

NGUYỄN THỊ THANH THẢO

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF
INTERPERSONAL MEANING IN AMERICAN AND
VIETNAMESE SITCOMS

MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

Binh Dinh - 2019


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

NGUYỄN THỊ THANH THẢO

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF
INTERPERSONAL MEANING IN AMERICAN AND
VIETNAMESE SITCOMS

Field:
Code:

The English
Linguistics 8220201

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. NGUYỄN THỊ THU HIỀN

BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

NGUYỄN THỊ THANH THẢO

PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU NÉT NGHĨA LIÊN
NHÂN TRONG CÁC BỘ PHIM HÀI KỊCH TÌNH
HUỐNG MỸ VÀ VIỆT NAM

CHUYÊN NGÀNH: NGÔN NGỮ ANH
MÃ SỐ: 8 22 02 01

Người hướng dẫn: PGS.TS. NGUYỄN THỊ THU HIỀN


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STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I hereby certify that the thesis “A contrastive analysis of interpersonal
meaning in American and Vietnamese sitcoms”, is entirely my original work. I
have not used any sources other than those listed and identified as references. I
further declare that I have not submitted this thesis at any other institution in
order to obtain a degree.
Quy Nhon, July 2019
Signature

Nguyễn Thị Thanh Thảo

II

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Thi Thu Hien for her enthusiastic and continuous
support of my thesis and for her patience, encouragement, and immense
knowledge. Thankfully, it is her dedication that gives me motivation to fulfill
this research.
I am also grateful to my friends for their constant encouragement and
their help during the period of carrying out the research work.
Last but not least, my thanks go to my family, my parents and my brother
for their love, caring, preparing me for my future and supporting me spiritually
throughout my life.


III

ABSTRACT
This study mainly concentrates on the contrastive analysis of interpersonal
meaning in American and Vietnamese sitcoms based on the framework of
systemic functional grammar by M.A.K Halliday. Based on eight sitcom
episodes of American and Vietnamese, the present study aims at discussing the
interpersonal resources realized by mood, modality, and grammatical
interpersonal metaphor and identifying the similarities and dissimilarities of
interpersonal features in American and Vietnamese sitcom conversations. The
quantitative and qualitative methods were also employed to determine the
proportion of the linguistic resources used in American and Vietnamese sitcoms.
The outcomes show that although there are differences in the ways of expressing
mood, modality, and grammatical metaphor, the primary similarities between
American and Vietnamese sitcoms are providing information in the

communication, showing the attitude, opinion, and judgement, and expressing
the implication of speakers in the interaction through the interpersonal
realizations: Mood, modality, and grammatical metaphor.


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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
This chapter is to present all the preliminaries of the thesis. It starts
with the rationale, followed by the aims and objectives of the study, research
questions, scope of the study, significance of study and ends with the
organization of the study.

1.1. Rationale
Movie is considered the reflection of the typical culture, customs and
traditions of a country. Like other major art forms such as sculpture, painting,
music, literature and so on, movie not only brings entertaining values but also
portrays everyday life in contemporary perspectives revealed through the
language characteristics. It is undeniable that language used in movies
depends on the evolution of language over time, thus movie is the most
truthful art form reflecting the contemporary society.
In all genres of movie, sitcom, which is a short term of “situation
comedy” is regarded as the most noticeable genre. It has amusing simple plots
arising in daily life and it contains real conversations existing in the form of
spoken discourse which is an interactive speech between two or more people,
occurs in real time and is conducted face-to face. Besides, this kind of comedy
film depicts human life and society. As a result, sitcom has attracted more
scholars to carry out their researches in different fields simply because this
kind of movie contains both humorous values of verbal language and cultural
features in modern days. In reality, most researchers have carried out

researches on comic discourses in different approaches such as anthropology,
psychology, semiotic and socio-cultural exploration, etc. Each kind of these
has explored language applied in comic genres in different ways. For


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instance, from the perspective of anthropology, Sciama (2016) examined the
cognitive, social, and moral aspects of humor and its ability to make people
understand one another. Similarly, Martin (2007) focused on humor research
concerning with the cognition, development of a sense of humor, and social
interaction. Mulkay (1988) also made a contribution to psychology research
on comedy genres by investigating the nature of humor in present-day British
and North American society through examining the principles behind
humorous situations.
With respect to linguistic fields, some linguists have applied
pragmatics, discourse analysis, and translation as useful approaches to
investigate comic discourses in comedy movies. Šmilauerová (2012)
conducted a study to find out the humor strategies based on the violation of
Grice’s conversational maxims in TV Sitcom Friends. From the perspective of
the discourse analysis and the pragmatic cooperative principle, Mahdalíková
(2014) examined what discursive devices contributed to the construction of
the geek identity of characters of the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory.
Another study by (Bosch Fàbregas, 2016) dealt with linguistic gender
stereotypes in teen situation comedy named Liv and Maddie and its translation
into Spanish. Similarly, other investigations related to sitcom genre have been
done to explore many linguistic features revealed through real conversations
of characters in movies. However, not many studies related to analyzing
interpersonal meaning of comedy movies have been carried out in the light of
systemic functional grammar despite the fact that interpersonal meaning has

been conducted in the contrastive analysis between English and Vietnamese in
various fields and genres such as literature, music, advertisement, etc.


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For the reasons above, the study “A contrastive analysis of
interpersonal meaning in American and Vietnamese sitcoms” has been chosen
from the perspective of systemic functional grammar in order to identify the
similarities and dissimilarities in interpersonal meaning between the two
languages. Hopefully, findings from this study will be a practical application
in language use, contributing to the teaching and learning English as a foreign
language.

1.2. Aims and Objectives of the study
1.2.1. Aims of the study
This thesis aims at making a supplemental contribution to the
knowledge and the comprehensive understanding of the interpersonal features
in the genre of sitcoms as a whole, and in particular concentrating on
identifying the similarities and dissimilarities of interpersonal features in
dialogues of American and Vietnamese sitcoms in the light of functional
grammar.
1.2.2. Objectives
In order to achieve the stated aims, the thesis will focus on the
following objectives:
-To identify and analyze the interpersonal meaning conveyed in the
dialogues of American and Vietnamese sitcoms in terms of mood, modality
and interpersonal grammatical metaphor of mood and modality.
-To compare and contrast to find out the similarities and differences of
interpersonal meaning used in verbal resources between American and

Vietnamese sitcoms.


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1.3. Research Questions
Based on the aims of the study, the following questions are expected
to be answered respectively:
-What are the interpersonal features revealed by mood, modality, and
grammatical metaphor used in American and Vietnamese sitcoms?
-What are the possible similarities and differences between American
and Vietnamese sitcoms in terms of interpersonal meaning?

1.4. Scope of the Study
Due to the limited time, the paper particularly focuses on interpersonal
meaning realized in mood, modality and interpersonal grammatical metaphor
from the perspectives of functional grammar. In addition, the realization of
interpersonal meaning in both American and Vietnamese sitcoms will be
compared and contrasted to show the similarities and dissimilarities in comic
verbal resources. Moreover, my paper just focuses on the written text of
conversations to make sure about the reliability of the resources.

1.5. Significance of the Study
It is obvious that sitcoms are the stories revolving around the life
subjects; thus, their verbal resources are extremely practical. Owing to their
dominance, this research is conducted as a supplemental contribution to the
comprehensive knowledge of interpersonal features realized in sitcoms.
Moreover, the contrastive findings of the study also point out the similarities
and differences in interpersonal features between American and Vietnamese
conversations in life, so it helps language learners in the perception of

language.


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1.6. The Organization of the Study
The study is structured as follows:
Chapter one, the introduction, consists of the rationale, aims and
objectives, research questions, the significance of the study, scope of the study
and the organization of the paper.
Chapter two provides an overview about sitcoms. A general theoretical
background related to systemic functional theory, especially the metafunctions
of the language which concentrates on interpersonal meaning realized in
different types of moods, modality and interpersonal grammatical metaphor.
Simultaneously, a brief presentation of the previous studies related to research
area is also summarized to reveal a gap in the literature that the study is hoped
to fill.
Chapter three includes research methods and procedure of the study.
Specifically, it concentrates on the approaches utilized to collect and discuss
the data as well as to conduct the research.
Chapter four examines in detail the interpersonal meaning realized by
types of mood, Modality and interpersonal grammatical metaphor in written
texts of American and Vietnamese sitcoms. It then presents and describes the
results of the data analysis. The discussions and interpretation of findings are
also included in this chapter.
Chapter five, the conclusion, summarizes the main findings of the
study which satisfy the research questions and points out some limitations as
well as some suggestions for further researches.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter provides a whole view of the theoretical framework of
systemic functional grammar, especially interpersonal features realized by
mood, modality, and interpersonal grammatical metaphor. In addition, the
previous relevant studies are also recalled to enhance the reason of filling the
gap in this study.

2.1. Sitcom as a genre
Sitcoms, also called situation comedy, are regarded as a subgenre of
comedy movies involving romantic comedy, musical-comedy, parody, satire,
screwball, farce, black comedy. The typical characteristics of comedy genre
are telling about a series of funny or comical events with a common view to
making the audience laugh. Taflinger (2001) created some criteria for the
elements considered to be humorous in sitcom. Specifically, it must appeal to
the intellect, mechanical, inherently human, with the capability of reminding
us of humanity. Besides, there must also be a set of established societal norms
with which the observer is familiar, either through everyday life or through
the author providing it in expository material. Moreover, the situation and its
component parts must be inconsistent or unsuitable to the surrounding or
associations. And it must be perceived by the observer as harmless or painless
to the participants.
With regards to the sitcom genre, it is a specific combination of spoken
and written mode. The explanation for this concept is that the film dialogues
are scripted in advance, then actors are forced to follow it to make dialogues
and the result of this process generates spoken dialogues which are listened to


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by the audience. Even if sitcom is categorized as both spoken and written
genre, its common form is casual conversation.
Bakhtin (1986) also showed his attention into casual conversation. He
pointed out that
Language is realized in the form of individual concrete utterances […].
These utterances reflect the specific conditions and goals of each such area
not only through their content (thematic) and linguistic style, […] but above
all through their compositional structure. […] Each separate utterance is
individual, of course, but each sphere in which language is used develops its
own relatively stable types of these utterances. These we may call speech
genres. (Bakhtin, 1986, p. 60)

More specifically, the casual conversations in sitcom consist of anecdotes
which are short stories making listeners or viewers laugh. Due to its features,
Eggins and Slade (1997) proposed the generic structure of anecdote text
including five components:
(i)
(ii)

Abstract: Signals the retelling of an unusual or amusing incident
Orientation: Sets the scene

(iii)

Crisis: Provides details of the unusual incident.

(iv)

Reaction: Reaction to the crisis

(v)

Coda (optional): Reflection on or evaluation of the incident

In addition, the characteristics of social and interpersonal functions in
casual dialogues are also revealed not only by the way “people come together,
exchange information, and maintain social relations” (Paltridge, 1997) but
also the entertaining value in which the anecdote enables participants “to
share experiences and to display agreement and shared perceptions” (Eggins
& Slade, 1997, p. 229)


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2.2. Overview of Systemic Functional Grammar
Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) was originally based on the work
of J.F. Firth and was mainly developed by Halliday. SFL is a study of
language which concentrates on language used in context as the combination
between a resource of linguistic meaning and its social context. The thing
making SFL different from any other theory is simply because it has both
systematic and functional characteristic. The theory shows that language is
realized through semiotic devices for making meaning. Besides, social context
and sematic feature of language are also viewed in the networks of systems
which are sets of features presented in making utterance. From that point on,
researchers can use this system network to explain how language works as a
semiotic tool and it interacts with social contexts in making meanings
(Unsworth, 2007). Furthermore, Halliday (1994) performed three functional
modes of language meaning from the aspect of the semantic system: the
ideational meaning, the interpersonal meaning, and the textual meaning.

These metafunctions exist simultaneously in every level of language. From
that point on, a speaker/ writer adjusts the grammar of a message to reflect at
the same time their perception of a happening or a state of affairs
(experiential), their perception of the immediate context (textual) and their
presentation of their communicative intent and choice of modality
(interpersonal).


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Figure 2.1. Metafunctions in relation to field, mode and tenor
(White & Martin, 2005, p. 27)

The first metafunction is experiential meaning. This kind of meaning is
concerned with the content or proposition of a message that allows people to
conceptualize the world for their own benefit through expressing the
information of language, conveying new information, and sharing contents. In
other words, experiential meanings enable the language users to organize their
experience and understanding of the world. As for Halliday (1994, pp. 112119), the ideational meaning is realized into transitivity system concerning
three components: process, participants, and circumstances. Of the three
mentioned aspects, process plays the most basic part from which the
participants and circumstances are developed. There are six different types of
processes. The three main ones are material processes which construe doing
and happenings, mental processes which analyze conscious processing
including processes of perception, cognition, and affection, and relational
processes, the ones of being and becoming three further types are behavioral,
verbal and existential processes.
Secondly, the interpersonal meaning is understood from the perspective
of its function in the process of social interactions. From the explanation of
Thompson (2004, p. 30), the interpersonal meaning is used to establish and

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maintain a social relationship between the addresser (speaker/writer) and
addressee (listener/reader). It is considered as a tool to connect people for
expressing their feeling and attitude about things in the world. Apart from
that, the interpersonal meaning also concerns the way we interact with one
another through language, so it indicates the relationship between providers
and recipients of information through spoken or written texts. In Halliday’s
analysis of English, the interpersonal component is associated with mood,
modality, and grammatical metaphor.
Thirdly, the textual meaning deals with the formation of text based on
the way of organizing and conveying messages; Thus, it is called the textual
function which consists of three subtypes of semantic systems: thematic
system, information structure and cohesion system. The thematic organization
that concerns with the way of how message is conveyed consists of two
functional components: Theme and Rheme. To explain specifically, Halliday
and Matthiessen (2004, p. 64) defined that theme is the starting point of the
message in the text and Rheme is new information which is developed from
the theme. In general, the combination of Rheme and Theme to form a clause
expresses a complete meaning from the textual organization.
In brief, these three variables of context of situation can be realized
through the lexico-grammatical units of language system: Transitivity, Theme
and Mood and Modality systems respectively. However, this study just
performs within the framework of the interpersonal meaning of language
using mood system, modality system and interpersonal grammatical
metaphor. The following part will discuss each of them in detail.

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2.2.1. Mood system
2.2.1.1. Mood structure
As stated above, language is considered the way to reflect the
underlying social relationships existing in the text from the viewpoint of
interpersonal metafunction. In detail, this metafunction conveys the grammar
of a text, since the choices of language features will be recognized by the
interlocutor's social roles, status, position and relations. For instance, the
interpersonal language used in a letter to the employer will be different from
those used in a conversation with the best friends.
The mood system is used to understand these features and how they are
different from one another. It is regarded as the core component of construing
the interpersonal meaning in which a clause in English as an exchange is
formed by two functional constituents: (i) a mood element which carries the
argument and (ii) a residue which can be ellipsed. Because the mood element
works as a tool to realize different mood categories in the interpersonal clause
structure, Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p. 120) described it as carrying
“'the burden of the clause as an interactive event”, and as the nub of the
proposition.
(i)

The mood element is made up of the subject, which is a word or a
group of words realized by a nominal group, and the finite, which is a
part of the verbal group which supplies information about temporality
(past, present, and future tense), modality (probability etc.), and
polarity (positive/negative).

(ii)

The Residue consists of functional elements of three kinds: Predicator,
Complement and Adjunct of the clause.


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Here is the example for the mood element in the clause:
Ex 1.

In SFG, there are three types of mood structures identified in the form
of

(i)
imperative. These mood structures are shown by the attendance and the

(iii)

position of Subject and Finite as follows:
Table 2.1. Relation of Mood selection to Mood structure
(Matthiessen, Martin, & Painter, 1997, p. 63)
Mood selection
Indicative
declarative
non-exclamative
exclamative
interrogative
yes/no
Wh- imperative

(i)

Declarative Mood

In English, declaratives exist in the form of statements with the structure
of subject preceding Finite. Declarative mood consists of two types:
affirmative and negative statement.
Ex 2.

Henry James
Subject

Ex 3.

(Eggins, 2004, p. 154)


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Additionally, declarative clause can be full or elliptical. While full
declarative contains a proper structure of subject and finite, the elliptical case
is found due to the ellipsis of some elements of clause such as subject, finite
or predicator and it often appears in responding.
(Will you join the dance?)
I
subject

Ex 4.

(Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p. 151)
(Who killed Cock Robin?)

Ex 5.

I
Subject
Mood

(Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p. 151)
(ii)

Interrogative Mood

In English, there are two main types of interrogative mood: Wh-question
(questions using who, where, which, what, when, why, how) and yes/no
question. In this case, the position of subject may be before or after finite.
Ex 6.

Ex 7.

Ex 8.

When
Wh/adjunct:circ
Residue …

(Eggins, 2004, p. 169)


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In casual conversation, the elliptical interrogative clauses are used

rather commonly and they only happen when the context of conversation is
set up. The omitted elements are similar in the elliptical declarative.
Ex 9.

P
-Seen Fred?
-No, I haven’t

Ex 10.
-Met
-Did

(Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p. 152)
(iii)

Imperative Mood

Eggins (2004, p. 177) described four types of imperative structures
including a mood element consisting of finite (F) and subject (S); or one
consisting of finite only; or subject only; and an imperative with a Mood
element in the order of Finite preceding Subject. This kind of mood is also
divided into two types: affirmative and negative imperative.
Ex 11.
Mood

Ex 12.

The elements of imperative clause can be omitted except predicator.
This case is realized in a typical elliptical imperative structure based on the
context as follows

Ex 13.

(Eggins & Slade, 1997, p. 92)


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Generally, the omitted components can be recalled from the provided
physical context. Therefore, Brad does not need to mention the context
specifically such as “Look at that man walking up the hill!” (Eggins & Slade,
1997, p. 92)
Beside the mood choice, we can also see the occurrence of minor
clause in the spoken forms of language, which is defined as clauses with no
mood, transitivity, and thematic structure typically functioning as calling,
greetings, exclamations, and alarms. (Halliday & Matthissen, 2004)
2.2.1.2. Mood structure and speech function
Mood holds a vital role in establishing social relationships between
addressers and addressees. Halliday (1994, p. 68) stated that “the most
fundamental types of speech role, which lies behind all the more specific
types that we may eventually be able to recognize, are just two (i) giving, and
demanding”. It is further explained that giving (and taking) or demanding
(and being given) a commodity of some kind are the most basic purposes in
any communication process. From the viewpoint of speakers in the
communicative exchange, the commodity that speakers can be giving or
demanding is information. Thanks to language, speakers can carry out their
purposes in making a statement to give information or asking a question to
demand for information. Another kind of commodity exchange is good &
service which is considered a supplementary function contributing to the
successful exchange without involving language. From that point on, there are
four primary speech roles: giving information, demanding information, giving

goods & services and demanding goods & services. Also, the combination of
speech roles and commodities is labeled as offer, command, statement and
(ii)


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question. The interaction of speech function and commodities is shown in
Table 2.2
Table 2.2. Speech functions and commodities exchange
(Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p. 107)
Role in exchange
Giving
Demanding

By cross-classifying these two variables, speakers can create four main
moves offer, command, statement and question, which are put in a set of
desired responses, like accepting an offer, carrying out a command,
acknowledging a statement and answering a question with the aim of getting a
conversation going. However, in an on-going dialogue, speakers tend to carry
out more than one move. Particularly, after one speaker starts an exchange,
another speaker also shows their interaction in the exchange by responding.
Also, responding can be expressed by two types: a supporting type and a
confronting type of responding move. Table 2.3 provides a specific review for
these two types of responding move.

Initiating speech
Function
Offer
Command

Statement
Question


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In addition, the correlation between the different structures of the
initiating move and responding move is closely associated with the
grammatical structure which is realized by Mood structures. Eggins (2004)
indicated the correlation of mood structures with speech function as follows:
Table 2.4. Speech functions and typical mood of clause
(Eggins, 2004, p. 148)
speech function
command
offer
statement
question

It can be seen from Table 2.4 that demands for goods and services can
be not only typically expressed by imperative clauses (get me some drink) but
they can also be expressed by declaratives (I'm hoping you'll get me some
drink), or modulated interrogatives (Would you mind getting me some drink,
please?).
While offers are usually expressed by modulated interrogatives (Would
you like to pass me the jar of salt), they can also be expressed by imperatives
(pass me the jar of salt) or declaratives (There's a jar of salt over there).
Questions are typically expressed by interrogatives (Is this your pen?),
they can also be performed by modulated declaratives (I was wondering
whether this might be your pen). Similarly, while statements are usually
expressed by declaratives (this is your pen), they can also be expressed by

tagged declaratives (this is your pen, isn’t it?).
From detailed instances above, we can see that there are diverse ways
of untypical expression to express commands, offers, statements and
questions, which is rather popular in casual conversation.


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2.2.2. Modality System
Apart from Mood system, Modality system is also considered one of
the crucial elements to identify the interpersonal meaning of the clause.
According to Halliday and Matthiessen (2004), modality reveals a speaker’s
judgment and opinions on possibility or necessity involved in what he or she
is saying. In 1994, they first categorized modality system by distinguishing
between proposition and proposals, which are explained particularly that if the
commodity being exchanged is goods and services, modality expressions are
defined as proposals while modality expressions of proposition happen when
the commodity being exchanged in a clause is information. Based on this
distinction, Halliday then divided modality into two general grammatical
areas: modalization and modulation. Modalization is concerned with speakers’
attitude toward the status of a proposition which is presented in terms of
probability and usuality, expressed by finite modal operators, modal adjunct,
or both. Meanwhile, modulation relates to clauses containing the meaning of
obligation or inclination of proposals which are shown in two polarities: “do
something” and “do not do something”. These subtypes are expressed by
finite modal operator or expansions of the predicator.
In brief, the following table summarizes the main categories of
modalization and modulation, providing people with the communicative
ability

based

on

obligation/inclination.

expressing

degrees

of

probability/usuality

or


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Table 2.5. System of types of modality
(Halliday, 1994, p. 87)
Commodity
exchanged
Information

Goods-andservices

As stated above, types of modality are identified by modal operators
and modal adjuncts with a view to conveying the meaning of modality as a
function of the Mood in English. They will be detailed as following.

2.2.2.1. Modal operators
Halliday (1994) indicated three basic values of modal operators. They
are high, median and low on the scale. And different scales serve different
meaning in communicative function.