VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THUỲ LINH AN ANALYSIS OF CLAUSE EXPANSION IN ‘TWO THANKSGIVING DAY GENTLEMEN’ BASED ON SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR AND SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING WRITING Phân tích cú mở rộng tác phẩm ‘Hai quý ông ngày Lễ Tạ ơn’ dựa quan điểm Ngữ pháp Chức Hệ thống số gợi ý giảng dạy viết M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60 22 15 HA NOI - 2010 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THUỲ LINH AN ANALYSIS OF CLAUSE EXPANSION IN ‘TWO THANKSGIVING DAY GENTLEMEN’ BASED ON SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR AND SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING WRITING Phân tích cú mở rộng tác phẩm ‘Hai quý ông ngày Lễ Tạ ơn’ dựa quan điểm Ngữ pháp Chức Hệ thống số gợi ý giảng dạy viết M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60 22 15 SUPERVISOR: PHẠM THỊ THANH THUỶ, M.A HA NOI - 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgement i Table of Contents ii Chapter I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Methods of the study 1.5 Design of the study Chapter II: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 O‘ Henry and his work 2.1.1 O‘ Henry 2.1.2 O‘ Henry‗s stories 2.1.3 Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen 10 2.2 Systemic Functional Grammar & Clause 11 2.2.1 Systemic Functional Grammar & Its Three Metafunctions 11 2.2.2 Clause 14 2.3 Above the Clause: the Clause Complex 14 2.3.1 Clause Complex and Sentence 14 2.3.2 Parataxis and Hypotaxis 15 2.3.3 Projection and Expansion 16 a Expansion 16 b Projection 18 2.4 Summary 18 Chapter III: EXPANSION IN “TWO THANKSGIVING DAY GENTLEMEN” AND SOME SUGGESTIONS IN TEACHING WRITING 3.1 Expansion in ―Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen‖ by O‘Henry 20 3.1.1 Clause Complexes in ‗Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen‘ 20 3.1.2 Expansion in ‗Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen‘ 21 3.1.3 Conjunctions for Expansion in ‗Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen‘ 32 3.2 Some Suggestions for Teaching Writing 36 Chapter IV: CONCLUSION 4.1 Recapitulation 41 4.2 Limitations of the study and Suggestions for Further Research 41 REFERENCES 43 APPENDIX I APPENDIX VI APPENDIX XI CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the Study The world has seemed to become smaller and smaller together with the process of globalization which is considered natural People around the world need to know one common language to communicate and that language now is obviously English English has been used as an international language - a tool for numerous economic, cultural and social activities worldwide Realizing the importance of the language, English has been put in Vietnamese schools for a long time With this action, the movement of learning English has been blooming in all areas of the country, from the North to the South However, it seems that in primary and high schools, more attention has been paid on grammar and reading skill than on any other ones such as writing, speaking and listening Fortunately, learners have recently paid more attention to speaking and listening because they need these two to communicate well Then, how about their writing skill? As an instructor at the Faculty of Foreign Languages of Thai Nguyen University, I was many times disappointed when receiving students‘ writings with simple errors A majority of these errors are not grammatical ones This means students not meet many difficulties with tenses or structures of noun phrases, verb phrases or prepositional phrase Most of their mistakes lie on higher structures Many of them are confused about relations between clauses: how to connect them together, whether it should be one sentence with one clause or one sentence with two clause, etc The thought of providing a theoretical framework for instructors and first year students to apply into studying writing skill is the main reason for this paper The story ―Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen‖ by O Henry is chosen to analyze Any stories can be the material for analyzing, but I find this one particularly interesting so I choose it for the thesis Students can take O Henry‘s way of writing as example to compare and correct their own writings (especially the ways to connect clauses in one sentence) O Henry is a well-known American writer to Vietnamese Many people have read his famous short story – The Last Leaf Personally, I am interested in his stories not only because of the simple way of writing, surprising endings but also because of the humanity that we can sense through them ―Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen‖ is really a moving short story which is worth reading That is the reason why the story is chosen in this analysis but not others 1.2 Aims of the Study Within the framework of a minor M.A thesis, the study attempts to: - provide an overview of O.Henry and his work; - re-examine some of the most important issues related to Functional Grammar; - analyze the case of expansion in the story ―Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen‖ by O Henry; - offer some suggestions for teaching writing clause complex for first year students at Thai Nguyen Faculty of Foreign Languages 1.3 Scope of the Study This study is hoped to help students improve their writing skills It seems to be a very big challenge Thus, in order to make the task manageable in keeping with the aims of the paper, there are some limitations: - Only issues relating to clause complex are taken into consideration because students often make mistakes with these - The approach of grammar used to analyze in the paper is Systemic Functional Grammar developed by M.A.K Halliday because of its clear system and easiness to understand as applied into the analysis - Only one short story of O Henry, Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen, is discussed due to the time constraints, knowledge restriction, and also the scope of an M.A thesis - Students mentioned in the study are all first year ones from Faculty of Foreign Languages of Thai Nguyen University 1.4 Methods of the Study As the title of this the study has suggested, the following steps should be taken so as to make full analysis of the research paper Firstly, the original of ―Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen‖ by O Henry will be searched on some famous and reliable websites for reading There are some versions from Bookworm or A Ladder Edition, in which the story was re-written in simpler ways to meet with different reading levels of readers However, in this paper we would analyze the original one by O Henry through which his ways of writing complex clauses can be seen better Secondly, related issues such as Systemic Functional Grammar, Clause and especially notions about Clause Complex in the light of Functional Grammar will be made clear This would make it easier for readers to understand when the analysis of the story is shown Thirdly, ―Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen‖ will be analyzed in order to see what kind of expansion and what devices to connect clauses the author used in his writing Finally, the results of the analysis and difficulties in studying writing of first year students will be discussed in details to come to the suggestions about teaching writing for students in Faculty of Foreign Languages of Thai Nguyen University In order to achieve the goals of the study, two successive methods will be applied for better research results They are descriptive and analytical The general research methodology adopted in the paper is inductive Design of the Study This thesis is designed in five chapters Chapter one, Introduction, presents the rationale for choosing the topic, the aims, scope of the study and methods to be applied in the paper Chapter two, Theoretical Background, provides a careful examination of the fundamental, theoretical concepts and necessary knowledge as those about the author O‘ Henry, issues about Systemic Functional Grammar, Clause Complex, which are relevant to the purposes of this study Entitled Expansion in “Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen” and Suggestions in Teaching Writing, chapter three, which is the focus of the study, is aimed at describing the ways clauses are linked in a sentence This part is further divided into three sections Each section describes one aspect of expansion found in the stories After analyzing cases of expansion found, some suggestions for teaching writing for first year students are given out, applying expansion relationship The last chapter, Conclusion, is set up to summarize the whole paper and provide some suggestions for further research CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 O Henry and his work 2.1.1 O Henry O Henry was the penname of William Sidney Porter who was born on September 11, 1862, in Greensboro, North Carolina His middle name at birth was Sidney; he changed the spelling to Sydney in 1898 His parents were Dr Algernon Sidney Porter (1825–1888), a physician, and Mary Jane Virginia Swaim Porter (1833–1865) They were married April 20, 1858 When William was three, his mother died from tuberculosis, so he and his father moved into the home of his paternal grandmother As a child, Porter was always reading He read everything from classics to dime novels His favorite work was One Thousand and One Nights Porter graduated from his aunt Evelina Maria Porter's elementary school in 1876 He then enrolled at the Lindsey Street High School His aunt continued to tutor him until he was fifteen In 1879, he started working in his uncle's drugstore and in 1881, at the age of nineteen, he was licensed as a pharmacist At the drugstore, he also showed off his natural artistic talents by sketching the townsfolk Porter traveled with Dr James K Hall to Texas in March 1882, hoping that a change of air would help alleviate a persistent cough he had developed He took up residence on the sheep ranch of Richard Hall, James' son, in La Salle County and helped out as a shepherd, ranch hand, cook and baby-sitter While on the ranch, he learned bits of Spanish and German from the mix of immigrant ranch hands He also spent time reading classic literature Porter's health did improve and he traveled with Richard to Austin in 1884, where he decided to remain and was welcomed into the home of the Harrells, who were friends of Richard's Porter took a number of different jobs over the next several years, first as pharmacist then as a draftsman, bank teller and journalist He also began writing as a sideline Porter led an active social life in Austin, including membership in singing and drama groups Porter was a good singer and musician He played both the guitar and mandolin He became a member of the "Hill City Quartet," a group of young men who sang at gatherings and serenaded young women of the town Porter met and began courting Athol Estes, who was seventeen years old and from a wealthy family Her mother objected to the match because Athol was ill, suffering from tuberculosis On July 1, 1887, Porter eloped with Athol to the home of Reverend R K Smoot, where they were married The couple continued to participate in musical and theater groups, and Athol encouraged her husband to pursue his writing Athol gave birth to a son in 1888, who died hours after birth, and then a daughter, Margaret Worth Porter, in September 1889 Porter's friend Richard Hall became Texas Land Commissioner and offered Porter a job Porter started as a draftsman at the Texas General Land Office (GLO) in 1887 at a salary of $100 a month, drawing maps from surveys and field notes The salary was enough to support his family, but he continued his contributions to magazines and newspapers In the GLO building, he began developing characters and plots for such stories as "Georgia's Ruling" (1900), and "Buried Treasure" (1908) The castle-like building he worked in was even woven into some of his tales such as "Bexar Scrip No 2692" (1894) His job at the GLO was a political appointment by Hall Hall ran for governor in the election of 1890 but lost Porter resigned in early 1891 when the new governor was sworn in In the same year, Porter began working at the First National Bank of Austin as a teller and bookkeeper at the same salary he had made at the GLO The bank was operated informally and Porter had trouble keeping track of his books In 1894, he was accused by the bank of embezzlement and lost his job but was not indicted He then worked full time on his humorous weekly called The Rolling Stone, which he started while working at the bank The Rolling Stone featured satire on life, people and politics and included Porter's short stories and sketches Although eventually reaching a top circulation of 1500, The Rolling Stone failed in April 1895, perhaps because of Porter's poking fun at powerful people Porter also may have ceased publication as the paper never provided the money he needed to support his family By then, his writing and drawings caught the attention of the editor at the Houston Post Porter and his family moved to Houston in 1895, where he started writing for the Post His salary was only $25 a month, but it rose steadily as his popularity increased Porter gathered ideas for his column by hanging out in hotel lobbies and observing and talking to people there This was a technique he used throughout his writing career While he was in Houston, the First National Bank of Austin was audited and the federal auditors found several discrepancies They managed to get a federal indictment against Porter ... THANKSGIVING DAY GENTLEMEN? ?? BASED ON SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR AND SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING WRITING Phân tích cú mở rộng tác phẩm ? ?Hai quý ông ngày Lễ Tạ ơn? ?? dựa quan điểm Ngữ pháp Chức Hệ thống... DAY GENTLEMEN? ?? AND SOME SUGGESTIONS IN TEACHING WRITING 3.1 Expansion in ? ?Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen? ?? by O‘Henry 20 3.1.1 Clause Complexes in ? ?Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen? ?? 20 3.1.2 Expansion. .. Expansion in ? ?Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen? ?? 21 3.1.3 Conjunctions for Expansion in ? ?Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen? ?? 32 3.2 Some Suggestions for Teaching Writing 36 Chapter IV: CONCLUSION 4.1