SOME SUGGESTIONS ON HOW TO IDENTIFY AND CLASSIFY BEHAVIORAL PROCESSES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

Abstract

Unlike material processes which possess rather distinctive features both semantically and lexicogrammatically, behavioral processes do not possess features that characterize themselves as a distinctive grammatical category. Due to their semantic ambiguity, they often cause a lot of troubles for identification and classification. Great efforts have been made to shed light on this matter in both English and Vietnamese (Halliday, 1994; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004; Eggins, 1994; Martin et. al., 1997; Hoang Van Van, 2012), but there still remain problems that need more clarification. In this paper, we will make an attempt to explore in some depth the causes of the troubles and offer some suggestions on how those troubles should be shot. The data for study is 200 behavioural clauses in English and Vietnamese collected from short stories and novels. The analysis is based on Halliday (1994)’s systemic functional grammar framework. The study suggests that in order to be able to identify and classify appropriately a behavioral process (verb), it must be placed in relation to other components of the clause, and both semantic (meaning) and lexicogrammatical (structure) criteria should be taken into consideration.