Vietnam national university, hanoi University of languages and international studies FACULTY of post- graduate studies - TRẦN THỊ HOA MAI AN ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL COHESION USED IN “THE CALL OF THE WILD” BY JACK LONDON (Phân tích liên kết ngữ pháp sử dụng tác phẩm “Tiếng gọi nơi hoang dã” Jack London) M.A Minor programme thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 HANOI – 2010 Vietnam national university, hanoi University of languages and international studies FACULTY of post- graduate studies TRẦN THỊ HOA MAI AN ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL COHESION USED IN “THE CALL OF THE WILD” BY JACK LONDON (Phân tích liên kết ngữ pháp sử dụng tác phẩm “Tiếng gọi nơi hoang dã” Jack London) M.A Minor programme thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Supervisor: NGUYỄN HƢƠNG GIANG, M.A HANOI - 2010 iv TABLES OF CONTENTS CONTENTS Pages DECLARATION ……………………………………………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ………………….………………………………………… ii ABSTRACT …………………………………………………………………………… iii TABLES OF CONTENTS iv LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES …………………………………………… … vi PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study .1 Aims of the study Scope of the study Methods of the study .2 Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Theoretical Background .4 1.1 Discourse and Discourse Analysis .4 1.1.1 Discourse Analysis 1.1.2 Discourse and text .5 1.2 Cohesion 1.2.1 The concept of cohesion 1.2.2 Cohesion vs Coherence 1.2.3 Types of Cohesion 1.2.3.1 Grammatical Cohesion 1.2.3.2 Lexical Cohesion 12 Chapter 2: An overview on "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London 13 2.1 A brief summary of "The Call of the Wild" .13 2.2 An overview on "The Call of the Wild" .13 2.2.1 Characters .13 2.2.2 Story events .14 v Chapter 3: An analysis of grammatical cohesion used in "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London 15 3.1 Reference 15 3.1.1 Exophoric and Endophoric Reference 15 3.1.1.1 Exophoric Reference 15 3.1.1.2 Exophoric Reference 17 3.1.2 Statistical Analysis of Reference Markers 18 3.2 Substitution 21 3.3 Ellipsis 23 3.3.1 Nominal Ellipsis 24 3.3.2 Verbal Ellipsis 28 3.3.2.1 Lexical Ellipsis 29 3.3.2.2 Operator Ellipsis 30 3.3.3 Clausal Ellipsis 31 3.3.3.1 Wh- Ellipsis 31 3.3.3.2 Yes/No Ellipsis 32 3.4 Conjunctions 34 Chapter 4: Major findings and Implications for the Teaching and Learning Writing Skill 37 4.1 Major Findings of Grammatical Cohesion 37 4.2 Implications for the Teaching and Learning Grammatical Cohesive Devices in Writing 39 4.2.1 Implications for Teachers 39 4.2.2 Implications for Students 40 PART C: CONCLUSION 41 Recapitulation 41 Conclusions 41 Limitations of the Study .42 Suggestions for Further Studies 42 REFERENCES 43 vi List of Tables and Figures Tables and Figures Pages Figures 1.1: Reference Table 1.1: Type of cohesion Table 1.2: Grammatical and Lexical cohesion Table 3.1: Exophoric Reference in “The Call of the Wild” 16 Table 3.2 Personal Reference in “The Call of the Wild” 18 Table 3.3 Demonstrative Reference in “The Call of the Wild” 19 Table 3.4 Comparative Reference in “The Call of the Wild” 19 Table 3.5: Substitution in “The Call of the Wild” 21 Table 3.6: Specific Deitics in “The Call of the Wild” 24 Table 3.7: Non-specific Deitics in “The Call of the Wild” 26 Table 3.8: Numerative in “The Call of the Wild” 27 Table 3.9: Verbal Ellipsis in “The Call of the Wild” 29 Table 3.10: Clausal Ellipsis in “The Call of the Wild” 31 Table 3.11: Conjunctive Relations in “The Call of the Wild” 34 PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale Discourse Analysis, or discourse studies, is a general term for a number of approaches to analyzing written, spoken, signed language use or any significant semiotic event From the beginning of its appearance, Discourse Analysis has taken up in a variety of social science disciplines It is now a rapidly expanding field, providing insights into various aspects of language in use and therefore of great importance to language teaching In the early days, language teaching has been concerned with pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary; however, it was not until Discourse Analysis turned up that our awareness of how to put this knowledge into action to gain successful communication was raised Literature, which plays a very important role in our spiritual life, has been greatly developing as a consequence of the high living standards As a matter of fact, there have been more and more people choosing to work in the literary field and their efforts have created so many famous works It is open to questions as to which factors have to be taken into consideration to make a successful work? How important are those factors to the completion of a coherent and cohesive text? Added to this, the knowledge of cohesion and coherence are actually regarded as the crucial aspects of language usage "The Call of the Wild", Jack London's most famous book, is a beautiful tale of a "house dog" torn from the comforts of hearth and home into the unforgiving wild The main character of the story is a dog named Buck Every aspect of life, including happiness, hardship, misery, love and so on, is seen through the eyes of this dog This is the significance of the book Buck's story is more than just a children's story or merely a dog's story, it is our story Jack London's book, therefore, makes great impression on the readers Those reasons mentioned above are the most important ones that have encouraged the author to conduct "An analysis of grammatical cohesion used in "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London" as the topic of this study Hopefully, it may help teachers and learners of foreign language have an overall viewpoint on grammatical cohesive devices as well as the effectiveness of the application of such devices in Jack London's "The Call of the Wild" 2 Aims of the study As mentioned above, there are several reasons that lead the author to choose to carry out this study Thus, the aims of the study are as follows:  To explore how the grammatical cohesive devices employed in "The Call of the Wild"  To make a detailed analysis of grammatical cohesion in Jack London's "The Call of the Wild" In order to achieve the aims stated, the study is meant to find out the answers to the following research questions: What grammatical cohesive devices are used in "The Call of the Wild"? To what extent grammatical cohesive devices contribute to the success of literary works? Scope of the study As Discourse Analysis has a very broad scope which has a very close relationship with many other aspects of language study, it is impossible for the author to refer to all of its characteristics Thus, within this study, the author just mentions some background knowledge about Discourse Analysis as well as coherence and cohesion In addition, there are a number of factors that make "The Call of the Wild" a successful work, hence, this study only focuses on the grammatical cohesive devices employed in Jack London's book Data analyzed is taken from the seven chapters of the book Methods of the study To attain the aims of the study, the author has employed the Quantitative Method That is to say, this thesis numerical data and statistics focused more on the collection and analysis of and less on interviews, observations, small numbers of questionnaires, focus groups, subjective reports and case studies but is much more Counting and measuring are common forms of quantitative methods The result of the research is a number, or a series of numbers These are often presented in tables, graphs or other forms of statistics which is the science and practice of developing human knowledge through the use of empirical data Design of the study Within the scope mentioned above, the study has three main parts Part A is "INTRODUCTION" which consists of the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the study Part B entitled "DEVELOPMENT" includes three chapters Chapter 1, "Theoretical Background", gives an overview on Discourse and Discourse Analysis, including Discourse Analysis, Discourse and Text, Discourse context and spoken and written discourse In this chapter, the author also introduces background knowledge about cohesion, the relationship between cohesion and coherence, cohesion and discourse structure and types of cohesion Chapter with the title "An overview on "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London'' provides the brief summary of the book, an overview on the story in terms of the characters, events and personal perceptions Chapter entitled "An analysis of grammatical cohesion used in "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London" provides a collections of examples taken from the seven chapters of the book with detailed analysis to clarify the application of such grammatical cohesive devices employed in that book Part C is "CONCLUSION" in which the author summarizes the main points introduced in the study The study ends with the "REFERENCES" which list all the materials and sources of information used in this study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND As mentioned before, Discourse Analysis has a very broad scope which has close relationship with many other aspects of language study Nevertheless, due to the framework of a M.A minor programme thesis, in this chapter, the authors just attempts to discuss some theoretical background about Discourse Analysis in general and Cohesion in particular 1.1 Discourse and Discourse Analysis 1.1.1 Discourse Analysis Discourse analysis is concerned with the relationship between language and the context in which it is used It grew out of the work of different disciplines in the 1960s and early 1970s, including linguistics, semiotics, psychology, anthropology and sociology Discourse analysts study language in use: written texts and spoken data of all kinds under the approach different from those old grammarians For the time being, there have been numerous interpretations to what is meant by Discourse Analysis British discourse analysis was mainly influenced by M.A.K Halliday's functional approach of language Halliday's framework emphasizes the social function of language and the thematic and informational structure of speech and writing De Beaugrande (1980) and Halliday and Hasan (1976) as well as Prague School of linguists have made their significant contribution to this branch of linguistics in pointing out the links between grammar and discourse Yule (1996:139) states: "In the study of language, some of the most interesting questions arise in connection with the way language is 'used', rather than what its components are ( ) We were, in effect, asking how it is that language-users interpret what other language users intend to convey When we carry this investigation further and ask how it is that we, as language-users, make sense of what we read in texts, understand what speakers mean despite what they say, recognize connected as opposed to jumbled or incoherent discours and successfully take part in that complex activity called conversation, we are undertaking what is known as discourse analysis" Discourse analysis is, therefore, is very important to understand or interpret a text Only by studying language in use can we recognize the message that the writers wish to convey One of the very key technical terms in discourse analysis is cohesion 1.1.2 Discourse context David Nunan (1993:7) defines: "Context refers to the situation giving use to the discourse, and within which the discourse is embedded According to him, context consists of two types: linguistic and non-linguistic Linguistic context is in fact referred to as cotext It surrounds or accompanies the piece of discourse under analysis Non-linguistic context was taken up by Firth (1957) who placed great emphasis on the "social context" He saw context of situation as crucial determinants of utterance meaning However, Firth did not give a theoretical account of the effect of context on utterance meaning Lately, Halliday and Hasan focus on context of situation And the three headings FIELD, MODE and TENOR which had been proposed for these are considered highly general concept for describing how the context of situation determines the kinds of meaning that are expressed Yet, according to Halliday and Hasan, the linguistic features, which are typically associated with a configuration of situational features - with particular values of the field, mode and tenor - constitute a register 1.2 Cohesion 1.2.1 The concept of cohesion The concept of cohesion is closely connected with text It is defined as the grammatical and lexical relationship between different elements of a text According to Yule (1996), a text is usually considered to have a certain structure which depends on factors quite different from those required in the structure of single sentence Some among those factors are described in terms of cohesion, or the ties and connection which exist within a text Halliday and Hasan (1976:4) also define cohesion in a similar way: "The concept of cohesion is a semantic one; it refers to relations of meaning that exist within a text, and that defines it as a text" They also point out that cohesion often occurs where the interpretation of some elements in the discourse is dependent on that of another ... JACK LONDON (Phân tích liên kết ngữ pháp sử dụng tác phẩm ? ?Tiếng gọi nơi hoang dã? ?? Jack London) M.A Minor programme thesis Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Supervisor: NGUYỄN HƢƠNG GIANG,... Reference in ? ?The Call of the Wild? ?? 19 Table 3.4 Comparative Reference in ? ?The Call of the Wild? ?? 19 Table 3.5: Substitution in ? ?The Call of the Wild? ?? 21 Table 3.6: Specific Deitics in ? ?The Call of the. .. hanoi University of languages and international studies FACULTY of post- graduate studies TRẦN THỊ HOA MAI AN ANALYSIS OF GRAMMATICAL COHESION USED IN ? ?THE CALL OF THE WILD? ?? BY JACK