(LUẬN văn THẠC sĩ) sexism in vietnamese folk poems on love and marriage

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  NGUYỄN PHƯƠNG THANH SEXISM IN VIETNAMESE FOLK POEMS ON LOVE AND MARRIAGE Kỳ thị giới tính ca dao Việt Nam tình u, nhân gia đình M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 HANOI, 2017 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES  NGUYỄN PHƯƠNG THANH SEXISM IN VIETNAMESE FOLK POEMS ON LOVE AND MARRIAGE Kỳ thị giới tính ca dao Việt Nam tình u, nhân gia đình M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Dr Nguyễn Thị Thu Hà HANOI, 2017 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I hereby declare that the thesis entitled “Sexism in Vietnamese folk poems on love and marriage” has been carried out at the University of Languages and International Studies under the guidance of Dr Nguyen Thi Thu Ha The work is original and has not ever been submitted in part or full by me for any degree at another University I further declare that the material obtained from other sources has been duly acknowledged in the thesis Nguyen Phuong Thanh December 2017 i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During the process of doing the thesis, I have received a lot of precious lessons, necessary support and timely encouragement from my teachers, family and friends First of all, I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Nguyen Thi Thu Ha, who has always been willing to give me valuable advice and patience so that I can successfully complete the thesis My sincere thanks are also sent to all of the teachers at the University of Languages and International Studies for their useful lessons during my two-year learning here Last but not least, I would like to send my heartfelt thanks to my family and friends for everything ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT The current investigation is an attempt in CDA, conducting data analysis into 2000 Vietnamese folk poems on love and marriage, basing on Fairclough‟s threedimensional framework with the grounding of Systemic Functional Grammar by M K Halliday The research aims to unveil the underlying sexist ideologies behind language, generally manifesting the domination of men over women in the feudal time To achieve the aims, experiential values of words and grammar are deliberately exploited The research has reached some findings Gender bias was clearly seen when women undertook varying roles both in the domestic and social sphere, but most of them were subordinate to men‟s In terms of linguistic means which make great contributions to the discursive construction and representation of social relations, transitivity and semantic features display sexism the most iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv ABBREVIATIONS vi LIST OF FIGURES vi PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale .1 Aims and research questions .2 Research methods and scope .2 Significance Design PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERARUE REVIEW AND CONTEXTUAL BACKGROUND 1.1 Literature review 1.1.1 Gender and language studies 1.1.2 Language and Sexism .6 1.2 Contextual background 1.2.1 Confucianism and its implications for gender equality in Vietnam 1.2.2 The Vietnamese women‟s status in patriarchal society 10 1.2.3 Vietnamese folk poems on love and marriage .11 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND METHODOLOGY 14 2.1 Theoretical background 14 2.1.1 Definition of CDA 14 2.1.2 Key notions of CDA .15 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 2.1.3 Main tenets of CDA 16 2.1.4 Fairclough‟s analytical framework 16 2.1.5 Halliday‟s systematic functional grammar and CDA .19 2.2 Methodology 21 2.2.1 Data collection 21 2.2.2 Procedure of data analysis .22 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 23 3.1 Women in the family setting 23 3.1.1 Women as caretakers for children 23 3.1.2 Women as caretakers for in-law family‟s members .26 3.1.3 Women as caretakers for house chores 27 3.1.4 Women as helpers for men 28 3.1.5 Women waiting for men 30 3.1.6 Women as inferiors 31 3.1.7 Women badly treated 32 3.1.8 Women as dependent beings 32 3.2 Women in the social setting 36 3.2.1 Women in low social hierarchy 36 3.2.2 Women as dependent beings 40 PART C: CONCLUSION 42 Conclusion 42 Limitations 43 Suggestions for further research 43 REFERENCES 44 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABBREVIATIONS CDA : Critical Discourse Analysis CL : Critical Linguistics LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Three lines of meaning in the clause Figure 2: The grammar of experience: types of process in English vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale Both women and men make up the whole world and are important workforce and integral elements of the economic development and the advance of society However, over hundreds of years struggling in many parts of the world, women‟s rights finally became human‟s rights as voiced by Hillary Clinton at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in China, September 1995 She said, “Women‟s rights, in other words, have been recognized as important components of two scholarly disciplines and movements – international human rights and law and development Neither international human rights nor law and development can afford to ignore women‟s rights and remain true to their core objectives” (Cao, 2016) In Vietnam, the acknowledgement of women‟s rights has been amounted to after the people achieved the independence from feudalism and colonialism The Proclamation of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam which was announced in public at the Ba Đình Square on September 2, 1945 served as a stroke in people‟s rights in general and women‟s rights in particular Before this event, there was no explicit feminist movement in Vietnam and feminism was an unpopular topic and rarely mentioned (Duong, 2001) However, it is apparent that during millennium Chinese occupation, Vietnam was profoundly influenced by Confucianism, which lowers Vietnamese women‟s status Central to Confucian doctrine was that men were superior and women inferior It clearly supported a patriarchal social order, putting women in a lower social rank compared to men Those ideologies have been imprinted into people‟s mind till now The treasure of Vietnamese folk poems has been seen as the nationallypossessed cultural heritage, making their contributions to diversifying mental life of the people They are sometimes described as a tool which is drawn on to represent reality and experiences of the people such as human relations, productive labour and daily activities, even national war Concerning human relations, the number of folk poems about experiences in love and marriage exceeds the others all the time and TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com exhibits behaviors among people With their powerful language, folk poems are not a neutral vehicle Words are employed to hold people in respect but demonstrate blatant disregard for others Therefore, I manage to a thesis called “Sexism in Vietnamese folk poems on love and marriage” to partly disclose a social-cultural problem underlying the discourse The study approached the folk poems from a linguistic stand point, aiming to systematically show the hidden gender ideologies and the linguistic means basing on linguistic theories and framework This feature may set the study distinguished from literary analysis in which meanings are more often derived from personal interpretation and emotions Aims and research questions The current paper is devoted to a critical discourse analysis of positive and negative evaluation of men and women carried out in Vietnamese folk poems on love and marriage The aims of this research are to clarify the ideologies embedded in the discourse and to investigate linguistic means in which the ideologies are expressed In fact, the two aims are closely interrelated and they will be achieved simultaneously throughout the process of data analysis Moreover, this analysis of the literature momentum of the Vietnamese people is expected to raise people‟s critical awareness of the persisted gender inequality and partly help with gender balance through language The study attempts to answer the following research questions: What are the sexist ideologies in Vietnamese folk poems on love and marriage? How are these ideologies linguistically reflected in Vietnamese folk poems on love and marriage? Research methods and scope This research adopted the approach of Critical Discourse Analysis It analyzed 2000 selected folk poems on love and marriage which were collected in two anthoplogies of Vietnamese folk poems by Vũ Ngọc Phan and Phúc Hải The analysis decoded gender dominance in folk poems that linked to the society The qualitative TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 3.1.7 Women badly treated Far from being treated as inferiors, women are badly treated Mistreatments are as follows: Một trâu anh sắm đôi cày Example 26 (No 1586): Một chàng đơi thiếp có ngày oan gia (One buffalo two ploughs One husband two wives turns a foe) Example 27 (No 1633): Có đào đông chàng đừng phụ liễu tây Bơ vơ phận gái biết (With peach tree, you badly behave willow tree Lonely fate, what to do?) In terms of experiential values of grammar, metaphors are utilized to reflect the reality The bizarre situation in the former is the same as a buffalo with two oxen In the later poem, women are metaphored for a willow tree, which is poorly behaved The contemporary society admited polygamy, i.e., men were allowed to take several women as his spouses Women had to show their obedience and loyalty to men Women were placed in a more ridiculous situation as follows: Hay lấy vợ nhà trò Example 28 (2065): Hết em lo cho chàng (Or you want to marry a student How much property, I cover) Women serve as the actor of the material process “lo” (taking care of) once again And men keep the recipient participant Wives‟ concern for husbands‟ remarriage display more cruel mistreatments to women than ever 3.1.8 Women as dependent beings a Women’s three bonds As mentioned in the literature review and contextual background, Vietnamese people in the feudal society in general contained themselves in the realm of rigidlyregulated social ethic, a political ideology, a scholarly tradition and a way of life For 32 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com women in particular, they were despised and the poems reflected conservative ideas of women‟s dependency First and foremost, women were supposed to perfom three dependency principles: first, before marriage, she had to comply with her father; second, after marriage, she had to obey her husband; and finally, she had to follow her male offspring The practice of obedience to her parents before marriage The following is a lively illustration for those three bonds that feudalism heavily rested upon women before marriage in the past, i.e., the woman was bound by the obedience to her father Example 29 (No 141): Con gà rừng tốt mã khoe lông Chẳng cho chọi, nhốt lồng làm chi? Thầy mẹ ơi, đến thì, Mười bảy mười tám chẳng cho lấy chồng! (The beautiful jungle fowl show off her feather To be caged what to do? Dad and mom, I am of marriageable age, At seventeenth and eighteenth, still refuse my marriage!) At the level of words, in terms of experiential values, the words such as “nhốt, chẳng cho” (to cage and refuse respectively) are a classification scheme, making an emphasis on women‟s freedom which is cruelly dispossessed In terms of relational values of words, the woman in this scenario is portrayed as a caged cock by resorting to a metaphorical image The classification scheme and metaphor are incorporated to expose the reality While females were human beings for sure, they did not reserve their own right To specify, it was the fundamental right to get married and to decide her marital life on her own That was the least a woman could as a human beings By contrast, a woman could choose someone as her spouse only if her parents approved At higher levels, in terms of relational values of grammar, a grammatical question in the former lines resembles a disappointing lament from a woman The 33 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com behavioural process “chẳng cho” (refuse) with “thầy mẹ” (parents) as a behaver in a negative sentence and exclamative mood are present at the same time in the later verses, drawing an impotent woman right in her own family The practice of obedience to her husband after marriage In the anthopologies, many folk poems about women under the bondage of marriage are collected: Mẹ già trao lại anh trai Example 30 (No 264): Phận em gái hai theo chồng (Old mother, hand over to brothers Female fate, I follow my husband.) On the layer of words, a scheme for the act of subjugation can be easily found in the majority of poems with the same content Those words include “theo, theo, theo, đem, mang” (following) The collection of poems also records an overwording, i.e., unusually high degree of wording for this scheme Repeatedly, women are reported as dependent beings In terms of experiential values of grammatical features, in most of the poetic lines, females serve as an actor participant in the material process “đi theo” (following) Strikingly, for some stanzas, a material process “về” (leave) with a man “chàng” as the actor entails another metarial process “về” with a woman “thiếp” as the actor As a clause, the act of moving by men allows that of women: the men “chàng” as the actor of the material process “về”, the women as the recipient of the material process “cho thiếp”, “theo về” as the goal of the later material process Those features demonstrate that men made the decision, women surrendered to those decisions Example 31 (No 190): Chàng cho thiếp theo (You leave, let me follow) Example 32 (No 143): Con vua lấy thằng bán than, Nó đem lên ngàn phải theo Con quan đô đốc đô đài, Lấy thằng thuyền chài phải lụy mui 34 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com (The lord’s daughter get married a coal dealer, He carries up to the mountain, she still has to follow.) Even there is a poem in which women are placed in a more ridiculous case as the above For both the lord‟s and the fisher‟s or a coal dealer‟s daughter, the bond is also forged In these exceptional cases, males are the actor participant in material process “đem”, “mang” (carrying) The poem means nothing other than women were strictly held back by feudal rules Females were considered nothing rather than a possession as the above examples More importantly, despite the close confinement for women, they gave in without a struggle Insufficient evidence is shown that women offered resistance In other words, there was not the least resistance Females provide a behaver participant in the behavioural process “chịu, cam” (putting up with) It appeared that both men and women took the bondage of women for granted Đói no thiếp chịu, lạnh lùng thiếp cam Example 33 (No 190): (In time of plenty as in time of dearth, I put up with.) b Women’s four virtues Additionally, if peope in feudalism were subjected to plenty of behavioral codes in general, women were confined by extra four virtues in particular, namely wifely virtue, wifely speech, wifely manner or appearance, and wifely work They were seemingly sentenced to life imprisonment of moral principles Among them, wifely virtue was the most important That ideology becomes obvious when the status of marriage “có chồng” (married women) is reworded over and over in dozens of verses In terms of experiential values of words, not only the overwording of “có chồng, khơng chồng” (married and not married or single) but a classification scheme for women‟s marital status is discovered as well It seems that women, those days, were professedly defined by their marital status and her husband It formed the notion that it was more important for a woman than for a man to show whether she got married or not 35 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Example 34 (No 1430): Ngồi cửa sổ chạm rồng Chăn loan gối phượng không chồng hư (By the window with dragons carved on it, Luxirious matrimony unmarried is spoilt) In terms of experiential values of grammar, the process is highly recommended to convey the ideological message “Chăn loan gối phượng” (the affluence lifestyle) serves as the circumstance of manner At the same time, to realize the textual metafunction, “chăn loan gối phượng” is the theme of the clause, which is intentionally chosen to be the point of departure for the clause In this case, the translation provides sufficient evidence that needed to interpret the processs when the clause does not have an exposed predication For the above poetic line, the predicate can be understood as “là” Thereby, “không chồng” here means unmarried women, which act as a carrier of the relational process “cũng hư” (spoilt) is the attributive The values of grammatical feature, here, successfully transfer a meaningful message The reality is that regardless of the affluent lifestyle, women were defined by men on those days 3.2 Women in the social setting 3.2.1 Women in low social hierarchy In terms of experiential values of words, there is a scheme for addressing to males and females in the entire data Among more than 2000 folk poems on love and marriage, males are often addressed as “quân tử, anh hùng, tài tử, trượng phu, người văn nhân” and females as “hồng nhan, má hồng, thục nữ, thuyền quyên” This classification scheme, as a sub-part of experiential values, demonstrates the reaility of the social world as follows: Example 35 (No 293): Lộc cịn ẩn bóng tùng Thuyền quyên đợi khách anh hùng vãng lai (Bud is shrouded on the pine tree, A beautiful girl waits for a man of honor) The addressing of males refers to a man of honour and good appearance with strength and ability, meanwhile that of females indicates women are assessed by their 36 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com appearance and explicit assessement rather than intelligence or implicit personality The addressing, at the same time, is a reminder of ideal images of men and women in feudal society Sexism reflects in the representations of ideal men and women themselves Whilst the society highly appreciated men with intelligence and morale, women‟s intelligence and morale were looked down upon It seemed hard to abandon male-dominated ideologies because it was deeply rooted in people‟s mind for so long The society unfairly excluded women from the scenario in which they could be outstanding, obtain great accomplishments and socially recognized as men There only existed a man of immense erudition “anh hùng trí cao” (a man of high mind) Experiential values of these words reveal the implicit ideology about males and females in hundreds of folk poems Another scheme also demonstrates gender inequality That is the use of the terms to talk about some certain vocations: “ông đồ”, “anh đồ”, “thầy” These Vietnamese terms invoke no more than a male scholar and teacher in people‟s minds Otherwise, only men are represented as “học trò” (a student): Example 36 (1989): Anh trai học trò Em thách cưới anh lo nào? (You are a student, How can you cover wedding-presents?) Example 37 (1619): Quả cau nho nhỏ, vỏ vân vân Nay anh học gần, mai anh học xa (Tiny areca, tough skin, You attend schooling far and near.) In all of 2000 selected folk poems, the use of “cô giáo” (female teacher) or any other terms referring to a female scholar can be found nowhere The lack of parallel forms to talk about females‟ occupation in these folk poems indicates that only men were received orthodox education It is the reaffirmation of the ideology of the contemporary society In erudition, women did not reserve the right to display their 37 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com presence in schooling and examinations Also, hardly could women be present in mandarinate places In most cases, women unfairly held socially trivialized occupations such as salesperson, merchant, dealer and trader or weaving workers It is, at the same time, a clear explanation for men‟s higher position in the society In prestigious areas like politics where people are socially recognized, men are the belief Example 38 (No 1607): Một mai chúa mở khoa thi Bảng vàng choi chói bia đề tên anh (One day the lord organize an examination The dazzling rolling of honor, your name is respected) Example 39 (No 1609): Anh mười chín nước chư hầu Có chịu phận thảm sầu em (You leave for vassals Nobody is grieved like me) Example 40 (No 1604): Chàng vực thẳm non cao Em mong tìm vào đến núi Tản Viên (You go up hill and down dale, I contrive to arrive Tan Vien mountain) In terms of experiential values of grammar, the authors tend to trivialize women by making men stand out, using a wide range of material processes such as “đi lính” (serve in the army), “làm quan” (join mandarin places), and “nổi đồ”, “chen đua với đời”, “vượt non cao” (doing incredible jobs) with the men as the actor Any activity associated with men is overestimated in relation to those activites associated with women The truth is in the reverse direction for women, i.e activitives by women are kept lessened Adding to negative evaluations for women, many of folk poems presented degradation of women by using simile phenomena Two of them are given as following examples: Example 41 (280): Thân em đóa hoa rơi, Phải chàng thật người yêu hoa 38 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com (My fate is like falling flowers You are a lover for flowers?) Example 42 (646): Anh nhà giàu Em tờ giấy bên Tàu sang Anh nhà quan Em én lạc đàn ngẩn ngơ Anh gấm thêu cờ Em rau má nở bờ giếng khơi Cho nên chả dám ngỏ lời Người chê bạc, kẻ cười khinh (You are the only child in rich family I am like Chinese paper You are the only child in mandarinate I am a stray swallow from the herd You are like silk to saw the flag I am like penny wort by the will I dare not to say One sneers with ingratitude, one laughs with despise.) Very often, folk poems in this collection exploit the semantic figure of simile to make a comparision of women and their destiny as well, using the particle “như” (like) and “là” (as) Experiential values of comparison images are declared to be ideologically contested The devaluation of women are clearly seen when women are compared with “hoa rơi” (falling flowers), “cơm nguội” (cold rice), “bàn cờ” (chessboard), “giấy Tàu” (Chinese paper), “én lạc đàn” (a stray swallow from the herd), etc Most of the images manage to convey an ideological message and draw a terrible picture of women that women are dispensable wastes and abundancies, objects of low quality, or inanimate objects Perhaps, the pronoun “anh” and “em” in these Vietnamese folk poems does not provide sufficient and adequate imformation about 39 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com the first-singular person in this context However, with any clarification, it is convincing argument that women are belittled 3.2.2 Women as dependent beings Metaphors are proved to be a preferred semantic figure by the Vietnamese populace as the authors of this literature heritage to tell the story about women‟s tragic fate in numerous verses Example 43 (No 286): Có đào đơng chàng đừng phụ liễu tây Bơ vơ phận gái biết (With peach tree, you badly behave willow tree Lonely fate, what to do?) Example 44 (No 401): Phận bèo nhiều nỗi linh đinh, Kể cho hết phận khúc nôi (The fate of water-fern is floating on water Hardly to tell about such floating destiny.) Willow tree is a plant with hanging-down leaves and barks, usually referring to a weak woman Water-fern is another plant, often seen floating on water and the image of floating water-fern is employed to talk about women‟s destiny under the drift of unforeseen events in life Repeatedly, metaphorical figures of women are inanimate objects, which people not necessarily care for emotions and their behavior to the inanimate objects is of their free will More importantly, here, peach tree, willow tree and water-fern are ascribed personal qualities Like persons, they have a relationship They badly behave to each other Like persons, water-fern has its own fate, floating and drifting on the face of the waters In one word, through metaphorical figures, it is an underlying ideology that women have no other choice but accept to be a living but powerless thing with a fragile soul One more interesting point about the value of words and semantic strategies in folk poems is that they depicted women as dependent beings who were always dominated by other than three bonds and four virtues That is, hundreds of folk poems mentioned the impact of so-called destiny on women‟s life In terms of classification 40 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com scheme, folk poems about women being dependant beings were found in the use of the scheme for destiny such as “duyên, phận, số, thì” The metaphorical images are engaged to partly represent women as dependent beings Example 45 (No 95): Huệ tàn bướm chẳng vãng lai, Tình thương phụ, trúc mai kể gì! Ví dù hoa hoa! Mùa xuân không nở, nở vào mùa đông (Faded flower, butterflies are indifferent Affection is badly treated, so are bamboo and plumtree Flowers! Flowers! Spring, you not blossom, you blossom in winter) It is not difficult the least to determine mataphorical phenomena of a woman for “hoa tàn” in these poems However, remarkably, the implicit images of faded flowers and late blossoms are employed to convey a message The implication is that like flowers, women have their own right time to blossom They are dependent objects and cannot make a decision for their own life Sexist bias in these poems is the fact that women are considered as weak and dependant beings and there is no opposition by any means 41 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART C: CONCLUSION Conclusion This research is an attempt in Critical Discourse Analysis to clarify the relationship between language and society An investigation was conducted in 2000 Vietnamese folk poems on love and marriage to find the answers for the two questions, namely whatquestion and how-question The study employed Fairclough‟s framework on the basis of Halliday‟s Systemic Functional Grammar Research question 1: What are the sexist ideologies in Vietnamese folk poems on love and marriage? Concerning the sexist ideologies in Vietnamese folk poems on love and marriage, the investigation unveiled the allegedly subordinate roles of women in family and society In the family setting, women were not supposed to perform any important roles other than a caretaker for children, family members in law and house chores, a helper and a person waiting for men Despite such numerous roles, women were considered as inferiors to men and dependent beings and even badly treated In the social setting, women, at the same time, served as people in low social hierarchy, and dependent beings as well To brief, despite various roles in family, women in the past were despised and mistreated Also, regardless of such numerous roles in society, females were always belittled and any activities related to them were trivialized For the unjust both the two communities, women were held back all the time and could not escape from the society‟s confinement Research question 2: How are these ideologies reflected in Vietnamese folk poems on love and marriage? Sexism in Vietnamese folk poems on love and marrigage was shown either verbally or by overestimation of male representation through semantic figures Data analysis was conducted on the basis of three-dimension framework and Hallidayian‟s as a ground Therefore, underlying ideologies were exposed by answering the proposed set of questions and realizing three meta-functions in a comprehensive way as well The threesome of experiential-relational-expressive values of words and grammar, especially classification schemes and unusually high degree of wording as smaller parts of experiential values, was seen reflecting the reality of the world Also, transitivity, moods 42 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com and theme-rheme relations reinforced the downplaying of women‟s significances and contributions in both domains Additionally, semantic features of the discourse, namely metaphor and simile, were elicited to display traditional biased assumptions about men and women, which were embedded in the discourse Limitations One of the CDA‟s ambitions is to discover hidden ideologies in the discourse and to bring readers to see them However, the discourse of the current research on sexism in folk poems on love and marriage was placed in the context of Vietnamese feudal and patriarchal society; the gender bias against women was and has been prevailing philosophy among Vietnamese people until now Therefore, despite being from CDA standpoint, the investigation tends to unearth linguistic signals rather than well-known social problems and relations To specify, it provides linguistic evidence for gender inequaties of the contemporary society in folk poems, which are not new to everyone any longer Suggestions for further research As far as we know, the historical aspects or the social context contributed greatly to shape attitudes towards Vietnamese women those days However, the fact is that no one can determine the exact time at which a single poem was compiled How can we identify in which period of time did one particular folk poem appear? Certainly, it has posed a question for researchers of other domains rather than linguistics In term of language studies, it is impossible for the researcher to analyze language construction to reveal sexism evolution in the society which is supposed to be increasingly profound This can be a suggestion for furture investigations They can be a potential study in linguistics or other domains of social studies Additionally, as said above, CDA tends to select the view of the people who suffer from gender discrimination and criticize language use of those who are supposed to be in power and take responsibility for gender inequalities It can be a suggestion for upcoming research to carry out a CDA in the view of opposite side To specify, a CDA on gender prejudice in favour of men can be highly recommended 43 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com REFERENCES Balaban, J (1980) Ca dao Việt Nam: A bilingual anthopology of Vietnam folk poetry Greensporo: Unicorn Press Cameron, D (2006) Language and social politics London: Routledge Cao, L (2016) Culture in law and development: Nurturing positive change New York: Oxford University Press Cao, Xuan Hao (2017) Tiếng việt – Sơ thảo ngữ pháp chức Social sciences publishing house Chuliaraki, L & Fairclough, N (1999) Discourse in late modernity: Re-thinking critical discourse analysis Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Coates, J (1998) Language and gender – A reader Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd Darweesh, A D & Abdullah, N M (2016) A critical discourse analysis of Donald Trump‟s sexist ideology Journal of education and practice, vol.7, no.30 Duong, Wendy Nguyen (2001) Gender equality and women issues in Vietnam: The Vietnamese women – warrior and poet Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal Association, vol 10, no.2, p.191-326 Eno, R (2015) The Analects of Confucius Retrieved from http://www.indiana.edu/~p374/Analects_of_Confucius_(Eno-2015).pdf Fairclough, N (1980) Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language 2nd ed London: Longman Fairclough, N (1985) Critical and descriptive goals in discourse analysis Journal of Pragmatics, vol 9, issue 6, p 739-763 Fairclough, N & Wodak, R (1997) Critical discourse analysis In: van Dijk, T A Discourse as social interaction London: Sage Fairclough, N (2001) Language and power 2nd ed London: Longman Gee, J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method London and New York: Routledge Halliday, M A K (2014) An introduction to functional grammar 4th ed London: Routledge 44 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Hall, R A (2004) Language and marginalized places University of Colorado Boulder Hart, C (2011) Critical discourse studies in context and cognition Amsterdam: John Benjamins Hoang, Van Van (2005) Ngữ pháp kinh nghiệm cú tiếng việt: Mô tả theo quan điểm chức hệ thống Social sciences publishing house Jiang, X (2009) Confucianism, women and social contexts Journal of Chinese philosophy John, I S (2009) Semantics United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishers Ly, Tung Hieu (2015) Confucian influences on Vietnamese culture Vietnam Social Sciences, No 5(169) Litosseliti, L (2006) Gender and language – Theory and practice Oxford University Press Inc Lakoff, R (1975) Language and woman’s place New York: Harper & Row Mills, S (2008) Language and sexism Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Muqit, A (2012) Ideology and power relation in the use of pronoun in Osama Bin Laden‟s speech text International Journal of Social Sicence and Humanity Vol.2 Nguyen, Hoa (2008) Phân tích diễn ngôn: Một số vấn đề lý luận phương pháp Vietnam national university press, Hanoi Nguyen, Thi Thu Ha (2017) Language and gender studies: past and current approaches and debates VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, vol.33, no.6, p 1-7 Pham, Duy Nghia (2005) Confucianism and the conception of law in Vietnam In Gillespie, J & Nicholson, P (eds) Asian socialism and legal change: The dynamics of Vietnamese and Chinese reform ANU E Press & Asian Pacific Press Pham, Van Bich (1999) The Vietnamese family in change: The case of the red river delta Great Britain: Curson Press Phuc Hai (2014) Tuyển chọn tục ngữ, ca dao, dân ca Việt Nam Times publishing 45 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com house Robertson, J L (2014) Musings of A First Chinese Daughet: A Memoir Partridge Singapore Sloper, D W & Le, Thac Can (1995) Higher education in Vietnam: change and response New York: St Martin Press Spender, D (1980) Man made language Routledge and Kegan Paul Tannen, D (1985) Cross-cultural communication Handbook of discourse analysis (4) 203 - 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Functional Grammar Research question 1: What are the sexist ideologies in Vietnamese folk poems on love and marriage? Concerning the sexist ideologies in Vietnamese folk poems on love and marriage, ... following research questions: What are the sexist ideologies in Vietnamese folk poems on love and marriage? How are these ideologies linguistically reflected in Vietnamese folk poems on love and marriage? ... from the society‟s confinement Research question 2: How are these ideologies reflected in Vietnamese folk poems on love and marriage? Sexism in Vietnamese folk poems on love and marrigage was shown