A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS ON DISCOURSE PROPERTIES OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS ON ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE INTERNET NEWSPAPERS

THESIS A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS ON DISCOURSE PROPERTIES OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS ON ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE INTERNET NEWSPAPERS PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU ĐẶC ĐIỂM DIỄN NGÔN TIN QUỐC TẾ TRÊN BÁO MẠ

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS ON DISCOURSE PROPERTIES OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS ON ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE INTERNET

NEWSPAPERS

(PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU ĐẶC ĐIỂM DIỄN NGÔN TIN QUỐC TẾ TRÊN BÁO

MẠNG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)

NGUYỄN THỊ THƠ

Field: English Language Code: 60220201

Hanoi, 2018

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

A CONTRANSTIVE ANALYSIS ON DISCOURSE PROPERTIES OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS ON ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE INTERNET

NEWSPAPERS

(PHÂN TÍCH ĐỐI CHIẾU ĐẶC ĐIỂM DIỄN NGÔN TIN QUỐC TẾ TRÊN BÁO

MẠNG TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)

Hanoi, 2018 DECLARATION

I certify that this thesis with the title A contrastive analysis on discourse

properties of international news on English and Vietnamese internet newspapers

is my own study The data, results and finding in this thesis are truly The thesis

has not been submitted for a higher degree to any other university or institution

I confirm that when I quoted from the work of others, the source was always given

Signature:

Nguyễn Thị Thơ

Approved by

SUPERVISOR

My deeply–felt thanks go to my family who have supported, cared for me and provided me with all the best conditions as well as the moral support so that I could concentrate on this thesis

I would like to thank my husband for his support All these have become the spritual strength which saved me from all the difficulties and stress I got during the thesis time

Last but not least, I would like to give thanks to my friends, who have encouraged and supported for my study process to finish this MA thesis

ABSTRACT

This thesis studied discourse properties of international news on English and Vietnamese internet newspapers An analysis and a comparation were made to find out differences and similarities between international news on English and Vietnamese internet newspapers The corpus of the study consists of 200 international news items withdrawn from famous internet newspapers on the world wide web 100 of them are from English internet newspapers and the other are from Vietnamese ones Motivation to conduct the study is two-fold First, while there exists a multitude of studies that compare between English and Vietnamese, very little contrastive analysis has been carried out at the level of discourse Second, the explosive growth of internet in recent years makes remarkable contribution to the blooming of a new press type: internet newspapers Moreover, the pressure of globalization forces mutual understanding among nations That is why international news on internet newspapers is chosen the main subject of this study The thesis will analyze discourse properties in terms of linguistic features Results of the analysis will be the similarities and differences between the two subject groups concerning linguistic features Besides the sudy will give suggestions for learners

of English to overcome errors when studying written translation of the international news on Vietnamese internet newspapers

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Directness and indirectness on English internet newspapers

Table 2: Types of headlines on English internet newspapers

Table 3: Structure of noun phrase headlines on English internet newspapers

Table 4: Types of sentence headlines on English internet newspapers

Table 5: Simple vs complex sentences as headlines on English internet newspapers Table 6: Sentence patterns of headlines on English internet newspapers

Table 7: Directness and indirectness on Vietnamese internet newspapers

Table 8: Types of headlines on Vietnamese internet newspapers

Table 9: Types of phrase headlines on Vietnamese internet newspapers

Table 10: Types of sentence headlines on Vietnamese internet newspapers

Table 11: Simple vs complex sentences on Vietnamese internet newspapers

Table 12: Sentence patterns in headlines on Vietnamese internet newspapers

Table 13: Errors made by students

Table 14: Terminology errors

Table 15: Errors made by students

Table 16: Reasons cause the errors by students

Table 17: Suggestions by students

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of contents vi

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1.Rationale 1

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

1.2.1 The aims of the study 1.2.1 The objectives of the study 1.3 Research questions 2

1.4 Research methods 2

1.5 Scope of the study 3

1.6 Significance of the study 3

1.7.Design of the study 4

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous studies 5

2.2 Discourse and text 6

2.2.1 Discourse and text… ……… 6

2.2.2 Criteria of discourse……… 7

2.2.3 Genre of discourse……….9

2.2.4 International news on internet newspapers 9

2.2.4.1 Internet newspapers 9

2.2.4.2 International news on internet newspapers 11

2.3 Contrastive analysis 12

2.3.1 Definition of contrastive analysis 12

2.3.2 Principles for contrastive study 13

2.4 Linguistic features of international news on English and on Vietnamese internet newspapers

2.4.1 The linguistic features of international news on English internet newspapers 14 2.4.2 The linguistic features of international news on Vietnamese internet

newspapers

2.5 Summary………20

CHAPTER III: DISCOURSE PROPERTIES OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS ON ENGLISH INTERNET NEWSPAPERS AND ON VIETNAMESE INTERNET NEWSPAPERS 3.1 DISCOURSE PROPERTIES OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS ON ENGLISH INTERNET NEWSPAPERS 3.1.1 Lexical choice 21

3.1.2 Tense 22

3.1.3 Directness and indirectness 22

3.1.4 Sentence patterns 24

3.1.5 Cohesion devices 29

3.2 DISCOURSE PROPERTIES OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS ON VIETNAMESE INTERNET NEWSPAPERS

3.2.1 Lexical choice 31

3.2.2 Tense 32

3.2.3 Directness and indirectness 33

3.2.4 Sentence patterns 34

3.2.5 Cohesion devices 48

3.3 Comparison of discourse properties of international news on Vietnamese internet newspapers and on English internet newspapers 39

3.4 Summary 42 CHAPTER IV: ERRORS MADE BY STUDENTS AT NAMDINH UNIVERSITY

OF TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION WHEN LEARNING VIETNAMESE-ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS ON VIETNAMESE INTERNET NEWSPAPERS

4.1 Subjects 43

4.2 Data collection instruments 43

4.2.1 Test 43

4.2.2 Questionnaire……… …… 43

4.2.3 Interview 43

4.3 Procedure……… ……… 44

4.4 Data analysis……… 45

4.4.1 The test……… ……….46

4.4.2 The questionnaire 46

4.4.3 The interview 49

4.5 Causes of committing errors……… 50

4.6 Suggestions for overcoming errors when translating the international news on Vietnamese internet newspapers……… 51

4.7 Summary 52

CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 5.1 Recapitulation……… …… 54

5.2 Concluding remarks 55

5.3 Implications 55

5.4 Limitations……….56

5.5 Recommendations for further study……… 56 REFERENCES

APPENDIX

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale

Mass media in general and newspaper in particular nowadays plays a very important role in our lives Many people even say that living in the world without newspapers

is like living in an isolated island Newspaper helps us become informed citizens and make better decision by providing a lot of facts Hard news stories, vital statistics, weather, sport, etc are examples of items that help inform readers Some newspapers articles help interprete or explain the meaning of news to readers

In the modern life, it is the rapid growth in communication technology that has created new media for language use Therefore, analyzing language is unsurprisingly paid much attention to not only by linguists but also by people at large

In traditional linguistic research, there are many works on text analysis, which focus only on the formal properties of language divorced from their communicative functions Modern linguistic tendency of research focuses on discourse analysis, which is functional analysis of discourse involving the analysis of language in use Emphasizing as above, it is to be noted that discourse properties, although a challenge to researchers and learners, has attracted much of their attention This inspires the thesis author up for the contrastive study of discourse properties between English and Vietnamese, and the chosen subject is news on internet newspapers

In English, the investigation of news is concerned, a number of writers have discussed some aspects of language in journalism such as Crystal and Davy (1971), Van Dijk (1988)

In Vietnam, Nguyễn Hoà (1998) was focused on discourse analysis of news on political, economic and social issues However, all of those studies examine news in only print newspapers or analyze just small segments of news discourse

We are living in an era of globalization, in which all nations are closely interrelated They need to have deep understanding of their counterparts in every issue International news on the internet meets their information thirst Secondly, no one can deny the roles of Internet in society, which provides a huge volume of information

in the quickest, most effective way with the greatest impact Thanks to the Internet, all countries of the world can know about each other All the advantages of other mass media are encompassed in the Internet The development of the Internet has brought about great revolutions in mass media, among which internet newspapers see

their birth Internet newspapers nowadays attract the largest number of readers all over the world

With all of the above reasons, the researcher proposes A contrastive analysis on

discourse properties of international news on English and Vietnamese internet newspapers as the title of the thesis

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

The study aims at finding out the discourse properties of international news on

English and Vietnamese internet newspapers to help learners of English study

translation of international news on English and Vietnamese internet newspapers effectively

To achieve the mentioned aims above, the following objectives can be put forward:

- Pointing out discourse properties of international news on internet newspapers

- Finding out the similarities and differences between international news on English and Vietnamese internet newspapers in terms of discourse properties

- Finding out errors and suggestions for students at Namdinh university of technology education when studying Vietnamese-English written translation of the international news on Vietnamese internet newspapers

1.3 Research questions

The study attempts to answer the following questions

1 What are the linguistic features of international news on English and Vietnamese internet newspapers?

2 What are the similarities and the differences between those two subjects

in terms of discourse properties?

3 What are the common errors and the suggestions for students at Namdinh university of technology education when learning Vietnamese-English written translation of the international news on Vietnamese internet newspapers?

1.4 Research methods

The qualitative method is used in collecting data It categorizes data into patterns as the primary basis for organizing and reporting results It is concerned about smaller but focused samples rather than large random samples

The quantitative method is the systematic scientific investigation of properties, relying exclusively on the analysis of numerical or quantifiable data

The descriptions and interpretations in the thesis are based on theories of contrastive analysis, discourse analysis and previous studies of linguists on the related field

After the analysis to identify typical features of the international news on internet newspapers, the thesis will reach some generalizations and comparisons based on those analytical results

In order to give in-depth and detailed description of the international news in terms

of discourse analysis, the descriptive method is employed

The thesis will provide a comparison relevant to discourse properties between the two groups of subjects

1.5 Scope of the study

The internet newspapers are a huge stock of information in which there is a great variety of news on all issues: sports news, entertainment news, cultural news, social news, political news, etc In this study, the writer only desires to focus on international politics news on English and Vietnamese internet newspapers in 2017

A random collection of about 200 pieces of news half of which are from English internet newspapers, and the other half 100 are from Vietnamese internet newspapers will be representatives for the whole population

Sources of the English political news are mostly from big communication corporations on the World Wide Web such as BBC, CNN, FoxNews, REUTERS, CBC The other group of data roots from some famous Vietnamese internet newspapers such as VnExpress, VietnamNet, VnMedia, Thanhnienonline, tintuconline

Description of the international politics news on internet newspapers as discourses will be carried out under approach: linguistic features

1.6 Significance of the study

Thereotically, this study is to provide a supplementary contribution to linguistic research Moreover, this is the first research focusing on contrastive analysis of international news in terms of discourse properties between English and Vietnamese internet newspapers

Practically, the results of the research are meaningful in providing insights for those interested in news in general and news on internet in particular As for teaching and learning English, in which news is considered main source of classroom material, this study will be very useful It also assists readers in better interpreting and understanding information on the Internet, and is beneficial for the integration of Vietnamese internet newspapers into the world press

1.7.Design of the study

The study is composed of the following parts:

Chapter I, Introduction, deals with the rationale, aims, research questions, research methods, scope, significance and design of the study

Chapter II, Literature review, provides the theoretical background for the study such

as fundamental concepts in contrastive analysis, discourse properties, internet newspapers and news on internet newspapers

Chapter III gives description of discourse properties of the international news on English and Vietnamese internet newspapers based on field: Linguistic features and comparison of discourse properties of the international news on Vietnamese internet

newspapers and on English internet newspapers

Chapter IV points out common errors for students at Nam Dinh university of technology education when studying Vietnamese-English written translation of the international news on Vietnamese internet newspapers and finds out suggestions for students when learning Vietnamese-English written translation of the international news on Vietnamese internet newspapers

Conclusion suggests some implications for learners when using news as materials in the classroom

References and Appendix comes at the end of the study

CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides an overview of the theoretical background as well as relevant knowledge and summaries of previous research’s findings and conclusion associated with the theme of the research In other words, the review is to explain several related terms and definitions as to discourse properties, contrastive analysis, internet newspapers, international news on internet newspapers, and approach, linguistic features of international news on English and Vietnamese internet newspapers

2.1 Previous studies

With regard to discourse, there have been some outstanding publications contributing

to the understanding of this term as well as putting its theory into practice of discourse analysis

In English, there are some typical authors such as Cook (1989), Halliday (1976), McCarthy (1991) Cook (1989) illustrated the term of discourse as well as discourse analysis and recommended its practical relevance to the language learning and teaching Halliday (1976) focused on the application of systemic functional grammar

to the analysis of texts in both written and spoken forms as well as the register factors

in discourse McCarthy (1991) did not stop at theory and description of discourse analysis with real data in both spoken and written forms, but try to show many ways

of adapting news finding in description to the everyday business of teaching which are really useful for teachers

In Vietnam, some linguists have also made great contributions to the study of discourse and discourse analysis such as Diệp Quang Ban (1998), Nguyễn Hòa (1998) Diệp Quang Ban (1998) paid much attention to cohesive devices in Vietnamese texts Remarkably, Nguyễn Hoà (1998) gave a systematic description of discourse and discourse analysis both theoretically and practically with specific evidences

As far as the investigation of the news is concerned, a number of writers have discussed some aspects of language in journalism Crystal (1992) took into consideration the language of newspaper reporting through chosen extracts of journalist writing Remarkably, Van Dijk(1988) on the one hand, presented a series

of examples to interpret the structures used in the national and international news in the press On the other hand, he contributed to summarizing the discourse analysis theory in terms of the processes and structures of news reports

To the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence that any research on investigating discourse features of international news on English and Vietnamese internet newspapers has been done at Hanoi Open university Thus, a contrastive analysis on discourse properties of international news on English and Vietnamese internet newspapers is chosen as the subject area of our master thesis

2.2 Discourse properties

2.2.1 Discourse and text

Discourse and text are very trendy words referring to very trendy concepts Linguistic theorists define the terms discourse and text in a number of different

ways, they still have something in common Some linguists maintain that the two terms can be used interchangeably Halliday and Hasan (1976), for example, are the proponents of this tendency

For them, the term text is referred to as a “semantic unit”, and that “ a text is a unit

of language in used”

By contrast, some other linguists draw a clear and explicit distinction between the

terms Widdowson (1984) claims that: “Discourse is a communicative process by

means of interaction Its situational outcome is a change in a state of affairs: information is conveyed, intention made clear, its linguistic product is text”

According to Crystal (1992), discourse is considered to be “ a continuous stretch of

(especially spoken) language large than a sentence, ofen constituting a coherent unit, such as a sermon, argument, joke or narrative Text is a piece of naturally occurring spoken, written or signed language identified for purposes of analysis”

In fact, it is sometimes impossible to make a clear cut distinction between discourse and text However, the study will be based on the approach developed by Halliday

and Hasan (1985) “ text (discourse) can be defined in the simplest way perhaps by

saying that it is language that functional By functional we simply mean language that is dong some job in some context as apposed to isolated words or sentencces that

I might put on the blackboard So any instance of living language that is playing some part in a context of situation, we shall call it a text It may be either spoken or written

or indeed in any other medium of expression that we like to think of”

This thesis will follow the view of Halliday and Hasan (1985), in which the term text

is used to refer to any written record of communicative event and regarded as the

product of discourse, so discourse and text can be often used interchaneably to

denote the same subject matter

Coherence- the order of statements relates one another by senses

Intentionality- the message has to be conveyed deliberately and consciously

Acceptability- indicates that the communicative product needs to be satisfactory in that the audience approves it

Informativeness- some new information has to be included in the discourse

Situationality- circumstances in which the remark is made are important

Intertextuality- reference to the world outside the text or the interpreters’ schemata Register of discourse

M.A.K Halliday, who was one of the first linguists to pay special attention to the

concept of 'register' in the 1960s and 1970s, interprets this notion as “a semantic concept” which “can be defined as a configuration of meanings that are typically associated with a particular situational configuration of field, mode, and tenor.” (Halliday 1990, 38f.) The linguistic features (specific expressions, lexico-grammatical and phonological features) and the particular values of the three dimensions of field, mode and tenor determine the functional variety of a language (cf Halliday 1994, 22) These three parameters can be used to specify the context of situation in which language is used

According to Hudson (1980), register is used in sociolinguistics to refer to “varieties

according to use”, which is contrary to the term “dialect”, defined as “varieties according to user” A particular register distinguishes itself from others by

possessing distinctive words, by using words or phrases in a particular way and sometimes by special grammar constructions

Galperin (1977: 89) considers registers “the functional styles” and he proposes: “a

functional style of language is a system of interrelated language means which serves

as a definite aim in communication”

Galperin also divides registers into five categories:

 The language of belle-letters

 The language of official documents

 The language of scientific prose

 The language of publicistic literature

 The language of newspaper

2.2.3 Genre of discourse

As is defined by Swales (1990:58): A genre comprises a class of communicative

events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes These purposes are recognized by the expert members of the parent discourse community, and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre This rationale shapes the

schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constraints choice of

content and style

Based on the work of Swales, Bhatia (1993) gives some characteristics related to genre as follows:

- Specialist members of any professional or academic community identify and understand the structure of the genre

- The nature and construction of a genre is affected by many factors such as content, form, channel, etc…However, it is mostly marked by the shared set of communicative purposes that shapes the genre and give it an internal structure

- When writing, the writer has to comply with the practices within the boundaries

of a particular genre

- Professional or academic community members can exploit these constraints better than the non-specialists

He concludes that “each genre is an instance of a successful achievement of a

specific communicative purpose using conventionalized knowledge of linguistic and discoursal resources”

To sum up, genres are staged, goal-directed and purposeful A genre can be defined

as a cultural specific text-type which results from using language to help accomplish something Genre is associated with:

- Particular purposes

- Particular stages: beginnings, middles and endings

- Particular linguistic features

Each genre possesses its distinctive linguistics features, which focus on the genre’s language Linguistic features involve: grammar, morphology, syntax, semantics…

2.2.4 International news on internet newspapers

2.2.4.1 Internet newspapers

An internet newspapers or online newspaper is the online version of a newspaper, either as a stand-alone publication or as the online version of a printed periodical An online newspaper created by Bruce Parrello in 1974 on the PLATO system at the University of Illinois Beginning in 1987, the Brazilian newspaper Jornaldodia ran on the state owned Embratel network, moving to the internet in the 1990s By the late 1990s, hundreds of U.S newspapers were publishing online versions, but did not yet

offer much interactivity ( Schultz, 1999) Rigley (1998) points out that in the early

1990s, only a half dozen major newspapers in the USA and about a dozen smaller papers had a significant newspaper product or an interactive/on-line paper on the Internet provider like America On Line By the mid 1990s, internet newspaper offerings appeared almost daily and practically The number of internet newspapers increased rapidly the growth

As far as internet newspapers in Vietnam is concerned, on November 19th 1997, our country officially took part in the global information network In February of 1998,

the internet version of “Que huong” became the first Vietnamese internet

newspapers on the internet Since then, Vietnam has witnessed the continuous blooming of hundreds of internet newspapers Since then, Vietnam has witnessed the blooming of hundred of online newspapers and online news websites such as http://www.dantri.com (Dan tri online newspaper)

http:// www.vnexpress.net,

http://www.vietnamnet.com.vn, http://www.24h.com.vn,

http://www.tuoitre.com.vn, http://www.thanhnien.com.vn,

http://www.tienphongonline.com.vn

The internet newspaper has some major characteristics Firstly, hypertext creates “a

delivery system for separate closed units – a system which allows only embedded links pointing outward”( Nelson, 1999) Texts, interconnected through links -

hyperlinks - can be referred internally (to other texts within the text's domain) or externally (to texts located elsewhere on the Internet)

The second characteristic is multimediality, technology gives journalists more freedom in terms of presentation style Moreover, multimediality helps to creates attractiveness of an internet newspaper The final characteristic is interactivity, this characteristic of internet newspapers offers readers opportunities to give comment, reply, and feedback They even can contact to the author, or the journalist to discuss more about the posted issue Recent new media consumption research by Shyam Sundar (2000) reveals that the more interactive opportunities websites give to users, the more involved the users will feel about the Web site

Theory of internet newspapers is a sourse of studying internet newspapers in

general and international news on internet newspapers in particular

2.2.4.2 International news on internet newspapers

News has impact on every walk of our lives A complete definition of news is controversy Due to its diverse meaning, it is impossible to define news properly We usually understand news as all and any information considered ‘new’, that expresses some kind of freshness and raises public curiousity (Comassetto, 2001) According

to Lage (2001), none of the classic journalism definitions is capable of determining its study objective in a unique way Nevertheless, talking about structure, news is

defined in modern journalism as, “the enunciation of a series of facts emanating from

a most important or relevant fact; and from each fact, emanating from the most important or relevant aspect.”

In his book “News as Discourse”, Teun A Van Dijk (1988) has proposes the notion

of media news in everyday usage as consisting of the following concepts:

- News information is about events, things or persons

- A (TV or radio) program type in which news items are presented

- A news items or news report, i.e, a text or discourse on radio, on TV or in the newspapers, in which new information is given about recent events

Salwen, Garrison, & Driscoll (2005) regard news on internet “a relatively new

phenomenon in the history of journalism A decade ago, newspapers and news providers were just beginning to explore the possibilities of near-instant delivery of content to readers that the World Wide Web can supply Currently, thousands of newspapers, television and radio stations, magazines, and other publications have

a presence online, and millions of Web users read news on the Internet every day”

News was traditionally provided by means of newspapers, radio, and television through text, sound, or image The emergence of the Internet with so many exclusive features, to some extents, has reduced the importance of such traditional news media According to Teun A Van Dijk (1988) the news has the following structure

Figure 1: Inverted pyramid structure

All the important information is in the first one, two or three paragraphs The development of the story and additional details come next The least important

information is at the end

The news story progresses from more important through less and less important information Conventionally, an international news should contain the answers to the

so-called five “W” and one “H” who, what, when, where, why, how

In the inverted pyramid structure, journalists top-load the essential and most interesting elements of their story, with supporting information following in order

of diminishing importance In other words, they go from the most important material

to the least important, and from general points to specific details, so it is important

to start with the most vital information and add details farther down

This structure enables readers to quit reading at any point and still come away with the essence of a story It allows people to enter a topic to the depth without being annoyed of what they consider irrelevant details As far as editors are concerned,

this structure also facilitates them when editing the work of reporters They can easily cut down the long news so as to fit the newspaper space

Teun A Van Dijk (1988) indicates that the news on internet newspapers is various

in topics: news of entertainment, news of social events, news of sports, etc And international news refers to news which focuses on international issues, which involve: inter-relations among countries: official visits, economic cooperation, political negotiations; global issues: climate change, peace, conflict, international security; external policies and political opinions towards other countries

And this study will follow the view of Teun A Van Dijk (1988), international news refers to news which focuses on international issues, which involve: inter-relations

am ong countries: official visits, economic cooperation, political negotiations; global issues

This is a source of studying international news on internet newspapers, in this thesis, the author only focused on political news according to linguistic features

The international political news is news from around the world, coverage of national stories and political coverage

2.3 Contrastive analysis

2.3.1 Definition of contrastive analysis

It is assumed that learning of second language is facilitated whenever there are similarities between that language and the mother tongue Learning may be interfered when there are marked contrasts between the mother tongue and the second language (Nickel, 1971) For this reason, linguists all over the world long ago recognized the necessity to find out the similarities and differences among languages Systematic comparative studies examining these factors started around the end of 19th century and the beginning of 20th century, especially in Europe There exists a previous term ‘Contrastive linguistics’ referring to comparative study which gives emphasis on linguistic differences Contrastive linguistics was defined

as “a subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the comparison of two or more languages or subsystems of languages in order to determine both the differences and similarities between them” (Fisiak, 1981)

Lado (1957) marks the real beginning of modern applied contrastive linguistics After that the term “Contrastive analysis” is used as an alternative for contrastive linguistics According to him, the purpose of contrastive analysis is to carefully describe the source language and the target language in order to develop effective

pedagogical materials The basic assumption of contrastive analysis is learning a second language involves transferring the meanings and linguistic forms from the first language as a set of habits

Contrastive Analysis is a method of analyzing, involving a pair of languages Focusing on the compatible items of such two languages, the contrastive analysts will be able to find out their differential aspects Long and Sato (1984) claim that the primary focus of contrastive analysis is on difference and types of difference

Contrastive analysis is viewed as an interlinguistic, bidirectional phenomenon which is concerned with both the form and function of language As such, contrastive analysis must view language psycho- linguistically and socio-linguistically as a system to be both described and acquired

2.3.2 Principles for contrastive study

Chaturvedi (1973) suggests the following guiding principles for contrastive study:

- To analyse the mother tongue and the target language independently and completely

- To compare the two languages item-wise-item at all levels of their structure

- To arrive at the categories of

o similar features

o partially similar features

o dissimilar features - for the target language

- To arrive at principles of text preparation, test framing and target language teaching in general

This thesis will follow his guiding principles He suggests that in order to know the significantly similar structures in both languages, the first step to be adopted is that both languages should be analysed independently After that, sorting out the different features of the two language, and comparing the two language are necessary

2.4 The linguistic features of international news on English and on Vietnamese internet newspapers

2.4.1 The linguistic features of the international news on English internet newspapers

According to Nguyễn Thị Hồng (2007), the international news on English internet newspapers is divided into five groups in terms of linguistic features: lexical choice, tense, directness and indirectness, sentence patterns, cohesion devices

2.4.1.1 Lexical choice

According to Nguyễn Thị Hồng (2007), the choice of words is of importance in international news on English internet newspapers The use of one word instead of another can change the tone of the sentence and create a wholly different connotation for the reader Thereby, the lexical choice has a certain effect on the impression that the readers receives from an article

Salwen, Garrison, & Driscoll (2005) also indicated that one main characteristic of international news on English internet newspapers is read by people all over the world The fact that English is an international language and English internet

newspapers are boomingly available on the internet 24 hours a day makes them

become the most prevalent means of communication International news on English internet newspapers mentions full aspects of issues relating to all parts of the world Internet users worldwide take concern about it with the aim to understand other countries as well as to see what the world say about their own nations This characteristic determines the lexical choice of international news on English internet

newspapers

The international news covers all issues on the world: politics, economy, religion, lifestyles, health, education, etc Hereafter, there appears many term words of certain fields, relying on the main topic of the news In this study, the author will focuss on

international political news

2.4.1.2 Tense

Garrison (2005) stated that the simple present tense is the most popular form of verbs

in international news on English internet newspapers The fact that the news may describe something that is happening, something that happens repeatedly, even something that happened already or something that is going to happen in the near future

2.4.1.3 Directness and indirectness

Nguyễn Thị Hồng (2007) proved the use of directness and indirectness in

international news on English internet newspapers can be classified into three types:

Direct quotations, Partial quotations, Indirect quotations

Directness

According to Van Dijk (1998), with every utterance, a speaker performs a speech act

It can be a question , a command , a statement, or a bunch of other speech acts, like promises, threats, or requests In terms of speech acts, directness could be explained

as matching the speech act with the grammatical structure it most naturally takes In

the examples above the question, the command, and the statement are all easily recognizable, and can be interpreted at face value The use of directness and indirectness in international news on English internet newspapers can be classified into three types: direct quotation, partial quotation, indirect quotation

Indirectness

Van Dijk (1998) wrote that if directness was defined as matching your speech act with your structure, indirectness would then be e.g using an interrogative structure to

convey a non-question speech act, like a or even a command

As already noted, indirectness is very useful in socially distant situations People have varied levels of directness tolerance, and until you know where the limit is, it is wise

to stay well on the polite side

The interplay of directness and indirectness is also an interesting factor in social situations where some people know each other better and some are new

acquaintances Using direct speech to your old friends and indirect speech to the

newcomers is an efficient way to keep the two groups separate

Partial quotations

Partial quotations are mixtures of direct and indirect quotes They may also be referred to as modified or fragmentary quotations

2.4.1.4 Sentence patterns

Nguyễn Thị Hồng (2007) indicated that sentence pattern of international news on

English internet newspapers is devided into three parts: headline, lead, body

the reading proces and steers the reader in a certain direction According to Yankee Group (2001) a headline may be formed from a word, a phrase, a sentence fragment

or a sentence

With the headline as a phrase, the syntactic structure of a phrase consists of more

than one word but lacks the subject-predicate organization As for noun phrases, Quirk (1973) distinguishes two constituents: the head and the modification The modification can precede or follow the head, correspondingly named pre-modification and post-modification

Pre-modification + Head noun + Post modification

Pre-modification + Head noun

Head noun + Post modification

With the headline as a fragment, Nguyễn Thị Hồng (2007) described that the

headline of the international political news on English internet newspapers are formed

as the results of omitting some certain words, usually the verbs such as “to be” or the

auxiliary verbs A fragment is a group of words lacking a subject predicate but still convey a complete thought Thus, in terms of grammatical structure, fragments are wrong and need editing However, lots of internet newspapers choose fragments to

form their news headlines

With the headline as a sentence, it holds the upper hand among the headlines for

news on internet because they state a complete thought and are the most comprehensible to internet scanners Quirk (1973:191) divides English sentences

into four types: statements (declarative), questions (interrogative), commands (imperative) and exclamation (exclamatory)

The lead

As for the structure of lead, Werlich (1973) asserts that, in it strictest form, only the very first sentence of the international news summaries the whole story It can be said, however, that the lead need not always be expressed in a single sentence, but may also consist of more than one sentence Neverthless, Werlich (1973) receives support from Van Dijk (1988) who characterises the lead sentence as one complex sentence the function of which is to express the macrostructure of the story

that coordinate ideas and experiences and texture is one of the three meta-functions for creating meaning within language The most often cited type of cohesion is reference Another type of cohesion which function to create texture, is lexical cohesion Lexical cohesion is the central device for making texts hang together experientially Therefore, the textual analysis proves that cohesion is an important aspect for creating meaning within text The object of cohesion devices is to give readers information, and wow them with convoluted style

Van Dijk (1988) describes cohesion devices in the news may be anything from one word to a complete sentence: Single words, synonyms, phrases, clauses, sentences All these parts in 2.5.1 are sources to analyze the linguistic features of the international political news on English internet newspapers in the chapter three

2.4.2 The linguistic features of the international news on Vietnamese internet newspapers

According to Nguyễn Thị Hồng (2007), the linguistic features of international news

on Vietnamese internet newspapers are also divided into five groups: lexical, tense, directness and indirectness, sentence patterns, cohesion devices

2.4.2.1 Lexical choice

Vietnamese internet newspapers has more limited number of audience, who are only

from Vietnam or know Vietnamese This decisive characteristic makes the linguistic

features of international news on Vietnamese internet newspapers definitely not the

same as its English counterpart According to Nguyễn Thị Hồng (2007), reporters of Vietnamese internet newspapers use rhetorics in international political news, which may be inferred as the reporters’ point of view

2.4.2.2 Tense

Nguyễn Thị Hồng (2007) states the tenses in Vietnamese are not expressed via the

conjugation of verbs like in English Instead, the using of words such as đã, đang, sẽ and time expression like hôm qua, hôm nay, tuần sau,etc will help determine the

Vietnamese tenses

2.4.2.3 Directness and indirectness

Nguyễn Thị Hồng (2007) comments “similar to international news on English internet newspapers, directness and indirectness appears in all news on Vietnamese

internet newspapers in three main types: Direct quotations, Indirect quotations,

Partial quotations.”

2.4.2.4 Sentence patterns

The headline

Nguyễn Thị Hồng (2007) proved that the news headlines on Vietnamese internet newspapers are shaped from either phrases or sentences There is no headline on

Vietnamese made up from a word

With the headline as a phrase, the international news on Vietnamese internet

newspapers phrase headlines are flexibly applied, mainly with two types: noun phrases and verb phrases Adjective phrases and prepositional phrases are sometimes recruited

With the headline as a sentence, sentence headlines are still the most pervasive on

Vietnamese internet newspapers because they take along the amount of information that is sufficient enough for internet readers to continue with the rest of news As for the four types of sentences that Quirk (1973:191) points out (statement, question, command and exclamation) Headline as a sentence consists of two kinds: simple sentence and complex sentence Nguyễn Thị Hồng (2007) points out that there are plenty of sentence structures used in simple sentence headlines on Vietnamese internet newspapers: SV, SVO, SVC, SVA, SVOA, SVOC,SVOO

The lead and the body

According to Nguyễn Thị Hồng (2007), in terms of sentence types, leads and bodies

of the international news on Vietnamese internet newspapers also engage the

complex sentences rather than the simple ones

2.4.2.5 Cohesion devices

Nguyễn Thị Hồng (2007) stated that the body of the international news on

Vietnamese internet newspapers is also composed of block paragraphs Block

paragraphing makes the use of effective transitions very important Like English internet newspapers, the mostly used cohesion device is repetition of the key words which are presented in the headlines

All these parts in 2.5.2 are sources to analyze the linguistic features of the international political news on Vietnamese internet newspapers in the chapter three

2.5 Summary

This chapter provides the theoretical background for the study and the previous studies Its focus is on introducing fundamental concepts in contrastive analysis, discourse properties, and the international news on English and Vietnamese internet newspapers In the previous studies, the studies of authors in oversea and in Vietnam

are given In the theory of discourse properties, contrastive analysis and overview of international news on internet newspapers and semantics are analyzed thoroughly in order to use for background of analyzing the linguistic features of the international political news on English and Vietnamese internet newspapers Finally, theoretical background is given briefly reviewing what has been found and discussed the related studies by describing their approaches and key findings

All the parts of this chapter that can be considered as the source for our detailed analysis hereafter

CHAPTER III: DISCOURSE PROPERTIES OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS

ON ENGLISH INTERNET NEWSPAPERS AND ON VIETNAMESE INTERNET NEWSPAPERS

Given the necessary limitations of scope, the international news covers all issues in the world: politics, economy, religion, lifestyles, health, education However, in this chapter, the author is going to focus on the linguistic features of the international political news on English and Vietnamese internet newspapers Moreover, this chapter will give comparison of those two subjects in terms of discourse properties

3.1 DISCOURSE PROPERTIES OF INTERNATIONAL NEWS ON ENGLISH INTERNET NEWSPAPERS

After studying the background, it is found out that the discourse properties of the intenational political news on English internet newspapers is divided into five groups

according to linguistic features: lexical choice, tense, directness and indirectness, sentence patterns, cohesion devices

3.1.1 Lexical choice

Popular words are preferred, which ensures that everyone across the world can

read and understand it By using uncomplicated words, not only the information is provided clearly and exactly but also the readers’ capacity of getting content will obviously increase If the reporters make all effort to think of too cute words to transfer their ideas, users may encounter difficulties in picking up the meaning of the text

Take the following sentences extracted from news as an example, whose content

is rather comprehensible because of uncomplicated word choices

Members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) left Washington, D.C., last night following several days of meetings with a White House official, members of Congress and State Department officials Their message for President Trump was clear: Stop Iran and Al Qaeda in Syria, and they will work with his administration to bring peace

to the war-torn nation

(FOX – 07/09/2017)

Most of words used in this news are popular, simple, and familiar such as members,

left, meetings, White House officials, message, clear, President Trump, bring peace

Reporters try to avoid words expressing their personal viewpoints in international political news, only present the fact of the event Metaphors and modal auxiliaries are rarely found partly because these kinds of words, to some extent, can reflect the

writer’s personal opinions One feature of internet newspapers is that, under many circumstances, they are informal This informality allows reporters to find humorous ways of expressing However, in the case of international political news, puns absolutely do not work Take the following sentences extracted from news as an example

Later Thursday, Trump insisted that his relationship with his chief of staff is fine

"He's great," the President told reporters during a stop in Pittsburgh "I think he's doing a great job I think General Kelly is doing a really great job He's a really special guy."

(CNN – 07/09/2017)

As seen in the news, metaphors and modal auxilaries are not found, the used word

is informal such as insisted, stop, fine, doing, great job, special guys

3.1.2 Tense

The simple present tense is the most popular form of verbs in international political news on English internet newspaers, in spite of the fact that the news may describe something that is happening, something that happens repeatedly, even something that happened already or something that is going to happen in the near future The present tense gives the subject a sense of freshness and immediacy, making it more interesting to read This grammatical phenomenon often appears in the headlines In the news leads and news bodies, verb tenses are used with the consideration of happening time of the event

For example, the headline Trump DOJ asks Supereme Court to overturn DACA

ruling use the simple present tense for the verb asks, but events in the news actually

happened in the past Considering the following lead

The Department of Justice on Thursday formally asked the U.S Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s ruling to block, in part, the Trump administration’s decision to phase out the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program

(FOX – 07/09/2017)

3.1.3 Directness and indirectness

To meet the requirement of direct, attractive and true to the news content, the direct and indirect speeches are essential to news As mentioned in 2.5.1 and after surveying 100 international political news items on English internet newspapers, the

finding shows that the direct and indirect speech appears in all of them

The use of directness and indirectness in the international political news on English

internet newspapers can be classified into three types: Direct quotations, Partial

quotations, Indirect quotations

Direct quotations

A direct quotation reproduces the words of another writer verbatim and is displayed

in quotation marks (if the quotation is fewer than 40 words) or as a block quotation (if the quotation is 40 words or more) For example:

"Now nothing will get done between now and Dec 15," one Republican aide told CNN in an email "You think people will vote for a budget now?"

(CNN- 06/09/2017)

In this example, "Now nothing will get done between now and Dec 15," and "You

think people will vote for a budget now?" are direct quotations Reporter repeat the Republican aide’s words exactly, and his word is displayed in quotation marks Take

the next example:

“Most people are on the same page that the ECB will do something to reduce their accommodation (soon),” said JP Morgan Asset Management Strategist Nandini Ramakrishnan “We don’t expect them to announce the start of tapering this meeting, but we do expect them to give us an idea they will start in January The details are more likely to come at the October meeting,” she added

(REUTERS – 05/09/2017)

“Most people are on the same page that the ECB will do something to reduce their accommodation (soon),” and “We don’t expect them to announce the start of tapering this meeting, but we do expect them to give us an idea they will start in January The details are more likely to come at the October meeting,” are direct quotations

Indirect quotations

Indirect quotes carry the meaning of a speaker or writer’s original words without using the exact words Indirect quotations can add information that strengthens your content in many of the same ways as direct quotations Indirect quotes are not offset

by quotation marks Below is an example of an indirect quote For example:

The military has said nearly 400 people, most they described as insurgents, had died

in clashes and that troops were conducting clearance operations It blames insurgents for setting the villages on fire, without offering proof

(AP – 04/09/2017)

In the piece of the news, reporter does not carry originally the military’s word And

his word is not displayed in quotation marks

(FOXNEWS- 28/8/2017)

After investigating 100 international political news items on English internet newspapers, the results in following table indicate the finding

Table 1: Directness and indirectness on English internet newspapers

Direct quotations Indirect quotations Partial quotations

As shown in the table 1, direct quotations are the most popular (65%), followed by

indirect quotations (25%) and partial quotations are the least prevalent (10%)

3.1.4 Sentence patterns

As mentioned in 2.5.1, sentence pattern of the international political news on English internet newspapers consists of three parts: headline, lead, body

3.1.4.1 The headline

Generally, a headline may be formed from a word, a phrase, a sentence fragment

or a sentence Nevertheless, surveying 100 pieces of the international political news

on E.I.N shows that there is no headline shaped from a word This unsurprising

fact results form one distinctive feature of reading news on internet that stated earlier: readers just scan the web screen to get the news Correspondingly, just a word as the headline cannot fulfill its function of conveying the information presented in the news The presence ratio of headline types is expressed in the following table:

Table 2: Types of headlines on English internet newspapers

Word

Headlines

Phrase Headlines

Fragment Headlines

Sentence Headlines

The headline as a phrase

The syntactic structure of a phrase consists of more than one word but lacks the subject-predicate organization Functioning as an introduction for the topic of the news, headlines are often realized as noun phrases The study on the international political news on English internet newspapers shows that noun phrases make up 90% among phrase headlines, adjective phrase and verb phrase account for 10% of phrase headlines As mentioned in background, the modification can precede or follow the head, correspondingly named pre-modification and post-modification

Noun phrase is the brief way to state an event, so when encountering a noun phrase, readers often ask themselves many questions related to the event This practice, to some extent, arouses their curiosity and therefore stimulates them to click more Noun phrase headlines of the international political news on English internet newspapers may have three different expressions depending on the presence or the absence of optional elements

After conveying the international poltical news on English internet newspapers, the results in following table indicate the finding

Table 3: Structure of noun phrase headlines on English internet newspapers

Pre-modification + Head noun + Post modification 42% Premodification+Head

“Premodification+Head noun” with 33%, and “Head noun + Post modification” with 25%

Pre-modification + Head noun + Post modification

For example:

Hanging Crackdown in Iran

(CNN- 18/7/2017)

“Hanging” is pre-modification

“Crackdown” is head noun

“In Iran” is post modification

Pre-modification + Head noun

For example: Mexico's Drug Problem

(AP-9/8/2017)

“Mexico’s Drug” is pre-modification

“Problem” is head noun

Head noun + Post modification

For example: Violence in Korea

(BBC- 18/08/2017)

“Violence” is head noun

“In Korea” is post modification

The headline as a fragment

As mentioned in 2.5.1, fragments not only satisfy the requirement of condensation for headlines but also rather succeed in the function of communication device Despite being incomplete sentences, they are still understandable for all readers After investigating 100 international political news, the finding shows that 80% of the verb

“to be” is often omitted in the cases of passive voice, 'be' +present participle ,'be'+

past participle Besides 'be' in the form of 'be+ adjective' and 'be +preposition +subject' is omitted also

Donald Trump Jr questioned by Senate committee staff

(Donald Trump Jr was questioned by Senate committee staff)

(FOX – 25/08/2017)

Syria willing to talk peace if Israel leaves Golan heights

(Syria is willing to talk peace if Israel leaves Golan heights)

(BBC- 26/08/2017)

or before the sentence complements, for example:

North Korea 'still on Us Terror Blacklist'

(North Korea is 'still on Us Terror Blacklist’)

(CNN- 4/9/2017)

Fragment headlines usually use “to + verb” to imply the near future plans or

intentions After conveing 100 international political news on English internet

newspaper, the result show that using “to + verb” is 20% among the headline as a

fragment For example:

Hugo Chavez to submit unlimited re-election bill to parliament 23/7

(Hugo Chavez is going to submit unlimited re-election bill to parliament)

(REUTERS- 23/08/2017)

The headline as a sentence

After investigating the first data group of 100 international political news pieces

on English internet newspapers, the results in following table indicates the

Command headlines

Exclamation headlines

We recognized that most of headlines are written in the form of statements with 80% The question headlines rank the second with 16%, followed by command headlines

with 3% and exclamation headlines nearly 1%

Statement headlines have a predominant position compared to the other three types because providing a statement is the simplest way to receive information In the mean time, exclamation headlines are not so popular since they contribute to expressing the news reporters’ opinion, which is a taboo in writing news

Examples of statement headlines:

Trump’s tax plan will explode U.S ecomic growth (FOX – 06/09/2017)

Examples of command headlines:

Keep Regional Quarrels Out of Talks (REUTERS- 8/08/2017) Don't play along with North America (AP-8/08/2017)

Example of exclamation headline:

What a dilemma! (BBC- 14/08/2017)

Examples of question headlines:

Can this man 'make Europe great again? (CNN – 4/09/2017)

Using of complex sentences as headlines is another notable characteristic of the international political news on English internet newspapers As for headlines in print newspapers, simple sentences outnumber complex ones (88% vs 12% respectively, according to a survey by N.T.V.Dong in 2000) However, in the case of international political news on English internet newspapers, there is not such a big difference