Đặc điểm của tham thể trong câu hành vi tiếng Việt và tiếng Anh

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NGUYỄN THỊ TÚ TRINH*; PHAN VĂN HÒA**; TRẦN HỮU PHÚC***
*Đại học Ngoại ngữ, Đại học Đà Nẵng, ✉ trinhntt@caodanggtvt2.edu.vn
**Đại học Ngoại ngữ, Đại học Đà Nẵng, ✉ hoauni@gmail.com
***Đại học Ngoại ngữ, Đại học Đà Nẵng, ✉ thphuc@ufl.udn.vn
1. INTRODUCTION
Being one of the three core elements in 
ideational meaning analysis, participants are key 
elements and play an important role in meaning 
contributions. We examine the characteristics 
of participants in terms of lexico-grammatical 
diversity and their meanings across our selected 
data. We suggest a different interpretation of both 
types of lexico-grammar and their meanings. To 
investigate the characteristics of participants in 
English and Vietnamese is believed to create 
two benefits. First, the results can better clarify 
the meaning frame in the behavioral process in 
general and the role of participants in this type 
 ĐẶC ĐIỂM CỦA THAM THỂ
TRONG CÂU HÀNH VI TIẾNG VIỆT
VÀ TIẾNG ANH
TÓM TẮT
Bài viết này thảo luận các đặc điểm của tham thể trong câu hành vi tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt bằng 
cách mô tả, lý giải cấu trúc từ vựng-ngữ pháp, nghĩa ý niệm theo khung lý thuyết ngữ pháp chức 
năng của Halliday và Matthiessen (2004); Martin et al (1997) và so sánh đối chiếu theo 3 nội dung 
này. Chúng tôi lưu ý đến vấn đề từ vựng-ngữ pháp, nghĩa và sự chọn lựa ngôn từ thông qua các 
lớp nghĩa của tham thể. Mỗi loại tham thể được phân tích và diễn giải theo hai bình diện: (i) cấu 
trúc – theo cấp bậc và (ii) ngữ nghĩa – theo vai. Để làm sáng tỏ hơn vấn đề, chúng tôi phân tích 
các đặc điểm tham thể trong câu hành vi trên cơ sở cứ liệu gồm mười sáu tiểu thuyết và truyện 
ngắn tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt thế kỷ XIX và XX. Kết luận nêu bật những kết quả mới trong công 
trình nghiên cứu và đề xuất giải pháp. 
Từ khóa: câu hành vi, ngữ pháp chức năng, tham thể.
of process in particular. Second, in language 
teaching, we frequently face some indeterminate 
and problematic cases when analyzing and 
categorizing English and Vietnamese participants 
in behavioral clauses; so shedding light on this 
matter enables a different view of ideational 
meaning to have a better understanding of the 
extent of these meanings in contexts and to offer 
a more effective way of teaching these meanings 
to students. 
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Halliday and Matthiessen (2000) give an in-
depth explanation to how human beings construe 
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their experience of the world. In many cases, functionalists like Bloor and Bloor (1995), Eggins 
(1994), Fowler (1996), Martin (1997), etc., and cognitive linguists like Langacker (1987), Lakoff 
and Johnson (1980), amongst others, have a common ground that the construction of experience is 
usually thought of as knowledge, represented in the form of conceptual taxonomies, schemata, scripts 
and others. For this recognition, analyzing the characteristics of participants in behavioral process 
from the semantic-functional view is necessary. In Vietnamese, Hoàng Văn Vân (2012), considered 
the first, successfully adopts functional grammar’s framework to describe the experiential grammar 
of Vietnamese clauses of the system of TRANSITIVITY. However, Hoàng Văn Vân does not draw 
comparisons of the characteristics of participants between English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses. 
So our study differs in that we make a contrastive analysis of participants in English and Vietnamese 
behavioral clauses in terms of lexico-grammar and ideational meaning.
3. METHOD
3.1. Data collection
Qualitative approach is adopted in this study because our attention is paid to interpreting English 
and Vietnamese participants in behavioral clauses. In other words, we focus on analyzing and making 
sense of characteristics of participants in English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses rather than 
seeking to count things. 
To determine behavioral clauses within this study, we start with behavioral processes because 
we look at behavioral clauses from Halliday’s viewpoint. Tables 1 and 2 illustrate the raw lists of 
behavioral processes in English and Vietnamese.
Table 1: A list of English behavioral processes
 English behavioral processes
smile, laugh, twitch, shiver, kiss, embrace, dance, play, hug, stutter, mumble, stammer, chat, mutter, moan, 
chatter, chat, talk, gossip, whine, whinge, ponder, puzzle, work out, mediate, ruminate, think, cogitate, 
scowl, shudder, grin, gasp, cry, giggle, mumble, look at, watch, stare, gawk, view, look over, observe, 
dream, listen, taste, sniff, sing, frown, insult, slander, praise, flatter, yell, scream, tremble, sweat, cough, 
yawn, sneeze, breathe, sleep, shit, hiccup, burp, faint, grimace, snort, snore, sniff, gasp, sigh, sob, snarl, 
cry, stare, blush, groan, nod, blink
Table 2: A list of Vietnamese behavioral processes
Vietnamese behavioral processes
thở, cười, gật gù, gật đầu, cau mày, khóc, rên rỉ, than van, nhăn mặt, gầm gừ, nhăn nhó, rùng mình, 
ngắm, ngắm nghía, ho, ngáp, hắt xì, thở, ngủ, nấc, ợ, ợ hơi, xỉu, mơ, hít vào, quỳ, nằm, khịt mũi, ngáy, co 
rúm, co, rùng mình, vã mồ hôi, toát mồ hôi, run, ngửi, khụt khịt, nhảy, ôm, chơi, nói lắp, cà lăm, bi bô, tán 
gẫu, ê a, tâm sự, nói, lo, làu bàu, than vãn, lầm bầm, lẩm bẩm, lăng mạ, sỉ vả, sỉ nhục, vu khống, vu oan, 
phỉ báng, ca ngợi, tán dương, tâng bốc, xu nịnh, hò hét, hò la, bợ đỡ, dằn vặt, ngắm, xem, nhìn, trố mắt, 
quan sát, theo dõi, liếc nhìn, liếc xéo, nghe, nếm, sờ, trầm tư, mơ, điều đình, dàn xếp, tư lự, trầm ngâm, 
ngẫm nghĩ, cân nhắc, băn khoăn, khao khát, quắc mắt, cau có, rùng mình, run, nháy/chớp (mắt)
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After building up our raw English and 
Vietnamese behavioral lists, we adopt bottom-
up approach to recognize behavioral clauses in 
English and Vietnamese novels and short stories. 
“Jane Eyre”, “The Great Gatsby”, “Tender is the 
night”, “Sons and Lovers”, “Women in love” and 
“The rainbow” are the five English novels written 
by Bronte, Fitzgerald and Lawrence. In their 
works, the characters, their personal experience 
and behaviors are brilliantly described via the 
lively wording of the talented writers. Besides, 
ten Vietnamese novels and stories such as “Sống 
mòn”, “Dế mèn phiêu lưu ký”, “Tắt đèn”, “Chí 
Phèo” and “Số đỏ” are carefully selected due to 
their popularity and wonderful narrative device 
of personal experience and behaviors. We decide 
to collect data from stories and novels but not 
in other genres since stories and novels reflect 
the reality via the lens and skillful wording of 
talented writers. 
In this paper, sampling is a crucial step and 
we decide to adapt random sampling technique. 
Wordsmith 5.0 and Navigation pane in Word 
documents and PDF are used as powerful tools 
to select behavioral clauses. Concord function 
in Wordsmith 5.0 is exploited to collect English 
behavioral clauses while Search engine is used 
to pick up Vietnamese behavioral clauses since 
Wordsmith 5.0 is not applicable to Vietnamese 
texts. These are two main reasons for choosing 
Wordsmith 5.0 and Navigation pane because 
the above novels and short stories are already 
available in electronic form so it is advantageous 
and time-saving for us to process them. In 
addition, we can work on and store a huge 
amount of collected data effectively. 
1427 English behavioral clauses are 
collected and saved from the six novels. As for 
Vietnamese data collection, Navigation pane is 
used to select Vietnamese behavioral clauses and 
1330 Vietnamese behavioral clauses are selected 
and saved.
3.2. Data analysis
A framework for data analysis is offered 
in this section. All selected English and 
Vietnamese participants in behavioral clauses 
are analyzed and categorized in terms of lexico-
grammar and ideational meaning and then a 
comparison of them in English and Vietnamese 
is made. Theoretically, the relationships 
between lexico-grammar and function are very 
close but complex. In other words, function 
(or meaning) is realized or expressed through 
lexico-grammar or linguistic expressions 
and according to Fontaine (2013) there is 
not a one-to one relationship between them.
4. TYPES OF PARTICIPANTS IN 
ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
This section is devoted to discussing two main 
types of participants in English and Vietnamese 
namely: Behaver and Range (Behavior, 
Phenomenon, Scope and Verbiage/Target). 
4.1. Behaver in English and Vietnamese
Semantic roles are associated with partially 
specified grammatical functions. Behaver is 
often realized by (i) nouns subdividing into 
proper nouns, common nouns and pronouns and 
(ii) noun phrases in English.
(1) All the men laughed. (Lawrence, 1919)
(2) The Hindu grinned, and murmured shyly. 
(Lawrence, 1920)
(3) He groaned inwardly, under its bondage. 
(Lawrence, 1920)
In (1), “All the men” is a noun phrase (NP) 
while “The Hindu” in (2) falls into a subclass of 
nouns labeled as proper nouns which are often 
capitalized and tell us about the individual name 
of a person, a place or a thing and “He” in (3) 
belongs to proper nouns. 
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In Vietnamese behavioral clauses, Behavers 
are also realized by both nouns and nouns 
phrases as following:
(4) Thất vọng, chị Dậu rũ người ngồi im. 
(Ngô Tất Tố, 1937)
(5) Chúng tôi nằm co quắp vào nhau. (Tô 
Hoài, 1941)
(6) Những kẻ khác thì ngồi than vãn, khóc lóc 
hoặc cãi vã nhau cho qua ngày. (Tô Hoài, 1941)
“Chị Dậu” and “Chúng tôi” in (4) and (5) fall 
into subclass of nouns namely: proper nouns and 
pronouns whilst “Những kẻ khác” is interpreted 
as noun phrases. It can be seen that there is some 
similarity in lexico-grammar. Both English and 
Vietnamese Behavers are realized by nouns or 
noun phrases. 
Behaver is often fucntioned as an agent. 
Theoretically, a person or animal having 
behaviors, usually endowed with consciousness 
is labeled as Behaver as follows:
(7) Helen sighed as her reverie fed. (Bronte, 1847)
(8) Gerald watched them with the steady 
twinkle in his eyes. (Lawrence, 1920)
However, in our selected data, the Behaver, 
the participant involved with the behavioral 
process, does not have to be a conscious 
participant as in:
(9) The wind sighed low in the firs . (Bronte, 1847)
(10) The stars shuddered and broke upon the 
water. (Lawrence, 1919)
(11) The ash tree moaned outside in a cold, 
raw wind. (Lawrence, 1919)
(12) The cigarette trembled between his lips 
with laughter as he spoke. (Lawrence, 1919)
Obviously, on semantic grounds of these 
participants, “the wind”, “the stars”, “the ash 
tree” and “the cigarette” are non-human entities 
without our common senses and behaviors like 
tremble, sigh, moan or shudder. Traditionally, 
these cases are treated as personification - a form 
of figurative language that is used as a literary 
technique. Personification means attributing 
human characteristics to something that is 
not human. By using human characteristics 
to describe an object, animal, or even a place, 
personification can make descriptions more 
unique and figurative. Within experimental 
analysis framework, these non-conscious beings 
are treated as conscious and these cases are also 
considered as figurative expression strategy 
(Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004, p. 203). 
Consider the following examples in 
Vietnamese: 
(13) Dọc sông, những chòm cổ thụ dáng 
mãnh liệt đứng trầm ngâm lặng nhìn xuống 
nước. (Võ Quảng, 1974)
(14) Biển đêm sóng vỗ thật dữ dội, nó gào 
thét từ phía mạn Bắc như một cái loa. (Trang 
Trang, 2012)
In (13) and (14), “những chòm cổ thụ” and 
“sóng” are conventionally examples of non-
human entities – but they can be construed as 
Behaver (so endowed with consciousness in 
process of behaving). 
Last but not least, “conscious beings” 
typically means a person or people but they may 
also be represented by a part of the body. For 
examples:
(15) His eyes glanced momentarily at me 
and his lips parted with an abortive attempt at a 
laugh. (Fitzgerald, 1925)
(16) Her lip trembled, her face broke, and, 
snatching up the child. (Lawrence, 1919)
(17) Her eyes, shuddering, appealing, gone, 
almost distracted, pleaded to him suddenly. 
(Lawrence, 1919)
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As in above three examples, “eyes” and “lip” represent the action of behavior as involving a 
human’s organ rather than the whole person. Halliday (2000, p. 93) argues that “this is a departure 
from the norm of language; it owes its effect, that of deconstructing the whole person as a potentially 
independent agent”.
Parts of our body can be construed as Behaver in Vietnamese clauses. It is reflective of that 
our organisms behave in our everyday physical actions and observable emotion associated with 
individuals. For examples:
(18) Mặt lão đột nhiên co rúm lại. (Nam Cao, 1957)
(19) Hắn vừa đi vừa tủm tỉm cười, hai con mắt nhỏ tí, gà gà đắm vào bóng chiều. (Kim Lân, 1962)
(20) Hai con mắt tư lự nhìn ra phía trước. (Kim Lân, 1962)
Lexico-grammar and the semantic roles of Behaver are briefly illustrated in figure 1. The next 
section provides a discussion of Range in English and Behavioral clauses. (see Figure 1)
4.2. Range in English and Vietnamese
According to Halliday and Matthiessen (2004), there are six subtypes of Range namely: Scope, 
Behavior, Phenomenon, Verbiage, Attribute and Value. Generally speaking, Halliday and Matthiessen 
(2004) suggest that Range specifies the domain of the process and defines one of the two things: 
Either it is a restatement or continuation of the process itself or.
It expresses the extent or “range” of the process.
In behavioral clauses, Range is subdivided into four categories namely, ‘Behavior’, ‘Phenomenon’, 
‘Scope’ and ‘Verbiage/Target’. Range is often realized by nouns or noun phrases in grammatical 
terms in English. The detailed discussion on Range in English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses is 
made in the next section.
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4.2.1. Behavior in English and Vietnamese
BEHAVER + BEHAVIORAL PROCESS+ 
RANGE-BEHAVIOR 
Behavior is always realized by noun phrases 
in both English and Vietnamese as in:
(21) Still she dreamed her young dream. 
(Lawrence 1919)
(22) Nụ cười đong đưa, tung tẩy trên khóe 
mắt. (Nguyễn Ngọc Tư 2011)
Behavioral clauses can contain a 
second participant in Behaver^Behavioral 
process^Range model. That is a Range: a 
restatement of the process (Eggins, 2004, 
tr. 218). This participant is labeled as the 
Behavior elaborating the process. Halliday and 
Matthiessen (2004, p. 204) argue that Behavior 
in behavioral clauses are analogous to the Scope 
of material clauses. For examples:
(23) She sighed a sigh of ineffable 
satisfaction. (Bronte, 1847)
(24) Yet her mouth gave a little grimace at 
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Or
He glanced at me and frowned slightly
Behaver Process behavioral Range Process behavioral Cir: manner
(Fitzgerald, 1925)
(39)
He is putting on a cheerful smile.
 Behaver Process behavioral Cir: location
Or
He is putting on a cheerful smile.
Behaver Process behavioral Range
(Lawrence, 1920)
The stance we take is that preposition is jointly bonded with a verb. Therefore, it performs a 
function as part of the process, as with sniff at the bottle consisting of process sniff at + Range bottle, 
glanced at me with process glanced at + Range me and is putting on a cheerful smile with process is 
putting on + Range a cheerful smile. There is no simple analysis criterion for deciding every example. 
But in behavioral clauses, these cases are firmly considered Participant – Range. We look at these 
indeterminate cases from the same viewpoint with Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) and Martin el al 
(1997). Martin et al (1997) argue that “often it will be obvious that the preposition must count as part 
of the process realization” (Martin et al, 1997, p. 128). 
In Vietnamese, the ambiguity of phrasal verbs in analyzing behavioral clauses is far less 
complex. It is definitely not a case of Verb + Preposition. For example, Vietnamese verb “nhìn” is 
one word and it is often accompanied by Vietnamese prepositions such as “vào”, “lên”, “xuống” 
and “ra”. But these prepositions aren’t firmly fixed with verbs to form phrasal verbs as in English. 
They can, however, be used compositionally to add more meaning. In this light, these examples are 
interpreted as follows.
(40)
Chí Phèo đứng lại và nhìn nó
Behaver Process
Behavioral
Conjunctive 
adjunct
Process Behavioral Range-phenomenon
(Nam Cao, 1957)
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(41)
Tôi đưa mắt nhìn lần 
cuối
phong cảnh nơi tôi ở.
Behaver Process 
Material
Range Process 
Behavioral
Cir: 
Time
Range-phenomenon Cir: Location
(Tô Hoài, 1941)
(42) 
Y nhìn vào 
gương
vừa xoa nắn mặt vừa càu nhàu
Behaver Process 
Behavioral
Cir: 
Location
Conjunc-
tive 
adjunct
Process 
Behavioral
Range-
phenomenon
Conjunctive 
adjunct
Process 
Behavioral
(Nam Cao, 1956)
(43)
Lão lừ mắt nhìn trừng trừng vào mắt nó.
Behaver Process 
Behavioral
Range-
phenomenon
Process 
Behavioral
Cir: Manner Cir: Location
(Nam Cao, 1956)
(44)
Tôi ngoảnh nhìn lên
Behaver Process Behavioral Cir: Location
(Tô Hoài, 1941)
(45)
Đôi mắt nhìn xuống như sợ nguời ta nhìn vào cả tâm hồn
Behaver Process Behavioral Cir: Location Cir: Manner
(Nam Cao, 1956)
4.2.3. Scope in English and Vietnamese
BEHAVER + MATERIAL-BEHAVIORAL PROCESS + RANGE-SCOPE 
Scope is a unique participant role in material clauses. However, behavioral clauses are partly like 
the material in terms of “doing” processes. It is suggested that Scope is still available in behavioral 
clauses and is always realized by nouns or noun phrases in both English and Vietnamese as in: 
(46) They shake the hearthrug against the fence (Lawrence, 1919).
(47) Chị Nhà Trò ôm vai tôi cảm động (Tô Hoài, 1941).
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Consider the following examples.
(48) I mentally shake hands with you for your answer. (Bronte, 1847)
(49) He bent and kissed her heavy, sad, wide mouth. (Lawrence, 1915)
(50) She sat down on the ground near me, embraced her knees with her arms. (Bronte, 1847)
Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p. 192) state that “the Scope may construe an entity which exists 
independently of the process but indicates the domain over which the process takes place”. As in 
(48), (49), (50) where “hands”, “her heavy, sad, wide mouth”, “her knees” are labeled as Scope. 
In our experience, “hands”, “mouth”, “knees” do exist independently of the act of “shake”, “kiss”, 
“embrace” and that explains why these participants – Scopes can enter into different kind of process 
(compare shake hands with put/clean/clap/fold/stretch/touch hands).
(51) Xuân nhồm nhoàm nhai mía. (Vũ Trọng Phụng, 1938)
(52) Viên Quản đập bàn. (Vũ Trọng Phụng, 1938)
The Scope in Vietnamese material-behavioral process may be construed as a separate and 
independent element. In (51), (52) where Process “nhai” + Rang - Scope “mía” and Process “đập” 
+ Range – Scope “bàn” are formed. The final subcategory of Range – Verbiage or Target will be 
presented in the next section.
4.2.4.Verbiage or target in English and Vietnamese
BEHAVER + VERBAL-BEHAVIORAL PROCESS + RANGE-VERBIAGE/TARGET 
Like Behavior, Phenomenon and Scope, Verbiage and Target are also realized by nouns or noun 
phrases in English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses as in:
(53) She chattered to the elder Marmora. (Fitzgerald, 1937)
(54) Rồi hắn chửi đời. (Nam Cao, 1957)
In terms of participant roles, within Verbal-behavioral clauses Range is subdivided into two kinds 
namely: “Verbiage” and “Target”. Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p. 255) state that Verbiage is the 
function that corresponds to what is said. Here are some examples of verbiage in English.
(55) Colonel Dent and Mr. Eshton argue on politics. (Bronte, 1847)
(56) He wanted to talk about Daisy. (Fitzgerald, 1925)
There is some trouble to analyze (54) and (55) in terms of Range – “Verbiage” or Circumstance 
– “Matter”. There appear only two possibilities of interpreting them: either Range-Verbiage or 
Circumstance – Matter. 
(55a) 
Colonel Dent and Mr. Eshton argue on politics
Behaver Process: Verbal – behavioral Range-Verbiage
Or (55b)
Colonel Dent and Mr. Eshton argue on politics
Behaver Process: Verbal – behavioral Cir - Matter
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(56a) 
He wanted to talk about Daisy
Behaver Process: Verbal – behavioral Range-Verbiage
Or (56b) 
He wanted to talk about Daisy
Behaver Process: Verbal – behavioral Cir - Matter
To shoot the troubles, we are inclined to Range-Verbiage interpretation. It is highly likely that 
“politics” and “Daisy” in (55) and (56) should be treated as Range-Verbiage since we examine these 
two examples from a viewpoint that prepositions in English in these two cases are firmly fixed with 
processes and play roles in processes. Nevertheless, the situation is less ambiguous in Vietnamese. 
For examples
(57) Người ta bàn ra tán vào rất nhiều về việc công Xuân Tóc Ðỏ của chúng ta. (Vũ Trọng Phụng, 1938)
(58) Bà than thở về chiến tranh, sinh ra khó làm ăn. (Nam Cao, 1956)
In (57) and (58), “việc công Xuân Tóc Ðỏ của chúng ta”, “chiến tranh” are preceded by preposition 
“về”. The question is whether preposition “về” is bound to verbs to form: Process “bàn ra tán vào 
về” + Range – Verbiage “việc công Xuân Tóc Ðỏ của chúng ta” or it is fixed to noun phrases to 
form: Process “bàn ra tán vào” + Circumstance – Matter “về việc công Xuân Tóc Ðỏ của chúng ta”. 
Compared to English prepositions, Vietnamese prepositions are independent of process and freely go 
within the clauses. That is to say they do not combine with verbs to make phrasal verbs in Vietnamese. 
From this perspective, (57) and (58) should be interpreted as follows.
Người ta bàn ra tán vào rất nhiều về việc công Xuân Tóc Ðỏ của chúng ta.
Behaver Process: Verbal – behavioral Circumstance - 
Manner
Cir - Matter
Bà than thở về chiến tranh, sinh ra khó làm ăn.
Behaver Process: Verbal – behavioral Cir - Matter
Halliday and Matthiessen (2004, p. 265) argue that Target construes the entity that is targeted by 
the process of saying. Now that Verbal-behavioral processes are partly like verbal processes, this 
function is still available in both English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses. For examples,
(59) He said the conductor had insulted Rosemary. (Fitzgerald, 1937)
(60) They insulted me as coarsely as they could in their little way. (Bronte, 1847)
(61) Sometimes she praised his work. (Lawrence, 1919)
(62) John Reed hated his school, and abused his master. (Bronte, 1847)
(63) Nó chửi tất cả làng Vũ Đại. (Nam Cao, 1957)
The lexico-grammar and semantic roles of Range are briefly illustrated in figure 2. 
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5. SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES IN TERMS OF LEXICO-GRAMMATICAL 
CHOICES AND FUNCTION OF PARTICIPANTS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE
The analysis of collected data revealed some similarities and distinctive differences between 
English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses. At lexico-grammatical level, it is clear that both English 
and Vietnamese participants are realized by nouns or noun phrases. In terms of the function of 
participants in behavioral clauses, there are different kinds of participant roles within two typical 
models of behavioral in English and Vietnamese in table 3 and 4.
Table 3: English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses with one participant.
Participant Process
Behaver
Behavior
Behavioral process
Table 4: English and Vietnamese behavioral clauses with two participants.
Participant 1 Process Participant 2
Behaver Behavioral process Range - Behavior
Behaver Mental - behavioral process Range - Phenomenon
Behaver Material - behavioral process Range - Scope
Behaver Verbal- behavioral process Rang - Verbiage/Target
However, there are some distinctive features in interpreting participants in English and Vietnamese 
behavioral clauses in terms of ideational meaning. Firstly, trouble occurs when analyzing Range-
30 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰSố 08 - 7/2017
v LÝ LUẬN NGÔN NGỮ
Phenomenon or Circumstance-Location in 
Behaver^Mental-behavioral process^Range – 
Phenomenon modal. This is attributable to the 
favored grammatical construction – Phrasal 
verbs in English. Functional analysts must 
make a decision on whether they are Range 
- Phenomenon or Circumstance – Location. 
The situation is less complex in English since 
phrasal verbs are not common in Vietnam. Last 
but not least, we face the problem of interpreting 
process^Range – Verbiage modal because of the 
tremendous numbers of phrasal verbs in English. 
6. CONCLUSION
In this paper, an attempt has been made to 
examine participants in English and Vietnamese 
in terms of lexico-grammatical realization 
and participant roles. A qualitative method 
is adopted to interpret them. It is safe to say 
that there is a very wide range of participant 
meanings. The analysis of collected data revealed 
some similarities and distinctive differences 
between English and Vietnamese participants in 
behavioral clauses. We interpret and identify two 
typical kinds of English and Vietnamese lexico-
grammatical realization of participants: nouns 
and noun phrases and two participant roles: 
Behaver and Range (Behavior, Phenomenon, 
Scope and Verbiage/Target). Behaver often has 
function of agent of the process in both English 
and Vietnamese behavioral clauses since it is 
about a person or an animal having behaviors, 
usually endowed with consciousness while 
Range often occurs after the processes and is 
considered the second participants in behavioral 
clauses. The contrastive analysis between English 
and Vietnamese circumstances in this study 
shows that there is a borderline of Range and 
circumstances in English due to the prevalence 
of English phrasal verbs whilst there is no trouble 
in analyzing and labeling Vietnamese Range. It 
is hoped that functional analysts should take 
these distinctive features into consideration when 
interpreting behavioral clauses./.
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31KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰSố 08 - 7/2017
LÝ LUẬN NGÔN NGỮ v
CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTICIPANTS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE 
BEHAVIORAL CLAUSES
NGUYEN THI TU TRINH, PHAN VAN HOA, TRAN HUU PHUC
Abstract: This article is devoted to interpreting the characteristics of participants in behavioral 
clauses in English and Vietnamese in terms of lexicogrammatical structures and ideational 
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results and suggests some practical applications.
Keywords: participants, behavioral clauses, functional grammar.
Received: 24/5/2017; Revised: 12/6/2017; Accepted for publication: 28/6/2017
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