An investigation into linguistic features of range in english and vietnamese (from the view of functional grammar)

Abstract

Functional Grammar is claimed to be a way of looking at language in terms of how grammar is used. In the fields of Functional Grammar, many aspects have been explored, such as Theme-Rheme structure, etc. However, the concept “Range” has not been considered for a long time, so this study aims at making the basic content of the concept of Range clearer, especially the linguistic features of Range in English and Vietnamese. The data for the analysis of study were taken from English and Vietnamese novels, short stories. The investigation was based on the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Especially, a contrastive analysis was carried out to explore the similarities and differences in the use of Range in the two languages system. The result of the study helped us reliably identify more new features of word classes, especially the relationships between verbs and nouns participating in communicative processes. Moreover, it gave the implications in teaching and learning English as a foreign language.