Moon Adjuncts Expressing the Degree of Intensity in Sports Commentaries in English and Vietnamese in the Perspectives of Systemic Functional Grammar

Abstract

The thesis aims at investigating Mood Adjuncts expressing the degree of intensity in sport commentaries based mainly on the theory of Appraisal and Functional Grammar. The descriptive study employed comparative method with qualitative and quantitative approach. The data for analysis in this thesis were 300 samples of football commentaries (150 in English and 150 in Vietnamese) collected from popular sports websites in the world and in Vietnam. The findings obtained from the data analysis revealed that Mood Adjuncts expressing the degree of intensity used in sport commentaries were syntactically found in form of adverb phrases as modification of various structures as a noun phrase, an adjective phrase, an adverb phrase and a verbal group in both English and Vietnamese commentaries. Semantically, Mood Adjuncts were Mood Adjuncts of intensity were categorized and analysed in the five main dimensions of Appraisal theory: Engagement, Affect, Judgment, Appreciation and Graduation. In terms of graduation, only instances of the isolated intensification were found. The study also pointed out the similarities and differences between Mood Adjuncts used in sport commentaries in English and Vietnamese in terms of syntactic and semantic features. Isolated intensification used in English sport commentaries as scaling of processes has the higher frequency than that found in Vietnamese sport commentaries. In contrast, the number of instances of Isolated intensification used in Vietnamese sport commentaries as scaling of quality is higher than that in English.