one name is "editors" if we do not want to divide them into groups" [ Truong Vinh Ky , NVHD, vol. 1, p. 28]; "Thus, Nguyen Huu Tien's editorials and translations are very numerous and very elaborate; if those articles were collected, they would be valuable textbooks on Eastern academic civilization" [ Nguyen Huu Tien, alias Dong Chau , NVHD, vol. 1, p. 129]...
In short, Sino-Vietnamese words are a rather prominent class of words in Vu Ngoc Phan's Modern Writers . Through this class of words, we can see some characteristics of the critic's use of words. Putting Vu Ngoc Phan in relation to contemporary critical researchers, we can see the mark of the times from the perspective of vocabulary.
In addition to the two prominent word classes that we have mentioned and analyzed above, in Modern Writers there exists a rather special word class: the foreign word class, specifically French words. Most of the author's articles use this word class. Sometimes, he uses a French word next to a term or a specialized word in Vietnamese, sometimes it is a French poem or sentence mentioned to comment on a certain translation, sometimes it is a famous quote or sentence used to reinforce an argument... In general, the use of French words like this is not unusual among writers before the revolution.
2.2. Sentences in Modern Writers
2.2.1. Requirements for sentences in literary criticism texts
In section 2.1 , we have seen the importance of words in expressing the identity of the subject using the language. However, that is only one aspect. Another decisive aspect is how words must be organized to express the content that the word level itself cannot undertake. Sentences - that is the unit that plays a crucial role in all types of texts, are the "seeds"
"characters" that when linked together, they will take on the function of expressing thoughts, making communication through language easy.
From the perspective of functional grammar, Cao Xuan Hao believes that: "Speech is the realization of language, language in its real activity. In all the books and statements about language, there cannot be a single statement or idea related to linguistics that is not drawn from specific statements"... "The things that native speakers must know to organize an utterance so that it is effective for their intended purpose, suitable for the situation, consistent with the context, so that the listener can grasp what needs to be conveyed in accordance with its linguistic logic, in accordance with the requirements of communication when speaking, are mainly linguistic knowledge about sentences, although not only thanks to that knowledge" [19, pp. 11-12]. He also affirmed: "In the hierarchical system of linguistic units that make up an utterance (text), the sentence is the central unit, the hinge unit. Without understanding the position and structure of the sentence, it is impossible to understand larger linguistic units, nor to understand anything about the smaller units that make it up” [19, p.12]. These ideas can be seen as the starting point for linguistic research, including stylistics. Assuming that style is a choice, it is obvious that this choice occurs at all linguistic levels of the text. Individualization does not exist in isolation at any particular level.
However, in language, except for highly formal texts such as administrative texts, to have unique and distinctive syntax is not a simple matter.
We know that grammar is a set of general rules, formed over a long period of time, associated with the creation and development of a language. It is impossible to determine the role of any individual in shaping these rules.
The grammatical rules of a language. In other words, grammar is a non-individual category. It is highly stable, rarely changes over time, and is rarely affected by language interference. In this field, even a genius cannot set his own rules and standards that are outside the laws that have existed in a native community.
Saying that does not mean that grammar is a closed, self-contained field, rejecting all creativity and personal exploration. It is within a limited, constrained framework that a writer can still find a way to express his or her own uniqueness, that is a person who is truly creative. And in the actual use of language, we can recognize very different ways of creating sentences in talented writers. Some people like to write short, abrupt sentences, with only the core components, rejecting secondary components, such as speaking directly and bluntly. Some people prefer long sentences, complex structures, rhythmic expansion and contraction, expressing passionate emotions towards the subject. Some people like to use dense verbs in sentences, creating a sense of movement and change. Others are good at sentences full of nouns, adjectives, flexible, soft... Writers' preferences are extremely diverse. Here, it is impossible to distinguish high - low, good - bad. The problem is: are the types of sentences that the writer chooses (consciously or unconsciously) appropriate to the purpose of the speech, with his own intention, and can express individuality?
Using sentences in text creation, of course, the writer is bound by the functional style of the text. In other words, each type of text requires different types of sentences. If artistic texts widely accept "multi-style" sentence types, journalistic texts are not too restrictive, on the contrary, administrative texts, scientific texts, especially natural sciences, are quite strict in terms of syntactic requirements. Here, there seems to be no room for research on sentence form.
Critical texts are, in fact, also scientific texts. However, as mentioned in chapter 1, literary criticism is both scientific and artistic, and this has helped its syntactic form become richer and more diverse. If the scientific nature requires the sentences of a critical text to be tight, logical, and full of reasoning, the artistic nature allows the sentences to be flexible, and even to use a wide range of rhetorical devices to make it more attractive. The artistic colors of sentences in the writings of Hoai Thanh, Xuan Dieu, Che Lan Vien, Nguyen Tuan... are typical examples.
2.2.2. Sentence grammar in Modern Writers
2.2.1.1. Types of sentences from a structural perspective in Modern Writers
The writing process (including composition and criticism) is completely different from a technological process. Each person's writing habits and language usage are also different. Although choosing words and sentence types to suit the content is a regular task, when writing, the writer is not necessarily fully aware of each specific case. However, due to the influence of many factors, each writer will express in his or her text their own syntactic characteristics, based on general rules.
With such awareness, we have classified sentences, counted the quantity, calculated the ratio, commented on the structural characteristics, compared all those aspects in the sentences of some works with the sentences of Vu Ngoc Phan in Modern Writers to draw out the similarities and differences. Specifically as follows:
Table 2.3. Statistics of sentences classified by grammatical structure in some literary criticism works
TT
AUTHOR OF WORK | NUMBER OF QUESTIONS SURVEY | SIMPLE SENTENCE | SPECIAL SENTENCE | COMPOUND SENTENCE | MAIN AND SUBJECT COMPOUND SENTENCE | COMPLEX SENTENCE | |
1 | Hoai Thanh Literature and action | 955 | 286 29.9% | 182 19.1% | 109 11.4% | 185 19.4% | 173 18.1% |
2 | Thieu Son Literary story | 963 | 201 20.9% | 172 17.9% | 98 10.2% | 232 24.1% | 260 27% |
3 | Truong Chinh Truong Chinh Collection | 945 | 211 22.3% | 168 17.8% | 84 8.9% | 201 21.2% | 221 22.3% |
4 | Vu Ngoc Phan Modern writer | 976 | 261 26.7% | 165 16.9% | 98 10% | 206 21.1% | 246 25.2% |
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The difference in the proportion of sentence types used by critics in the above works demonstrates a fact: in creating a text, the writer cannot plan in advance the types of sentences he will use. The author can form an idea, plan a structure, build an outline, but cannot choose the type of sentence before writing. The use of which type of sentence in the text comes from the specific expressive requirements, associated with each specific content and context. The types of sentences used in the text are sometimes governed by the idea, and sometimes go beyond all barriers of consciousness and reason. Even in moments of inspiration, the writer does not care about the types of sentences. And the author himself cannot analyze the syntactic characteristics of his writing (unless the writer is also a linguist). It is not easy to point out the reason for the appearance of this or that type of sentence in the text.
The original of a certain writer. Critics with strong personalities and abilities often come up with new and surprising ways of expression. Vu Ngoc Phan is such a case. When writing, although he respects the rules of grammar, he is not constrained by them.
Classifying sentences in terms of grammatical structure, Vu Ngoc Phan's work has its own results, of course it cannot be completely similar to the works of other critics.
Looking at the statistical table, we see that in Modern Writers , the proportions of sentence types are ranked from low to high: independent compound sentences (10%), special simple sentences (16.9%), main and secondary compound sentences (21.1%), complex sentences (25.2%), and the highest is simple sentences (26.7%). Only Truong Chinh's work has the same proportion of sentence types as Modern Writers , although the specific proportions of each type of sentence are different. The works of Hoai Thanh and Thieu Son have fundamentally different proportions of sentence types. In Hoai Thanh, the most used sentence type is still the simple sentence (similar to Vu Ngoc Phan), but the proportion of complex sentences is much lower than that of the author of Modern Writers (18.1% compared to 25.2%). Meanwhile, Thieu Son uses complex sentences the most (27%).
Interestingly, all four critics we surveyed used parallel compound sentences at the lowest rate (Hoai Thanh: 11.4%; Thieu Son: 10.2%; Truong Chinh: 8.9%; Vu Ngoc Phan: 10%). Perhaps this is a type of sentence that is not suitable for rational thinking. Because, many studies on artistic language show that parallel compound sentences are often used in large numbers in short stories, novels, essays... Similarly, simple sentences in particular also account for a low rate in critical texts, while this is the type of sentence used a lot in artistic texts.
Above are preliminary comments on the grammatical structure of sentences in Modern Writers drawn from comparison with sentences of some
contemporary critics. Next, we will take a closer look at the types of sentences in Vu Ngoc Phan's works from the perspective of grammatical structure.
a) Simple sentence
This type of sentence in Modern Writers is 261/976, accounting for 26.7%. This is a fairly high rate. Vu Ngoc Phan's simple sentences are also quite diverse. But upon closer examination, we did not find any minimalist simple sentences used by critics. This situation also exists in other critical writers. In our opinion, the reason for this is because minimalist simple sentences are inherently composed of only one word as subject and one word as predicate. The predicate must be an intransitive verb, without the need for a complement. For example:
- I'm tired .
- It rains.
Obviously, with such a structure, this type of sentence conveys very little objective information, but mainly creates rhythm for the text. Therefore, they are only suitable for artistic texts. In current novels, stories, and memoirs, this type of sentence is used quite frequently by many writers.
Most of the simple sentences in Modern Writers are not too short. The reason is that Vu Ngoc Phan's simple sentences often use subordinate elements. Sometimes the critic uses adverbs in the sentence (the part we bolded). For example:
- " From 1881 onwards, he published many books" (NVHD, vol. 1, p. 23).
- " Two years later (1916) , he compiled another book titled Summary of Pedagogical Science " (vol. 1, p. 186).
- " In the beginning, in addition to the above books , he also published a few articles on ethics and Southern history in Dong Duong magazine and several articles on Confucius and Lao Tzu in Nam Phong magazine " (vol. 1, p. 187).
- " While traveling throughout Vietnam , Truong Vinh Ky paid attention to each place and recorded interesting fairy tales that represented the typical spirit of Vietnam" (NVHD, vol. 1, p. 23).
Usually, a simple sentence in Modern Writers expresses a simple content, only needing a core C - V. It can be an action, a state, a characteristic or an assessment, comment. For example:
- "His translated books are also very remarkable" (comment).
- "He is a writer who uses words very accurately and writes in the national language very correctly" (comment) .
- "Returning to the country, Tran Trong Kim became prime minister of the pro-Japanese puppet government"
(act).
In addition to the expressive function, the simple sentence in Modern Writers also creates rhythm for the text. In fact, rhythm in the text is the combination of sentence types, even clauses. Next to compound or complex sentences, there appears a simple, concise sentence, which has the effect of changing the rhythm of the text, avoiding monotony. For example: "The passages of bathing in the pool in Do Son (page 63) and To Tam and Dam Thuy going to the countryside fields to catch grasshoppers and locusts (page 59) in the book To Tam , at that time people were all over the place criticizing it as an imaginary story, because our girls at that time did not go swimming in the pool, did not go out and did not have the courage to go out with their boyfriends! Regarding those two things, the author was ahead of his time. Now people consider them normal things" (vol. 1, p. 334).
In addition to the adverbial element, the simple sentence in Modern Writers also uses the subject's subordinate element or the predicate's subordinate element. This will be examined and analyzed more thoroughly in the section on sentence elements.
b) Special simple sentences
In Modernist literature , this type of sentence accounts for only 16.9%, - the second lowest percentage after the parallel compound sentence. This is not difficult to understand. In artistic prose,