(LUẬN văn THẠC sĩ) language usage at lexical level in articles about malaysia airlines flight 370 in tabloid and broadsheet newspaper – critical discourse analysis

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES LÊ THỊ NGỌC HÀ LANGUAGE USAGE AT LEXICAL LEVEL IN ARTICLES ABOUT MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT 370 IN TABLOID AND BROADSHEET NEWSPAPERS – CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS NGÔN NGỮ SỬ DỤNG Ở CẤP ĐỘ TỪ VỰNG TRONG CÁC BÀI BÁO VIẾT VỀ SỰ CỐ MÁY BAY MH370 TRÊN BÁO LÁ CẢI VÀ BÁO PHỔ THƠNG TỪ GĨC ĐỘ PHÂN TÍCH DIẾN NGƠN PHÊ PHÁN 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 LÊ THỊ NGỌC HÀ LANGUAGE USAGE AT LEXICAL LEVEL IN ARTICLES ABOUT MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT 370 IN TABLOID AND BROADSHEET NEWSPAPERS – CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS NGÔN NGỮ SỬ DỤNG Ở CẤP ĐỘ TỪ VỰNG TRONG CÁC BÀI BÁO VIẾT VỀ SỰ CỐ MÁY BAY MH370 TRÊN BÁO LÁ CẢI VÀ BÁO PHỔ THƠNG TỪ GĨC ĐỘ PHÂN TÍCH DIẾN NGƠN PHÊ PHÁN M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Dr Hà Cẩm Tâm HANOI - 2017 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I hereby declare that the thesis, entitled “Language Usage At Lexical Level In Articles About Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 In Tabloid And Broadsheet Newspapers – Critical Discourse Analysis” has been carried out in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art at the University of Languages and International Studies This work is original and all the sources that I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references Hanoi, December 2017 Lê Thị Ngọc Hà i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not be fulfilled without the help of many people, and I would like to show my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has taught, inspired, challenged and supported me throughout the realization of this thesis I would like to express sincere gratitude towards my supervisor, Dr Ha Cam Tam, for her profound and invaluable guidance without which this study would not be completed I also would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all the lecturers and staffs at the Faculty of Post-graduate Studies, the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University of Hanoi whose support and consideration has enabled me to pursue the course Hanoi, December 2017 Lê Thị Ngọc Hà ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT The missing aircraft MH370 is a tragedy that shocked the nation of Malaysia and the whole world The media plays a big role in compressing the incident into a segment of the newspaper to attract readers‘ attention towards the shocking news News reported by the media affected in the way how the readers view the incident This study is a critical discourse analysis of two UK online news agents on the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 from March 8, 2014 to May 8, 2014 A critical discourse analysis was made to portray the representations of lexical items from two different types of newspaper – broadsheet and tabloid With the purpose of discerning the underlying opinions and attitudes of the reporters, Van Dijk‘s Semantic Discourse Analysis was used to analyze the news reports The study just focused on the choices of Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives and the use of metaphors The researcher made an attempt to illustrate the relationship between language usage and underlying ideas that the writers may want to convey iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviation CDA Meaning Critical Discourse Analysis T The Telegraph M The Mirror LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 1: Most frequent Nouns in The Telegraph‘s articles 24 Figure 2: Most frequent Nouns in The Mirror‘s articles 24 Figure 3: Most frequent Verbs in The Telegraph‘s articles 25 Figure 4: Most frequent Verbs in The Mirror‘s articles 25 Figure 5: Most frequent Adjectives in The Telegraph‘s articles 26 Figure 6: Most frequent Adjectives in The Mirror‘s articles 26 Table 1: The description of event presented in both newspapers 27 Table 2: The possibility of terrorism presented in both newspapers 32 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES iv TABLE OF CONTENTS v PART A INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the research Scope of the research Objectives of the research Research questions Significance of the study Research methodology Organization of the research PART B DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 An overview of Critical Discourse Analysis 1.2 Van Dijk‘s socio-cognitive approach to CDA 1.3 Van Dijk‘s Semantic Discourse Analysis 10 1.4 Critical Analysis of News Discourse 14 1.5 Language of broadsheet newspapers and tabloid newspapers 15 1.6 Reviews of related studies 16 CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 19 2.1 Research questions 19 2.2 Background information of the data 19 2.3 Data collection 20 Data collection procedure 21 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 2.5 Research method 21 2.6 Data analysis procedure 22 CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 23 3.1 Lexical choices 23 3.1.1 Choice of positive words 27 3.1.2 Choice of negative words 28 3.2 Metaphorical expressions 35 3.2.1 Positive expressions 35 3.2.2 Negative expressions 36 PART C CONCLUSION 39 Recapitulation 39 Limitations of the study 41 Recommendations for further studies 42 REFERENCES 43 APPENDICES I Appendix 1: List of articles from The Telegraph I Appendix 2: List of articles from The Mirror I Appendix 3: A sample of analyzed articles II vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART A INTRODUCTION Rationale of the research Media is a modern tool that is used by people to gain information The use of media in collecting information on what is happening around the world has also play its role in shaping the perspective of readers regarding the events that the media is reporting The media have been described as powerful sites for the production and circulation of social meanings The thought and perspective of the readers can be shaped by the construction of thought through the use of language Media play its role as perspective shaper through the hand of journalists by the grammatical construction, selecting the choice of words and the meanings conveyed within the metaphorical text One of media tools is newspaper Newspaper, or news, in which the medium that people mainly receive their information from is ―Anything that's interesting, that relates to what's happening in the world, what's happening in areas of the culture that would be of interest to your audience,‖ (Kurt Loder, 1945) However, there are at times different versions of the same event are presented in a wide array of news sources, leaving room for doubt about the value-free and unbiased information journalists provide for news readers According to Fowler (1991), language of the press is never neutral, and news reports are laden with values and ideologies The power of media can influence people‘s cognition and form people‘s attitudes and ideologies Accordingly, in order to understand the true nature of news reports, namely the social and power relationship, the hidden ideologies, and the way they present people and issues, it is necessary for a language user to be critical in their state of mind TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com The incident of the missing airplane MH370 made the incident a newsworthy that had followers from different parts of the world Unlike any other airplane accidents that had happened in other countries before, MH370 had been facing the world watchers that were following the updates relating to the missing aircraft Readers and commentators, and different groups of audiences that followed the news of the tragedy were anxiously waiting for the result of the missing airplane The involvement of foreign military and search team in the effort to find the missing aircraft attracted the attention of observers around the world The attention gained from people around the globe regarding the missing airplane of MH370 created speculations of both positive and negative perspective about the incident The perspective were varies from positive, neutral stand to negative opinions about the cause and effect of the missing airplanes towards both Malaysia and the whole world history as well As a results, news reporters make use of their word choices to describe and inform the world readers about the missing of MH370 airplane The researcher attempted to conduct a study on the features of lexical items, which are expressed through lexical choices and metaphors, used in the news reports that discussed the disappearance of the flight MH370 from the viewpoint of two different kinds of newspaper, namely broadsheet and tabloid, under the light of critical discourse analysis to explore how ideologies of the media institutions construct their representation of reality to their readers Scope of the research This research focused on uncovering the differences in the underlying opinions and attitudes of writers between broadsheet newspaper and tabloid newspaper when reporting the same event through the choice of three lexical TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com In addition, not only did the government fail to immediately detect radar clues and examine the actual reason, but they also announced incorrect final words that were heard from the cockpit People may come to think that Malaysian government contemporarily changed the message in order to avoid their responsibility (refuse to confirm) Their handling of the situation was even regarded ―a public-relations disaster‖ [T6] ―There was further confusion about the flight on Monday after Malaysian authorities refused to confirm the precise wording of the final cockpit sign-off.‖ [T8] ―… Malaysia‘s handling of the loss of MH370 has been a publicrelations disaster The tone was set during the first week by the authorities‘ confusion, stonewalling and contradictory messages.‖ On the other hand, among 10 selected articles of The Mirror, they only mentioned briefly the criticisms Malaysian government had It seems that M writers avoided discussing this topic as they just used the neutral verb criticise and somehow expressed their attitude by means of direct quotation as can be seen in below example [M4] Malaysian authorities have been criticised for keeping the possibility of a hijack secret for eight days Mr Learmount said ―their total incompetence is unforgivable and created more agony for families desperate for news‖ [M6] ―British satellite company Inmarsat last night sparked a row by ¬criticising the Malaysian authorities.‖ It could be understandable as broadsheet newspaper tends to draw much attention to political-oriented topics while tabloid often avoids discussing them 34 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 3.2 Metaphorical expressions This part presents finding and discussions regarding research question Research question 2: How can the use of metaphorical expressions reveal the writers‘ opinion and attitude underlying in their writing? The use of metaphors in newspaper articles is acknowledged as a medium that helps reader to understand the organization of language, thought, and discourse The metaphorical language structure has its own powerful and persuasive role in producing discourse The use of metaphor in structuring thoughts and language to form news that may impact the readers are investigated and analyzed as below 3.2.1 Positive expressions [T1] ―With 239 souls on board—12 crew and 227 passengers from 14 different countries—it was last heard from about 120 miles off the coast of Malaysia‖ The word ―soul‖ is, in fact, a confusing word In some contexts, the soul is the animating force of the body, as well as the essence of consciousness In some others, it indicates the spiritual side of people In this case, the metaphor ―239 souls‖ bears the former meaning – the vital life force It is used with the special aim of expressing the writer‘s deeply sad feelings towards the victims It also indicated that the writer believed they had all been gone, and there could be no sign of survival [M1] ―There were no reports of bad weather and no sign why the Rolls-Royce Trent engine-powered plane would have vanished from radar screens about an hour after it took off.‖ 35 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Comparing the power of the plane with ―the Rolls-Royce Trent engine‖, this implication was to emphasize the high quality of the missing plane and also to indicate that such powerful aircraft could not have gone missing without any notice [M1] ―My house has become a place of mourning This is Allah‘s will We have to accept it.‖ ―a place of mourning‖ – this phase emphasized on the tragic loss of the victims‘ families They considered it as the will of Allah – their mightiest God It could be implied that Malaysian people are greatly influenced by their religion and this tragedy gave them no other choice but to accept it 3.2.2 Negative expressions [T1] ―While it is obviously premature to state anything for sure, the few known facts allow us to paint a preliminary picture‖ ―a preliminary picture‖ – this metaphor is meant to portray the general situation when there was no concrete evidence Everything was all just assumptions [T3] ―As two Iranians were found to be travelling on false passports several days ago, all the passengers‘ backgrounds have, presumably, already been well scrutinised.‖ [T4] ―Though this does not appear to have been a factor in MH370‘s disappearance, two Iranians on board had been travelling with passports that were registered as stolen with Interpol.‖ [T2] ―…the men travelling on a stolen European passport is likely to have been a terrorist‖ 36 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ―Iranians‖ – as been discussed above, this metaphor is used to refer to the idea of terrorism The writer even ironically regarded these two ―Iranians‖ as ―two of the passengers were not who they seemed to be‖ [T4] ―The reason is that the airline industry goes to extraordinary lengths to remove as much chance, hazard and uncertainty out of flying as possible, through better technology and strict procedures—usually adopted, alas, in the wake of disasters.‖ A common way of talking about the results of an event is to say in the wake of the incident This is one of those expressions that is so common most people would not even recognize it as a metaphor Actually it is an expression from sailing as when a ship leaves a wake behind as it travels through the water Metaphorically, the result of an action is compared to the disturbance in the water behind a ship ―in the wake of disasters‖ – this metaphorical phrase was used to warn other countries to learn from the case of Malaysia Airlines There were many lapses in their security system that even let people with stolen passports on board In order to prevent any possibilities of terrorism, all countries need to strengthen their security by all means [T4] ―The speculations why they were cut range from terrorism and pilot suicide to an electrical fire on board requiring all non-essential electronics to be shut down—but these are just guesses; no one yet knows There are good reasons why pilots should be able to disable equipment on board, the threat of fires being one of them.‖ ―threat of fires‖ – Actually this phrase was quite vague in meaning It could be used to refer to either the electrical fires or the threat of bomb By using 37 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com this metaphors, the writers intended to imply the hints of terrorism in their writing [M1] ―Chinese relatives waiting in Beijing Airport are furious at the lack of information and told reporters they have been treated ―worse than dogs‖ by Malaysia Airline.‖ ―worse than dogs‖ – this phrase was used by the Chinese people to describe how Malaysian government treated them It indicated that their actions and feelings were too fierce and agonizing that they considered the way Malaysian side treated them was unacceptable We can somehow understand M writer‘s implication when using metaphor to portray totally opposite reactions of Malaysian people and Chinese people From their point of view, Malaysian people appeared to be those who accept the fate with resignation, while Chinese people seemed to be in permanent rage, always showed their impoliteness and could not control their actions [M10] ―The data's release had become a rallying cry for many of the families, who have accused the Malaysian government of holding back information.‖ ―a rallying cry‖ – this expression was to describe the situation when the victims‘ families received the searching data from Malaysian government and they had to learn to accept the fates of their beloved ones It can be concluded that these metaphor expressions play an important role in conveying the writers‘ opinions and attitudes towards many aspects of the event 38 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART C CONCLUSION Recapitulation With the purpose of discerning the underlying ideologies of the reporters, Van Dijk‘s Semantic Discourse Analysis was applied to analyze the twenty news articles from two sources – The Telegraph (broadsheet newspaper) and The Mirror (tabloid newspaper) Based on Van Dijk‘s structures of discourse analysis, lexical style and rhetorical figures were examined Lexical style dealt with the choice of positive and negative opinion words, and rhetoric figures indicated positive and negative properties In the light of critical discourse analysis, the research has yielded some findings Firstly, it appeared that the articles in broadsheet newspapers generally have more content words per clause than tabloid newspapers The broadsheet writers may give more hints of their ideology into their writing than the tabloid writers Secondly, with regards to lexical choices, basing on the frequency of Nouns, Verbs, and Adjectives used in the articles, the researcher divided the analysis into two parts  Choice of positive words: Both news agencies invested much of their language to describe the disappearance of the flight However, it seemed that, the broadsheet writers tended to add their positive comments on the incident by using Adverbs, Adjective and Adverbials, while the tabloid writers just simply reported the event without embedding any shade of attitudes The implementation of other elements enriched the news contents of the reports, and somehow could help to attract the readers‘ 39 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com curiosity so that they might explore more the other contents to see what the mystery was in this event Meanwhile, only reporting the event may leave no impression on the readers, and it may make the article boring  Choice of negative words: When discussing reasons for missing, both newspapers seemed to suspect that there could have been individuals or even organizations to be in charge of the mysterious missing case However, the broadsheet newspaper tended to stick to the popular theories while the tabloid newspaper seemed to focus more on the conspiracies that appeared on social media With regard to the reactions of related people, there was one striking finding in this part which concerned Chinese government‘s action: they seemed to provoke their people to blame it all on Malaysian government and caused a big scandal of mishandling the public relations to Malaysian side to divert the attention of the world towards the possible of terrorism coming from their side However, it seemed that only the broadsheet newspapers mentioned this with their attitudes embed in the words they use, while the tabloid newspapers barely discussed this topic Regarding reference to terrorism, the broadsheet newspapers made use of the word ―Iranians‖ quite a few times when mentioning about the two cases of lost passports which were believed to fall into hands of two Iranian persons Although their writers did not directly refer to ―Iranians‖ as terrorists, but they intentionally referred to the nationality, which meant the writers implied that people from Iran can be related to terrorism to some extent The tabloid newspaper, on the other hand, had no reference to the nationality of the suspects 40 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com In terms of the judgement on Malaysian government, the writers of broadsheet newspapers seemed to disagree with Malaysian government‘s actions, while the tabloid writers only mentioned briefly the criticisms Malaysian government had It indicated that broadsheet newspaper tended to draw attention to political-oriented topics while tabloid often avoids discussing them Finally, regarding the use of metaphors, each newspapers had their own way of expressions As for broadsheet newspapers, they used metaphors to indicate the writer‘s deeply sad feelings towards the victims, to portray the general situation when there was no concrete evidence, to refer to the idea of terrorism and to warn other countries to learn from the case of Malaysia Airlines As for the tabloid newspapers, the purposes of using of metaphorical expressions were to emphasize the high quality of the missing plane and indicate that such powerful aircraft could not have gone missing without any notice, to portray the tragic loss of the victims‘ families, to imply that Malaysian people are greatly influenced by their religion, to show the fierce reactions of Chinese people and to describe the situation when the victims‘ families had to learn to accept the fates of their beloved ones Limitations of the study The limitation of the study is that the author could just utilize two small aspects of semantic discourse analysis, which are lexical choices and metaphorical expressions The study would have been more comprehensive if further aspects could have been exploited Besides, the study was just conducted on twenty news reports, so the findings of the study can, unavoidably, not be generalized as the characteristics of articles in broadsheet and tabloid newspapers 41 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Recommendations for further studies From the limitations mentioned above, further studies can be conducted on the news discourse in some other aspects such as passivization, nominalization, modes of sentences, etc 42 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com REFERENCES Caldas Coulthard, C.R & Coulthard, M (eds) (1996) Texts and Practices: Reading in Critical discourse analysis London: Routledge Eggins, S (2004) An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics New York: Continuum Fairclough, N (1989) Language and Power London: Longman Fairclough, N (2001) Language and Power (2nd ed.) London: Longman Fiske, S.T and Taylor, S.E (1991) Social Cognition (2nd edition) New York: McGraw-Hill Fowler, R (1991) Language in the news: Discourse and ideology in the press New York: Routledge Hamilton, D.L (ed.) (1991) Cognitive Processes in Stereotyping and Intergroup Behavior Hillsdale, Mass.: Erlbaum Hunston, S (2002) Corpora in Applied Linguistics Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Maros, M., & Nasharudin, S N S (2016) Analysis of interaction and institutional power relations in MH370 press conferences Pertanika Journal of Social Science and Humanities, 24(February), 169-180 Reah, D (1998) The Language of Newspapers London: Routledge Reah, D (2007) The Language of newspapers (2nd ed.) London & New York: Routledge Richardson, J.E (2007) Analyzing Newspapers: an Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan Rohizah, H (2014) From KL to Beijing: MH370, the Media and the Meaning of a Disaster, Social and Behavioral Sciences (155), 171 – 177 Semin, G.R and Fiedler, K (eds) (1992) Language, Interaction and Social Cognition London, California: Sage Publications Turner, J.C and Giles, H (eds) (1981) Intergroup Behaviour Oxford: Blackwell 43 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Van Dijk, TA (1985) Semantic discourse analysis, Handbook of Discourse Analysis, vol London: Academic Press Van Dijk, T.A (1998) Ideology: An interdisciplinary approach London: Sage Van Dijk, T.A (1995a), Discourse Analysis as Ideology analysis London: Sage Van Dijk, T.A (1995b) 'Ideological discourse analysis.' In E Ventola and A Solin (eds.) Special issue Interdisciplinary approaches to Discourse Analysis (4), 135161 Van Dijk, T.A (2008) Discourse and Power New York: Palgrave Macmillan Van Dijk, T.A (2015a) Handbook of Discourse Analysis (2nd ed.) Chichester: Wiley Blackwell Van Dijk, T.A (2015b) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (3rd ed.) London: Sage Wiebe, J., Bruce, R., Bell, M., Martin, M., & Wilson, T (2001) A corpus study of evaluative and speculative language Proceedings of the Second SIGdial Workshop on Discourse and Dialogue (16), 1-10 Wodak, R & Meyer, M (2001) What CDA is about – a summary of its history, important concepts and its development In Wodak, R., & Meyer, M (ed.) Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis London: Sage Yao, S (2015) Malaysian flight MH370 reports: a critical discourse analysis, New English Teach Vol (2), 127-150 44 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com APPENDICES Appendix 1: List of articles from The Telegraph No Title Date T1 What happened to Malaysian Airlines flight 09 MAR 2014 MH370? T2 In the dark 10 MAR 2014 T3 The plot thickens 16 MAR 2014 T4 Friendlier skies 19 MAR 2014 T5 The sound of silence 20 MAR 2014 T6 Lost and will it ever be found? 29 MAR 2014 T7 The search for MH370 - Plumbing new depths 09 APR 2014 T8 The geopolitics of MH370 24 APR 2014 T9 The search for MH370 - Deep secrets 02 MAY 2014 T10 Malaysia Airlines - Much atwitter about nothing 05 MAY 2014 Appendix 2: List of articles from The Mirror No Title Date M1 Are terrorists behind Malaysian Airline crash? MAR 2014 Fears grow after it emerges two passengers were using stolen passports M2 Ten key questions about Malaysia Airlines flight MAR 2014 MH370 as search for missing passenger jet continues M3 Missing Malaysia Airlines flight: Eight 12 MAR 2014 CONSPIRACY theories on what's happened to the missing plane M4 Did pilot hijack missing plane HIMSELF in 15 MAR 2014 political protest? Fears over Captain Shah's links to I TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Malaysian opposition M5 Crew 'died trying to save passengers from burning 18 MAR 2014 plane' by turning jet to nearest airport M6 Is this Indian Ocean wreckage from missing 20 MAR 2014 Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370? M7 Missing Malaysia Airlines plane 'might never be APR 2014C found' warns Air Chief Marshall in charge of search M8 Missing flight MH370: More powerful sonar used 23 APR 2014 to find the Titanic needed to find plane M9 Missing flight MH370: Malaysia denies 11 arrested MAY 2014 terrorists with Al Qaeda links are being questioned over vanished jet M10 Missing flight MH370: Malaysia releases raw MAY 2014 satellite data as hunt for plane continues Appendix 3: A sample of analyzed articles [T4] Friendlier skies The disappearance of a Malaysian jet highlights the need to reform Mar 19th 2014 by K.N.C AIR travel is extremely safe An individual is about 180 times more likely to die in a car than on an aeroplane, according to America‘s National Safety Council The reason is that the airline industry goes to extraordinary lengths to remove as much chance, hazard and uncertainty out of flying as possible, through better technology and strict procedures—usually adopted, alas, in the wake of disasters The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8th sadly provides another chance to reexamine airline safety In an age of big data—when our cellphones track our location and American spooks know what we ate for breakfast—it seems bizarre that a huge airliner with 239 people on board could vanish with barely a trace Though its whereabouts and the reason it altered its flight path so far remain II TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com unknown, the incident reveals numerous security lapses that are relatively easy to fix—and must be, to maintain public confidence in air travel The first is the continual tracking of commercial airliners Prior to MH370‘s disappearance, most people would have presumed that aeroplanes are in constant communication with ground stations for security reasons if not navigational ones Though this is mostly true when flying over land, it is not when crossing large stretches of ocean There, aeroplanes might send occasional bursts of data to satellites (usually routine updates about the status of their engines) But there is no requirement that they maintain continuous contact The aviation industry plans to upgrade its radar to a GPS-based system that would accomplish this, but the process has faced delays It should be implemented immediately Second, MH370 ―went dark‖ about 40 minutes after takeoff because two communications systems were mysteriously deactivated: the secondary radar (which identifies the aircraft, among other data, to radar screens) and ACARS, a system for sending status updates and messages The speculations why they were cut range from terrorism and pilot suicide to an electrical fire on board requiring all non-essential electronics to be shut down—but these are just guesses; no one yet knows There are good reasons why pilots should be able to disable equipment on board, the threat of fires being one of them But in such cases, the aeroplane should automatically send out an alert that the system is being shut off, so that authorities are immediately aware of this, and know to track the aircraft with conventional radar (where it appears as a blip on a screen without the identifying information) With these two basic reforms, in the case of MH370 air traffic control would have been alerted to a problem the instant the transponder was cut, and know the aircraft‘s location at every moment Third, though this does not appear to have been a factor in MH370‘s disappearance, two Iranians on board had been travelling with passports that were registered as stolen with Interpol Again, prior to the MH370 incident, most people would have assumed that all passports are screened before a flight takes off Once again, most people would be wrong This is ludicrous It III TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com should go without saying that all passports must be checked to ensure they are legitimate In many respects, flight MH307 represents the ―Titanic moment‖ for airline security Following the disaster in 1912, numerous official inquiries resulted in a myriad of reforms, from standardizing SOS signals to requiring ocean liners to maintain radio communications at all times—which offer striking parallels with the current situation Today, the lapses exposed by flight MH370 erode confidence in flying because it raises suspicions that many of the rules following September 11th—taking off shoes, dumping bottled water—are more designed to produce the illusion of safety rather than provide a meaningful scrutiny of threats The airline industry needs to use this enigmatic disaster to once again restore confidence for travellers Lexical choices Metaphors - Ns: disappearance (x3), trace, authorities, passport (x3), disaster - In the wake of disaster  warning - Vs: vanish, reveal, appear (x2) - The threat of fires  idea of terrorism - Adjs: extraordinary, bizarre, unknown, stolen  Topics: description of event, undiscovered reasons, possibility of terrorism - Iranians  idea of terrorism IV TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ... thesis, entitled ? ?Language Usage At Lexical Level In Articles About Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 In Tabloid And Broadsheet Newspapers – Critical Discourse Analysis? ?? has been carried out in partial fulfillment...VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES LÊ THỊ NGỌC HÀ LANGUAGE USAGE AT LEXICAL LEVEL IN ARTICLES ABOUT MALAYSIA AIRLINES. .. articles on the missing flight MH370 which were published on two newspaper agents, namely The Telegraph – representative of broadsheet newspaper – and The Mirror – representative of tabloid newspaper