Đặc điểm ngôn ngữ giới tính trong hát phường vải nghệ tĩnh tóm tắt bản tiếng anh

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING Vinh UNIVERSITY NguyEn ThI Mai Hoa GENDERED LANGUAGE CHARACTERISTICS IN NGHE TINH PHUONG VAI SINGING Specialization: Linguistic theory CODE: 62.22.01.01 SYNOPSIS OF Ph.D THESIS in IN LINGUISTICS Vinh - 2010 This thesis has been completed at: Vinh University Supervisors: Prof Dr Diep Quang Ban Prof Dr Nguyen Nha Ban Opponent 1: Opponent 2: Opponent 3: Associate Pfro Nguyen Thai Hoa Prof Dr Hoang Trong Phien Associate Pfro Pham Hung Viet The thesis has been defended before the council of examining theses of national lelel at Vinh University at am of 18 December, 2010 This thesis can be accessed to at the National Library, Library of Vinh University, Library of Nghe An Province PREAMBLE Rationale Nghe Tinh fork songs Phuong Vai (hát Phường Vải) is a type of special fork poetry of Nghe Tinh Land which is closely attached to performance environment The roles of communication in Phuong Vai are male & female In this connection, the gendered language characteristics have direct influence on the contents and forms of the turns The study on the gender factors in the Phuong Vai singing will contribute to specify the luaguage, cultural and human characteristics of the Nghe Tinh Land Phuong Vai singing used to be studied by the reseachers from the cultural aspects while less attention is paid to the linguistics aspects There has not been any research work focussing on the gendered language characteristics in the Phuong Vai The importance, the newness and attractiveness of the gender factors in the Phuong Vai serve as a basis for us to choose the topic “Gendered language characteristics in Nghe Tinh Phuong Vai Singing” Background The findings of studies on gender in the area of linguistics have shown the significance and importance of gender factors in various aspects such as phonetics, vocabulary, grammar and language style (E Sapir, R Lakoff, W Labov, P Trudgill ) In Vietnam, researchers have applied common theory on communication in exploring cultural characteristics related to the gender of communication’s roles, mainly focusing on daily communication in several aspects: gender discrimination expressed in the gendered language and language styles (Nguyen Van Khang, Vu thi Thanh Huong ) These research works play a role in suggesting and providing theories for specific studies, particularly the theory on gendered language in Nghe Tinh Phuong Vai Singing for this study Study object, scope and sources of references The object of this thesis is gendered language characteristics expressed in the turns of the male/female roles in Nghe Tinh Phuong Vai singing with the source of materials of 1,745 turns The study scope is to look into, describe, compare the language characteristics of male/female communication roles in Phuong Vai singing in several aspects like vocative words, speech acts in some singing steps, the usage of words, the figures of speech Study goal and objectives The goal of the study is to identify gendered language characteristics in Nghe Tinh Phuong Vai singing, thereby to illustrate and clarify several theoretical issues on communication language and gender, on the culture and people of Nghe Tinh Land In order to realize the above goal, specific objectives are set as follows: - survey, describe, analyse the Phuong Vai’s turns that are sex-dissagregated to detect the expressions of gendered language characteristics of communication roles via the vocative words, speech acts, in some singing steps, the usage of words, the rhetorical figures - identify similarities and differences in the gendered language characteristics of Phuong Vai singing; - adding materials for studing and teaching fork poetry Study methodology Key methods used in this study are statistical, descriptive, analitical, inductive, comparative Contribution of the thesis This thesis touches upon a new topic (gendered language) on a classic object with special characteristics (the Phuong Vai singing), therefore, its contents carry the newness, not repeating other research works a In theoretical aspects: - Contributing to clarifying some characteristics of vocative words from gender aspects, speech acts attched to the communication situations; - Adding data and materials for studies on gendered language; providing theoretical basis for studying on some aspects of Phuong Vai singing like procedures, the performance environment, gender in communication roles, host/guest relationship - Affirming and adding remarks & comments on the gendered cultural characteristics of Nghe Tinh Land and its people b In practice: - Providing materials for studying on gendered language, on fork poetry of Nghe Tinh Land - Adding teaching & learning materials on fork poetry and the contents related to the art of using words - Making contribution to affirming the roles of Phuong Vai singing in creating cultural values of Nghe Tinh Land Structure of the study: Apart from the preamble and conclusions, the thesis is consisted of chapters: Chapter 1: Theoretical basis and several issues on Nghe Tinh Phuong Vai singing Chapter 2: Gendered communication roles expressed via the vocative words in Phuong Vai singing Chapter 3: Gendered language expressed via some speech acts in Phuong Vai singing Chapter 4: Gendered communication roles expressed via the wording methods in Phuong Vai singing CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BASIS AND SOME ISSUES ON NGHE TINH PHUONG VAI SINGING 1.1 Communication and conversation 1.1.1 Communication and verbal communication Communication is exchange of information between at least persons with verbal messages in a certain context aiming at self-expression (in terms of attitude, sentiments, emotions, thoughts, view points…) In communication, language handles main functions: transactional and interpersonal functions In this thesis, interpersonal function is a basis for showing the relationship between male/female roles of communication When engaged in communication, the communication actors can exchange their positions in order to take the roles of asking or challenging/responding, thus creating the system of turns with asking or challenging/responding adjacency pairsin terms of contents and forms In the scope of this thesis, the roles of communication are looked into in verbal conversation via asking or challenging - responding interactions 1.1.2 Conversation movement and interaction The concept of conversation to be examined in this thesis is mainly understood as dialogue Each singing phrase in the Phuong Vai is equivalent to one participant to the conversation, mostly occuring in the form of solo phrase (of participant) or exchange (of participants) According to Yule (1997), based on the floor (right to speak), the conversation participants may have turns and have opportunity of turn-taking which is governed by the local management system The process of regulating the opportunities of turn-taking by the local management system between the conversation participants is very the process of the conversation including factors: first taking floor , the exchange, and the interaction between Sp1 (speaker) and Sp2 (listener) which is arranged in the sequence of alternate asking or challenging/responding phrases between the conversation participants, so called the coordination of the turns The interaction must observe certain regulations & rules According to Grice (1975), the cooperative principle of the conversation is specified into principles of lower level, called the maxims of conversation including the maxim of quantity, the maxim of quality, the maxim of relation, the maxim of manner When the speaker intentionally breaks a maxim of conversation, it means that the speaker informs an implicit meaning by implicature and the listener should be able to interprete this implicature The Phuong Vai is love exchange singing, therefore, most of the Phuong Vai’s turns accoomodate conversational implicature In this connection, the issues related to the language of the communication roles are looked into based on the conversational implicature 1.2 Speech acts Speech acts are those undertaken with utterance (appology/excuse, complaint, guide, agreement, warning ) According to Searle, in order to undertake speech acts, preconditions are needed: contents condition, preparatory condition, sincerity condition, essential condition; levels of speech acts are associated with overall functions of speech acts: declaratives, representatives, expressives, directives, commissives The speech acts touched upon in this thesis are based on Searle’s system of categorization 1.3 Language and sex/gender Sex is a concept to show the physical (biological) differences between men and women; gender is a concept to show the social relations, the social status correlation between men and women in specific social context Sex shows natural functions, mostly unchanged while the factors related to gender change when the conditions prescribing them change Sex factors have influence on language, creating differences between male and female languages in aspects: the pronunciation of each sex, language about each sex and the language style Those differences are shaped due to many causes: natural cause – the human body structure, social cause with many factors such as culture, the power distribution and social status, the labor division and social experiences of each sex sexed language characteristics due to the natual causes are mostly ‘unchanged’ while the gendered language characteristics due to social causes tend to change for development and adaptation Language and culture According to F.d Saussure (1973), both culture and language are ‘social insitutions’; language as well as cultural activities belong to spiritual activities E Sapir (2000) affirms that language and culture are so closely related that people can hardly have proper understanding about one of them without good knowledge of the other In Vietnamese fork poetry this relationship is clearly expressed: community culture of Vietnamese people is the basis for the formation of the fork poetry; and on its turn, fork poetry has significance in reflecting & recording the process of formation and development of the community culture 1.5 Social dialects Being created based on the geographical, social features, historical characteristics, dialects are normally looked into from aspects: regional dialects (showing geographical variant of the language) and social dialects (showing social variant of the language) In this thesis, only social dialects are touched upon In Phuong Vai singing, the signs of social dialects are looked at in many aspects: the word usage (system of Nghe Tinh local words, particularly the vocative words, words indicating space, time, work ); the art of paronomasia/word-play/pun (slang, homonym, synonym ) 1.6 Nghe Tinh Phuong Vai singing and the study on gendered language characteristics The own geographical, climate, living practices, linguistic features have formed relatively consistent Nghe Tinh style, particularly human style, which is expressed in the aspects like low voice, rigid & conservative thinking, strong actions; behaviors in favor of rustic simplicity; village community relationships defined based on the cohesiveness of the community The Phuong Vai singing together with ‘hát ví đị đưa’/ barcarolle is considered as of the types of most typical and popular fork songs of Nghe Tinh land that have relatively strict procedures In order to look at the sex of the communication roles, the materials on the Phuong Vai singing have been categorized into groups of turns 1) Group of turns in which the sex of the speech owner can be defined; 2) group of turns in which the sex of the speech owner can hardly be defined; 3) group of turns in which the sex of the speech owner cannot be defined The group 3) is not looked into in this thesis since the sex of the communication roles is not defined The total number of surveyed turns in this thesis is 1,745 including 767 male turns and 978 female turns 1.7 Summary of chapter I Communication in Phuong Vai singing has performance characteristics, thereby, the linguistics functions of the Phuong Vai singing are mainly interpersonal functions In the Phuong Vai singing, communication roles are looked at in their interactions via the form of asking or challenging/responding of the singing conversation The choice of the language of communication roles in the Phuong Vai is influenced with the factors related to social attributes of the roles such as sex, age, occupation, personal background, educational level etc In the conversation, each singing phrase (solo or pair of exchange) is considered as a turn which is undertaken in the alternate roles procedure This is the basis for defining the concept of conversation mainly understood in this thesis as dialogue between main communication roles: male (male camp) and female (female camp) On the other hand, given the constraints, the thesis only studies the language of the Phuong Vai via the system of turns in the text form, not in the performance context, therefore, it does not look at the non-verbal factors, that are very important for fork cultural activities & practices like the Phuong Vai CHAPTER 2: GENDER OF THE COMMUNICATION ROLES EXPRESSED THROUGH THE VOCATIVE WORDS IN THE PHUONG VAI SINGING 2.1 Communication roles in the Phuong Vai singing 2.1.1 Identifying the communication roles Loking at the roles, the participants to a Phuong Vai performance include the singer, the facilitator, the listener In terms of relationship in communication, the abovementioned participants are to be placed in three communication roles: the host, the guest and the facilitator In terms of gender relations, the participants are to be placed in male and female roles There are 978/1,745 female turns accounting for 56%, and 767/1,745 male turns accounting for 44% (Table 2.1) Table 2.1 Classification/categorization of Phuong Vai turns by roles of communication through the singing stages Stage Single Single Male male turns in the Female turns in the Total female exchange exchange Female Female turns turns Male asking Male or responding asking or responding 56 challenging challenging 148 31 0 0 38 welcoming Hát mừng/ 12 36 4 56 Congratuations Hát hỏi/ Asking Hát đố hát đối/ 18 22 10 32 124 32 124 22 10 113 288 47 14 14 99 372 42 53 54 42 870 exposing Hát tiễn/ Seeing 21 84 12 12 133 off Total 649 86 242 243 86 1745 Hát Prelude Hát Greeting Posing repartees Hát Inviting Hát xe dạo/ 82 chào/ & riddle, mời/ kết/ 307 Emotions 439 2.1.2 The interaction and inter-personal relationship between the roles of communication in the Phuong Vai The interaction is reflected through the mangement of the turns of the communication roles and via the exchange management The inter-personal relationship is based on two axes: the axis of social power and social distance Looking at the social power, the male/female roles are distinguished in three aspects: occupations and social status, the appreciation of social position is given only to male roles; in terms of age, female roles are usually placed in a lower positions, more modest in the relationship with the male roles (which is clearly reflected though the to express the equality, solidarity to narrow down the gap/distance between women and men This is clearly shown in several aspects: using vocative words, expression of ideas, thoughts, emotions through the stages and steps of a singing performance Especially, as hosts, the female role is usually in proactive position, being relatively confident in communication, while the male role, as guests, is put into passive position, lacking self-confidence and sometimes proved to be confused & embarrassed It can be said that the equality and the attitude of women promotion are the fundamental difference between the language of communication in Phuong Vai and the language of conventional communication CHAPTER 3: GENDERED LANGUAGE EXPRESSED VIA SOME SPEECH ACTS IN THE PHUONG VAI 3.1 Introduction Based on the combination of the classification criteria of JR Searle and the communication objective set for each singing step, this thesis categorizes speech acts for Phuong Vai turns into groups: (1) representatives, occupying pretty large proportion: 62.3% for male turns, 33% for female turns (2) expressives, 13.5% for female turns and 8.9% for male turns (3) directives, occupying relatively high proportion with 41.3% for female turns and 17.6% for male turns (4) commissives, occupying low percentage with 118 turns (6.8%) (in which the female role has 83 turns accounting for 70%, male role has 35 turns accounting for 30%) 3.2 Speech acts in some singing steps of the Phuong Vai singing performance - The act of presentation in ‘hát dạo’ (prelude) step includes two contents: selfintroduction, explaining the background and purpose of communication (mainly for male roles with 62/71 turns, accounting for 87.3%); acknowleging the presence of the guests through the signals that are perceived by the senses or through observation, receiving information (mainly for female roles with 26/32 turns, accounting for 81.3%) - The act of greeting, welcoming in the ‘hát chào mừng’ step inludes the following contents: introduction of the scenery & people of the Phuong Vai, welcoming, showing happiness with the scenery & people and conveying congratulations This group of speech acts often occurs in female roles with 69/82 turns (84.1%) - The act of asking questions in the ‘hát hỏi’ (asking) step comprises the following contents: the exploitation of information and understanding of the guests (the family background, history, reason, purpose (mainly occuring in female roles with 19/22 turns), the questions (to host) about the family/marrital status occur only in male roles (12 turns) The questions to get to know the attitudes, emotions equally occur for male and female roles (27% for men, 24% for women) Concerning the way of asking, men often use direct questions, showing proactiveness, daring attitude & confidence, while women only use this way of asking to learn about the family background, history In order to express emotions, women usually use metaphor with discreet, subtle & delicate attitudes - The act of posing riddle, challege/ repartees in the ‘hát đố hát đối’ is mainly the challenges set by female roles to the male roles (including136/150 female turns, accounting for 90.7%) The following contents are usually touched upon: asking about practical knowledge, bookish knowledge, asking about things & phenomena that not exist in reality - The act of inviting in the ‘hát mời’ step appears mostly in female turns with 66 turns, including the following contents: inviting to come in the house (35 turns, 53%); inviting to perform (8 turns, accounting for 12.1%) , inviting to chew betel, drink, smoke (23 turns, representing 34.9%) The male roles only perform the act of responding to the invitation - The act of showing/exposing love, vows, blaming in the ‘hát xe kết’/emotions exposing step includes: The contents of exposing love describe the nuances of emotions, express the opinions on love, marriage, share the dreams, the feelings of uncertainty about the love, the happiness of the couple; promoting and honoring personal values The proportion of love exposing turns is higher in male roles than in female roles which demonstrates the proactive and self-confident attitudes of men and the timid, reserved attitudes of women The contents of vows: With 51 female turns, 33 male turns, the act of vowing in the ‘hát xe kết’ step focuses on affirming the faith, cohesiveness, determination to preserve love, despite all difficulties and challenges The contents of blaming include blaming oneself, others, parents, matchmakers This act occurs in female roles more often than in male roles with 45/74 female turns, accounting for 61% (29 male turns, 39%) 3.3 Summary of chapter III Being associated with specific time and space of the singing performance, the speech acts in the Phuong Vai are placed in conversations with the significance of love exchange The sequence of singing steps in the Phuong Vai performance and the contents of turns in corresponding speech acts show that this is a kind of ‘hát ví’ for working people, similar to other festive ‘hát ví’, but it has relatively systematic manner, thus creating fundamental differences between the Phuong Vai and other types of ‘hát ví’ From the perspective of communication relationship, the determination of the hostguest roles affects the proportion of the turns (of speech) and well as the contents of speech acts: with 978/1,745 turns, occupying a high percentage of 56%, female turns are concentrated in ‘lời trao’/asking & challenging, particularly in the singing steps of communication procedures (hát chào hát mừng/greetings & welcoming, hát đố hát đối/ posing riddle & challenge); male turns (767/1,745) occupying a low percentage of 44%, are concentrated in ‘lời đáp’/reply From a gender perspective, there are remarkable differences in the ways of expressing the moods, feelings, attitudes between the male and female roles: the male turns usually demonstrate frank, outspoken way in expressing emotions & sentiments, thus showing proactive attitude and dominant position in the step of ‘hát xe kết’ while the female turns express the daring attitude and self-confidence in the steps of “hát chào hát mừng, hát đố hát đối’, but the timid, reticent & reserved attitudes in the step of ‘hát xe kết’ when touching upon the couple’s love CHAPTER 4: EXPRESSION OF GENDER OF COMMUNICATION ROLES VIA THE WORDS USAGE IN THE PHUONG VAI 4.1 Usage of several gender specific words: Statistical, comparative methods are used to find expressions of gender differences in some words groups: determinative words indicating gender, words indicating the kinship relationships, words indicating appearance, words indicating talent, quality, style, manner, words indicating work (see the table 4.1) Table 4.1: Words on gender in the Phuong Vai Gender Word groups Indicating gender Indicating kinship relationship Indicating appearance Indicating talent, quality Indicating work Indicating men # words # turns Indicating women # words # turns 39 12 14 19 30 21 46 23 22 110 173 18 48 80 167 106 31 38 The survey results show: - The words indicating gender are diverse with more words indicating men than women; there not occur the words having negative meanings indicating women such as ‘đĩ rạc’/whore, slut, ‘mụ ăn mày’/beggar woman, ‘con đĩ’/prostitue, harlot The men indicating words mainly occur in female turns (61%) while the women indicating words mainly occur in male turns (65%) - The gendered words indicating kinship relationships are modest in quantity but have higher usage frequency; there are less words indicating men than women - The gendered words indicating appearance have high frequency of occurence The number of words indicating women’s appearance is 11.5 times higher than for men (and the frequency is 17.7 times higher); these words are not evenly distributed in male and female turns: the words descrbing men’s appearance mainly occur in female turns (83%) while the words describing women’s appearance mainly occur in male turns (75%) - The gendered words indicating talent, quality, manner have low usage frequency and the number of words indicating women is higher than men The vocabulary describing men mainly occurs in female turns (15/18 turns, accounting for 83%) while words describing women mainly occur in male turns (26/31 turns, accounting for 84%), thus ensuring the objectivity and reflecting the respect that the participants to Phuong Vai show to each other - There are few gendered words indicating work, however they express quite clearly the gender characteristics: women mainly engage in fabric weaving work (18 words/33 turns) while men mainly take care of studying job (14 words/48 turns) 4.2 Usage of the gendered speech symbol system In terms of the structure, the gendered speech symbol system in the Phuong Vai consists of single and twin symbols in which the twin symbols are of larger quantity and higher frequency of occurrence than the single ones In particular, there are pairs of symbols/images with low frequency, but carrying own disctintive features of the Phuong Vai like: Butterfly - silkworm, buttons – buttonholes, buttons - shirts In terms of the significance, this thesis focuses on two symbols of birds and flowers The symbol of bird is used for both men and women, appearing as single and twin forms with a high frequency (46 turns) In the single form, talking about men, the symbol of bird often occurs in the introduction by the lyrical subject; talking about women, the symbol of bird mainly occurs in the men’s description and evaluation about the appearance of the lyrical object In the twin form, the symbol of bird is used to describe the couple, showing the balance, harmony, the nobleness of their love The symbol of flower is of relatively high frequency of occurrence There is only one case in which the symbol of flower is associated with men in the female turns conveying congratulations Most of the symbols of flowers are associated with women with various nuances: describing their beauty, affirming their values, narrating different stages in the life of a woman (flower reaching nubility, blooming, blossoming, faded flower) 4.3 Usage of the system of words indicating time and space 4.3.1 Time indicating words To examine the time factor in the Phuong Vai, this thesis focuses the survey on the words indicating time being grouped based on the time series of past - present - future (Table 4.2) Words indicating the past time: occuring mostly in male turns, concentrating at the ‘hát xe kết’ step, in which the words indicating near past occupy a low percentage while those words indicating distant past (definite or indefinite) occupy a larger percentage with relatively diverse expressions of strong local identity like chầy (since then), lâu/so long, tê, ngảy (long since), ri lâu (for a long time) Table 4.2 Words indicating time in the Phuong Vai Time Past Past – present Present Future # male turns 17 19 87 26 # female turns 27 12 109 50 Words indicating the past - present time: The frequency in male turns is higher than in female turns, concentrating in the last stage of singing to blame (blaming the change, betrayal): lâu/mấy lâu (so long) – bây giờ/now, năm xưa/in olden times, in the old days – giờ/now, Words indicating the present time: the most popular are the words indicating present time, expressed via the adverbs like ‘nay’/now, ‘bây giờ’/for the time being There are also words describing the present time in association with the appearance of the communication subject: mới/just (tới/come, arrive, bước ra/step out, bước vào/step in, gặp/meet), vừa lúc/just as, vừa khi/just when ; the words combinations describing the space with the time movement: đầu hôm đến sáng/ since the nightfall till the morning, năm ngoái lại giờ/since last year till now Words indicating the future time: This group of words does not occupy a large percentage, concentrates in the steps of hát mời/inviting, hát xe kết/emotions exposing hát tiễn/seeing off, closely associated with the expression of vows, feelings, dreams, hope (rày mai (nay mai/in the near future ), vài ba năm nữa/in a few years, (đến/till) tháng hai/February, (đến/till) giêng hai/first and second months of lunar new year ); reminding/making carefull recommendations, making a date before saying goodbye/farewell (mai/tomorrow, sáng mai/tomorrow morning, trưa mai/noontime tomorrow, midday tomorrow, tối mai/tomorrow evening, mai ra/tomorrow moring… ) 4.3.2 Words indicating the space The words indicating the space being examined are primarily to show psychological space with four groups: aerospace/outerspace, community living space, private space, the space associated with geographical locations (see Table 4.9) Table 4.9: Space indicating words in the Phuong Vai Space Outerspace Community living space Private space Space associated with geographical locations # male turns 47 326 14 58 # female turns 66 455 24 79 -Words indicating outer space: the aerospace mainly is psychological space, which is connected, in some cases, with religion, spirituality, in other cases with emotions lyrical characters: sky, earth, moon, star - Words indicating community & collective living space: it is mainly the limited & narrow living space (house, lane, road) Besides, having joint feelings of Vietnamese people about the harmony of the pituresque landscapes, being closely attached to Nghe Tinh holly land with beautiful mountains & rivers, the boys and girls of the Phuong Vai are inspired with the natural beauty, thus arousing in them the desire & aspiration of love - Words indicating the private space: this type of space does not occur often in the Phuong Vai and is often associated with the future time – desire expressed through the word combinations such as wish, when, ever in the turns expressing the strong & deep feelings of love between men and women in the steps of hát xe kết, hát cưới hỏi which is considered as the "breakthrough" in showing burning desire for happy couples: chung chăn/sharing blanket, chung nằm/sharing bed, chăn chung gối kề/sharing blanket, adjacent pillows, tay gối đầu kề /adjacent heads (female turns); chăn ấm, gối êm/warm blanket soft pillow, chung nhà/living in the same house, nằm nơi/lying in the same place (male turns) - Words indicating the space, closely associated with geographical locations: These words have a relatively high frequency of occurrence (58 turns of male turns, 79 turns of female turns), including geographical names of famous mountains like núi Hồng Lĩnh (non Hồng, Ngàn Hống), Hoành Sơn, Bằng Sơn, Hùng Sơn, Nội Sơn, Tam Sơn, núi Dồi ; of rivers like sông Lam (Lam Giang, Lam Thuỷ, sông Rum), sông Giăng, sông Vịnh, sông Lường , of market places, pagodas, temples, bridges, wharf, ports; of villages, communes and districts associated with specific names of the Phuong Vai’s artists, thus preventing Phuong vai from being indefinite and showing own features of the singer 4.4 The art of punning and ‘citation of classical phrase’ The rhetorical figures used in the Phuong Vai are very diverse However, this thesis just selects only two figures of higher frequency of occurrence: the art of punning and ‘citation of classical phrase’, which play an important role in creating own nuances & features of the Phuong Vai as compared to other types of ‘hát ví’ 4.4.2 Art of pun In the Phuong Vai, punning is a dominant rhetorical figure, used in 210 turns (including 121 female turns accounting for 57.6%; 89 male turns accounting for 42.4%) It is expressed in many forms (see Table 4.11) Table 4.11 Rhetorical figures in the Phuong Vai Figures of punning # male # turns Exploitation of phonetic phenomena of words & phenomena of 38 turns 43 Sino-Vienamese characters Exploitation of lexical – semantic phenomena 37 Exploitation of Grammatical phenomena Posing riddle based on the vers of poem ‘Kieu’ (of Nguyen 60 Du) Combination of figures Total female 121 89 Looking at the above figures, the pun is a difficult type of art, requiring high intellectual, broad knowledge and understanding, being combined with the sensitivity and capacity in rapid response to “create” (for the person who poses the riddle/challenge) or to "read" (from the one who solves the riddle/challege) the implicit meaning/implicature in every sentence The survey results show that the rate of pun/word-play in the female turns (accounting for 57.6%) is higher than in the male turns (42.4%); and in the steps of hát đố, hát đối, the female camp often gains the proactive position in posing the riddle/challenge, which shows the wisdom, intelligence, the sharp mind in applying the art of puns as well as the sensitivity in the situation handling of the girls in the Phuong Vai 4.4.3 Art of ‘citation of classical phrase’ Among the surveyed corpus, the language guides occur 252 times, mainly reflecting the topics of career, marriage and family, love, history and social issues - Using idioms, proverbs: not occupy a large percentage (25%), but citation of classical phrase occurs in most of the topics: expressing the life perspective (tham phú phụ bần/going after the rich, abandoning the poor, ăn xổi thì/ live from hand to mouth/by makeshifts); expressing the challenges in life, especially the unhappiness and disadvantages in couple’s love (chớp bể mưa nguồn/lightning and heavy rains, đá nát vàng phai/crushed stone, faded gold implying big challenges); expressing the fate in love and marriage (phá chuông đúc tượng/breaking the bell to statue implying replacements with something of lower values, mười hai bến nước implying the ups and downs in a woman’ life ) - Classical references: occupy a high proportion (75%), occuring in most of the topics: expressing the studying & education, the couple’s love (Kim Trọng - Thuý Kiều, Ngưu Lang - Chức Nữ, nguyệt lão/ the old man in the moon, God of marriages); expressing the history (about Hàn Tín, about Nghiêu Thuấn, about Bà Trưng Bà Triệu ) The citation of classical phrase make the Phuong Vai to carry the strong literary identity and high artistic values, thus contributing to bring romantic nuances to the couple’s love and to realize the ideal standards, the concepts & dreams of Nghe Tinh people on happiness of the couple’s love It at the same time highlights the characteristics of the Phuong Vai girls: although they lack of education, but still gain a proactive position in the steps of hát đố, hát đối, through using literary classical references in a sharp, sophisticated manner, thus creating tough ‘challenge phrases’ that confuse the opposing camp many times 4.5 Summary of chapter IV Through using the gender-specific words & symbols system, the artisitic tools, the communication roles in the Phuong Vai convey & reflect not only rich emotions and the internal life, but also the sharp mind, the intelligence and the talent in making flexible repartees The words & symbols system carries neutral or possitive nuances towards diealization, showing the attitude of honoring the beauty and talent of people, including men and women, according to feudal standards (talented men, beautiful women) In the Phuong Vai, there are almost no words carrying negative meanings showing gender discrimination & stigma Besides, the high prequency of turns using some quite common language arts in daily communication of Nghe tinh people such as slangs, homonym, idioms, proverbs, and literary classical references… reflects clearly the wisdom of the Phuong Vai’s artists These factors themselves create special values of the Phuong Vai CONCLUSIONS The Phuong Vai is one of the "speciality"of the Nghe Tinf culture, which has gained much attention and interest of the reseachers and has been studied from different aspects Later on, the Phuong Vai of Nghe Tinh is studied in a more systematic, diverse and in-depth manner The previous studies findings show that the issue of the Phuong Vai in the relationship with gendered communication roles had never been touched upon before and this is a central topic of this thesis Based on linguistic theory, the study results on some specific aspects, associated with the communication roles such as vocative words, speech acts, rhetorical figures, serve as a basis for making some initial remarks about the similarities and differences in the communication language of men and women in the Phuong Vai The results of surveying on the system of vocative words in the Phuong Vai show that the definition of the communication positions is still much influenced with gender factors In the informal interactive communication environment of the Phuong Vai, the vocative ways of male/female roles are quite diverse, reflecting the influence of the gender factors Firstly, in terms of the communication standards, female vocative words are more standards-oriented than male ones The standards clearly reflect the principle of modest vocative way in the communication language of women, which is considered gender-specific Secondly, being created based on the social hierarchy, the pairs of vocative words in the Phuong Vai mostly sustain the principle of inequality in social relations between the conversation participants: the female role seems to be selfdefined or is taken for granted to be in a lower position, while the male role seems to be self-defined or is taken for granted to be in a higher position on the ladder of power The Phuong Vai is a type of fork songs carrying scholarly characteristics thanks to contribution of the Confucian scholars besides the efforts of the folk artists In other words, the Confucian scholars wanted to incorporate the contents and forms of the scholarly literature into the folklore in order to emphasize the scholarly charactiristics, while the folk artists, via the Phuong Vai, wanted to emphasize the fork characteristics in some types of art, which are considered to be products of the scholarly literature such as paronomasia/words-play/pun, literary classic refenrences… However, when discussing characteristics of both "scholarly" and "folk" of the Phuong Vai, through analyzing survey results on the vocative words, we have come up with opposite remarks: representatives of the rustic & simple forklore (normally female roles) tend to reach the scholarly standard through using the vocative words showing the elegance, and respect for power relationship while the educated people (normally male role) seem to come back to the rusticity and fork manner via using simple & demotic vocative words, local dialects expressing the solidarity relationship The meeting point/common ground for the two above-mentioned trends helps the communication roles to narrow down the gap & distance, thus creating the harmony, closeness and cohesiveness in love emotions The speech act also clearly shows the gender factor In the Phuong Vai, a speech act can be used in many singing steps and in each singing step, different speech acts can be used However, most of the singing steps are connected with specific communication purposes Therefore, they correspond with specific speech act groups (the act of greeting & welcoming in the step of greeting and welcoming, the act of asking in the asking step, the act of posing riddle/ challenge in the step of riddle & challenge, the act of inviting in the step of invitation Being influenced by both factors: the position of the communication participant (host/guest) and gender factors (male/female), the rate turns in the speech act groups as well as in each singing step of the communication role is not corresponding As hosts, the girls have a chance to win the proactive position with a higher propotion of turns in most of the speech acts for the rites of hospitality welcoming, inviting The male roles have higher rate of turns in the speech acts for the rites of responding to the greeting and invitation This rate is consistent with Vietnamese communication cultute in the rites of hospitality Or in the step of hát xe kết, the proportion of male turns is higher than female in the act group of presenting, wishing while the proportion of female turns is higher in the act group of promising, vowing, which reflects the proactiveness of men and the passiveness of women in love exchange in the patrilineal society Only in the step of hát đố hát đối/riddle & repartee which is considered the most difficult singing step, female roles completely dominate in posing riddle and challenge phrase, thus pushing the male roles into the passive position in solving the riddle or responding with ‘matching phrase’ In many cases, male roles get stuck and have to retreat from the singing performance This shows that, female roles express their confidence in mastering the situation, so as to be the first to pose the riddle/challenge phrase, also in creating the situation in order to challenge the opposite team, in making flexible, sharp & seasonable repartees The male roles, as guests, often are driven into passive positions, being ‘led’ by the ‘hosts’, sometimes get confused, lose their confidence, particulary in the step of solving the riddle or responding with ‘matching phrase’ The competition between the girls and boys of the Phuong Vai (in which men donot always win) provides a favorable environment for reaching gender equality in communication The exchange of positions between men and women as analyzed above is the fundamental difference between the communication in Phuong Vai singing and in the real life The usage of words by the communication roles is also a tool to express gender characteristics of the Phuong Vai language Via the system of gender specific words indicating time, space, the system of gendered symbols; via using the art of paronomasia/word-play/pun, of citation of classical phrase the communication roles not only reveal the richness of their inner world but also show the gender specific styles of communication such as: standards, sharp and intelligent language of women; the broad-mindedness and talent of men in making repartees In facts, the Phuong Vai is attractive for different soceties, for many social walks, regardless of their age, educational level & social status The meeting and exchange of talented men and beautiful women, especially the combination of the intellectual of ordinary laborers and the wisdom of Confucianist scholars in many aspects of the words using art, particularly the pun and language guide has brought about own distinctive values to the Phuong Vai The Phuong Vai is a product of the agricultural culture, however, characteristics of agricultural culture are not much expressed in the turns, which shows that the development of the Phuong Vai is associated with the era of craft development However, the agricultural culture has contributed to embed typical figures of the Nghe Tinh laborers in the Phuong Vai who are rustic, emotional, having a strong sense of honor, straight, outspoken, sharp-minded, humerous and witty With its excellent and unique values, the Phuong Vai has attracted the attention and gained interest of many reasearchers with dedicated and meticulous works However, for the fork poetry of Nghe Tinh as wel as the Phuong Vai, there is still much room/many issues to be exploited such as the harmonious combination of the folk and scholarly characteristics, the expression of the intellectual, the humour & wittiness, sexuality of the thinking of the Phuong Vai’s artists In the coming time, there should be more in-depth studies to fully exploit and assess the values of this unique type of fork songs / LIST OF PUBLISHED ARTICLES Nguyen Thi Mai Hoa (2004), negative adverb "ná" in the communication language of Nghe Tinh people, Scientific Review, volume XXXIII, issue 2B, Vinh University, pp 24-31 Nguyen Thi Mai Hoa (2007), Gendered language characteristics in asking singing (h¸t hái) (using materials on Phuong Vai singing), Young linguistics 2007, Pepagogics University Publishing House, pp 325-328 Nguyen Thi Mai Hoa (2008), Gender and vocative words in Nghe Tinh Phuong Vai singing (hát phờng vải Nghệ Tĩnh) Scientific Review, volume XXXVII, issue 1B, Vinh University, pp 23-32 Nguyen Thi Mai Hoa (2008), Roles of communication and gender in Nghe tinh Phuong Vai singing, Language and Life, issue (153), pp 6-11 Nguyen Thi Mai Hoa (2009), Art of punning of the communication roles in Nghe Tinh Phuong Vai singing, Young linguistics, 2008, Vietnam Linguistics Society – Vinh University, pp 645-652 Nguyen Thi Mai Hoa (2009), Words indicating the space of art in Nghe Tinh Phuong Vai singing, Scientific Review, volume XXXVIII, issue 1B, Vinh University, pp 30-37 Nguyen Thi Mai Hoa (2009), Gender and relationship between roles of communication in Nghe Tinh Phuong Vai singing, Social and humanity scientific issues of nothern-central region, Nghe An Publishing House, pp 72-83 ... 148 31 0 0 38 welcoming Hát mừng/ 12 36 4 56 Congratuations Hát hỏi/ Asking Hát đố hát đối/ 18 22 10 32 124 32 124 22 10 113 288 47 14 14 99 372 42 53 54 42 870 exposing Hát tiễn/ Seeing 21 84... dominant position in the step of ? ?hát xe kết’ while the female turns express the daring attitude and self-confidence in the steps of ? ?hát chào hát mừng, hát đố hát đối’, but the timid, reticent... challenging, particularly in the singing steps of communication procedures (hát chào hát mừng/greetings & welcoming, hát đố hát đối/ posing riddle & challenge); male turns (767/1,745) occupying a