FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOURAL CLAUSES DENOTING SMILING IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

Abstract

In his framework of functional grammar, Halliday [4] determines three kinds of meaning called textual, interpersonal and experiential. The experiential meaning is expressed in 6 process types: material, mental, relational, behavioral, verbal, and existential. Among them, smiling belongs to behavioural processes. Smiling not only serves as emotional expression functions but also has significant communicative and social ones. Smiling is considered as a universal emotion of human beings. However, the language used to express smiling could have dialects that differ subtly from each other. This paper is aimed at interpreting the linguistic expressions related to the meaning of smiling and describing the patterns of behavioural processes encoded in language. Based upon Halliday’s [4] experimental meaning analysis and the data collected in eight short stories and novels, this paper focuses on highlighting: (1) patterns of smiling processes, (2) functions of participants in smiling processes and (3) social functions of smiling.