Mood and Syntactic Choices in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: Implications for The Language Teachers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18533/journal.v7i3.1323Keywords:
Mood, Syntactic choice, Shakespeare, Language TeachersAbstract
Correct verbal identification of different mood system has been a source of concern to teachers of English as a Second Language in Nigeria. Classroom efforts are mostly geared towards recognition of this concept, usually, in abstract and without connection to functional usage. Studies by scholars identify great difficulty in recognition of the verbal elements in sentence conveying the mood. However, such work never establishes a correlation between correct identification of mood and semantic interpretation. The purpose of this study is to establish the syntactic choices of the verbal elements in Julius Caesar and how they have helped to depict the mood of the characters in the text. This work relies on Systemic Functional Grammar approach to establish connection of mood to setting, tone and diction. It establishes that Shakespeare unconsciously reflects the mood through the characters use of certain clauses with the view to probably enhance the readers’ understanding of scene of actions in the play. Implications for the language teachers are discussed.
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