A study on syntactic and semantic features of sports newspaper headlines in english with reference to vietnamese equivalents

THESIS A STUDY ON SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF SPORTS NEWSPAPER HEADLINES IN ENGLISH WITH REFERENCE TO THE VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENCE NGHIÊN CỨU ĐẶC TRƯNG CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA T

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

A STUDY ON SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF SPORTS NEWSPAPER HEADLINES IN ENGLISH WITH REFERENCE TO THE

VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENCE

(NGHIÊN CỨU ĐẶC TRƯNG CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA TIÊU ĐỀ BÁO THỂ THAO TIẾNG ANH TRONG SỰ LIÊN HỆ TIẾNG VIỆT)

HA NGOC THU HANG

Field: English Language Code: 60220201

Hanoi, 2017

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A THESIS

A STUDY ON SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF SPORTS NEWSPAPER HEADLINES IN ENGLISH WITH REFERENCE TO THE

VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

(NGHIÊN CỨU ĐẶC TRƯNG CÚ PHÁP VÀ NGỮ NGHĨA CỦA TIÊU ĐỀ

BÁO THỂ THAO TIẾNG ANH TRONG SỰ LIÊN HỆ TIẾNG VIỆT)

HA NGOC THU HANG

Field: English Language Code: 60220201

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Ho Ngoc Trung

Hanoi, 2017

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CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled:

“A STUDY ON SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF SPORTS NEWSPAPER HEADLINES IN ENGLISH WITH REFERENCE TO THE

VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENCE” submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of Master in English Language Except where the reference is indicated,

no other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text of the

(Signature and full name)

Date:………

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my great gratitude to my supervisor,

Assoc Prof Dr Ho Ngoc Trung, for his enthusiasm, kindness and helpful advice

which encourages me much during my time of implementing the thesis

The second, I am greatly indebted to all my lectures at the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Hanoi Open University for their useful lectures, supports, encouragement and for inspiring me the love for English foreign language teaching and doing scientific research

Besides, I also offer my sincere thanks the friends and colleagues who helped me along the way

The finally and most importantly, I would like to express my whole-hearted gratitude to my family I could not have come this far without their love, their support and their understanding

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ABSTRACT

The present thesis discusses a certain field of linguistic focusing on a descriptive – contractive approach which is applied to investigating and analyzing syntactic and semantic features of headlines in English and the Vietnamese equivalence As a method of conducting the present research, contrastive linguistic analysis of headlines

in English and the Vietnamese equivalence, to figure out the similarities and differences of headlines represented in these two languages Similarities and differences of headlines between two languages have been identified in this thesis The aim of this thesis is investigating on syntactic structures and semantic

features of conceptual ‘Simile’ and raising Vietnamese learners’ awareness these conceptual The use of conceptual ‘Simile’ in particular have not yet been the specific

focus in different researchers, so that is why this thesis seeks to make a contribution and help them improve their real communication exactly and successfully in English More detail, I also point out some syntactic and semantic features of conceptual

‘Simile’ in English sports newspaper headlines with reference to the Vietnamese

equivalence; and the second one is to propose some implications for mastering

‘Similes’ features in an effective way

In general, the position of English Similes is the same as that of Vietnamese Similes Nevertheless, these positions bear different meanings in the two languages That is, in English, the clauses containing the speaker’s focus of interest may be put initially whereas in Vietnamese, those clauses may be put finally

The findings of this work are based on the descriptive method is utilized to give a

deep and detailed description of conceptual ‘Simile’ with reference to Vietnamese equivalence, hence pointing out the distinctive features of the conceptual ‘Similes’

which causes difficulties for Vietnamese learners and suggesting some implications for teaching these feature to learners at Academy of Journalism and Communication (AJC) The result of the study is expected to give some following benefits

The research result will help the lectures and students to solve part of their

problems in teaching and learning conceptual ‘Simile’ in headlines

The result of the research can be used as an additional knowledge to improve the students’ mastery of vocabulary Because, the students are able to get other new

meaning from the same ‘Simile’ if conceptual ‘Simile’ are added in headlines In other

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hand, by understanding about the using of this students can implement them in daily

conversation

They can also develop their mastery of ‘Simile’ in speaking, listening, reading and

writing By using more than one expression, the can say one idea in various ways

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Adj.P Adjective Phrase

Adv.P Adverb Phrase

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 3.1.2: Structure of conceptual ‘Simile’

Table 3.1.3.1: Percentage of semantic features of English sports newspaper headlines Table 3.2.1: Percentage of syntactic structures of Vietnamese sports newspaper

headlines

Table 3.2.2: Percentage of semantic features of Vietnamese sports newspaper headlines Table 4.1: Grading scale

Table 4.2.1.a: The test score

Table 4.2.1.b: Results of questions from number 1 to 20

Table 4.2.1.c: The most common errors

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of originality 1

Acknowledgements 2

Abstract 3

List of abbreviations 5

List of tables and figures 6

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 10

1.1 Rationale of the study 10

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study 11

1.2.1 Aims of the study 11

1.2.2 Objectives of the study 12

1.3 Research questions 12

1.4 Methods of the study 12

1.5 Scope of the study 12

1.6 Significance of the study 13

1.7 Design of the study 15

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 16

2.1 Previous study 16

2.2 Overview of syntax and semantic theory 18

2.2.1 Theory of syntax 18

2.2.2 Theory of semantics 19

2.3 Overview of headlines 20

2.3.1 Definition of headlines 20

2.3.2 Classification of headlines 21

2.4 Overview of conceptual ‘Simile’ 22

2.4.1 Definition of conceptual ‘Simile’ 22

2.4.2 Classification of conceptual ‘Simile’ 23

2.5 Summary 23

CHAPTER 3: SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH SPORTS NEWSPAPER HEADLINES AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS 25

3.1 Syntactic and semantic features of English sports newspaper headlines 25

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3.1.1 In terms of syntactic features 25

3.1.1.1 Sentential headlines 25

3.1.1.2 Non-sentential sports newspaper headlines 28

3.1.1.3 Word 30

3.1.1.4 Phrase 31

3.1.1.5 Clause 31

3.1.1.6 Sentence 31

3.1.2 In terms of syntactic features of conceptual ‘Simile’ 32

3.1.3 In terms of semantic features 32

3.1.3.1 Stylistic Devices 33

3.1.3.2 Types of meaning 35

3.1.4 In terms of semantic features of conceptual ‘Simile’ 35

3.2 Syntactic and semantic features of Vietnamese sports newspaper headlines 35

3.2.1 In terms of syntactic features 36

3.2.1.1 Word 36

3.2.1.2 Phrase 36

3.2.1.3 Clause 36

3.2.1.4 Sentence 37

3.2.2 In terms of semantic features 38

3.3 Comparison between sports newspaper headlines in English and Vietnamese 39

3.3.1 In terms of syntactic features 39

3.3.1.1 Similarities 39

3.3.1.2 Differences 39

3.3.2 In term of semantics features 40

3.3.2.1 Similarities 40

3.3.2.1 Differences 40

3.4 Similarities and differences between English ‘Simile’ and their Vietnamese

equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features 41

3.4.1 In terms of their syntactic 41

3.4.1.1 In terms of their sentence patterns 41

3.4.1.2 In terms of their sentence elements 42

3.4.2 In terms of their semantic 42

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3.5 Summary 42

CHAPTER 4: COMMON ERRORS MADE BY STUDENTS AT AJC WHEN USING SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES IN ENGLISH SPORTS NEWPAPER HEADLINES 43

4.1 Suggestions for results of the survey conducted at AJC 43

4.1.1 The survey questionnaire 43

4.1.2 Questionnaires 43

4.1.3 Procedure 45

4.2 Common errors made by students at AJC of English when using syntactic features denoting sport headlines 45

4.2.1 Common errors made by students of English 45

4.2.2 Causes of committing errors 50

4.3 Suggestions for teaching and learning when using conceptual ‘Simile’ in English 4.3.1 Suggestions for teaching conceptual ‘Simile’ in English 53

4.3.2 Suggestions for learning conceptual ‘Simile’ in English 54

4.4 Summary 54

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 56

5.1 Recapitulation 56

5.2 Limitation of the study 56

5.3 Recommendations/ Suggestions for further research 57

REFERENCES 58

INTERNET RESOURCES 59

APPENDIXES 61

APPENDIX 1 61

APPENDIX 2 63

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study

There is a booming trend that the objective of studying foreign language is to communicate people all over the world However, there are many reasons behind studying the language, especially English, if they are not good for using English grammar, it will become difficult in communicating in English with foreigners For instance, it is admitted that similes are regarded as a kind of connectors and connectors have the function for linking different parts in sentences This explanation for this could be that similes in headlines can be a figure of speech and each smiles will belong

to the situation For example, we use ‘as’ in this sentence: “Beckam ran as fast as the wind” There are a synonym of this word which can be replace “quickly”, this

connection means to show the reason Thus, similes support in liking successful sentences, they will make the sentences have clearly meanings when they translate from Vietnamese to English

The author decides to choose this topic to study because of two reasons Firstly, in English, similes have been studied scantly by many grammarians, such as Straumann,

H (1935) , Ungerer, F (Ed.) (2000), Reah, D (1998), Bell, A (1991) and Develotte, C., Rechniewski, E (2000) In Vietnamese, Ph Dr Nguyen Thi Van Dong (2007), M.A

Le Phuong (2009) and M A Diep Quang Ban (2005) However, there has been none giving out the comparison between English similes and the Vietnamese equivalence in terms of syntactic and semantic features

Secondly, plenty of Vietnamese learners may get accustomed to spoken English

as soon as they begin learning how to write and read in their mother tongue This means that people have recognized the importance and necessity of English as well as the advantages that English may bring about However, learning English is always a big challenge for Vietnamese native-speaker learners One of the challenging things of acquiring English is syntactic and semantic features of English newspaper headlines in general, which seem to be too hard for them to master, hence inevitable errors in using

conceptual ‘Similes’ in particular in communication: both spoken and written English

A headline is often the only thing that readers read in a newspaper, or at least, it is the first thing that everyone notices in a newspaper It serves as a guide for the learner

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that help decide whether to continue on reading the whole report or to skip onto another one Each headline should be a summary of the news which follows A headline should be a sentence, and so it also should have a regular sentence structure containing a subject and a verb with the exception that headlines normally does not contain auxiliaries, pronouns, articles, or conjunctions It means that only lexical, not grammatical words are used The major reason for that is the space There is only limited space provided for each headline and the problem of fitting the best words may occur Then the rule of a sentence may be broken, only minor sentences are used, and such a headline can be rather difficult to understand Sometimes this happens for a good reason, as space, but more often this happens on purpose to make the headline somehow special with the aim to attract the reader’s attention to the report or even to buy the newspaper at all In that case, readers are mystified, confused and in the end, after reading the report they can feel disappointed as it did not fulfil their expectations This work studies grammatical features used in headlines but, as the space of this paper is limited, it tries to focus mainly on the difference between metaphor and simile

It analyses their structure in comparison with the common core The analysis is based

on a corpus consisting of 500 randomly chosen abroad newspaper headlines The material used here is definitely limited and cannot exemplify all features; therefore the aim is rather to establish general characteristic with respect to the main areas which have been studied In the first chapter the function of a headline is introduced and readers will also learn some basic characteristic features of headlines

For these above reasons, the topic: “ A study on syntactic and semantic features

of sports newspaper headlines in English with reference to the Vietnamese equivalence” is chosen with the purpose of finding out the equivalents of English and Vietnamese In this study, conceptual ‘Simile’ is described and analyzed in contexts

and situations Hence, I do hope that the thesis will be a useful reference, to the extent possible, for teaching and learning English and Vietnamese as foreign languages

1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1.2.1 Aims of the study

The study is aimed at finding out the syntactic structures and semantic features of

sport headlines in general and conceptual ‘Simile’ in particular This study can raise

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Vietnamese learners’ awareness of headlines, and help them improve their real world communication exactly and successfully in English

1.2.2 Objectives of the study

In order to achieve the aims, the following objectives are put forward:

- Pointing out the syntactic and semantic features of English sports newspaper headlines

- Finding out the similarities and differences of English similes and the Vietnamese equivalence in terms of syntactic and semantic features

- Suggesting for teachers and learners of English, especially journalism students concerning sports headlines in newspapers

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Within the small scope of this study, three following research questions are

expected to be answered:

(i) What are the syntactic and semantic features of English sports newspaper

headlines and Vietnamese?

(ii) What are the similarities and differences of conceptual ‘Simile” in English and

their Vietnamese equivalents in terms of syntactic and semantic features?

(iii) What are suggestions for Vietnamese learner of English to learn conceptual

‘Simile ‘in English?

1.4 METHODS OF THE STUDY

In order to study the subject effectively, a flexible of methods is employed First, the quantitative methods are mainly employed to analyze the data collected The descriptive method is utilized to give a deep and detailed description of the

‘Simile’ feature and their Vietnamese equivalence Then examples foe illustrating the description will be taken from the grammar and reference book written by contemporary influential linguists in English such as

‘Newspaper headlines A study in linguistic method London’ S Lander

A number of general research methods such as metaphor, simile, synecdoche, metonymy, repetition, parallelism, triple, euphemism, hyperbole and rhetorical question It will be applied to carry out the thesis Besides, structural analysis, and description which are usually used to study linguistics will be applied in the thesis

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The second, quantitative method is used to quantify conceptual ‘Simile’ which are

found out in the research

1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study will present a theoretical background based on a number of materials for teaching and terminology Next, it will collect typical English and Vietnamese journalist terms from materials for journalist, analyze their general features and main structural features In the process, the study will pay attention about sports newspaper headlines in English with reference to the Vietnamese equivalence After that, the study will define common strategies applied in the English-Vietnamese journalist term teaching

This study focuses on some syntactic and semantic features found in the sports newspaper headlines in English and Vietnamese to see how they are equivalence

Besides that, the study only focuses on conceptual ‘Simile’ of sport headlines

particularly about language structures (forms) and functions of these newspaper headlines

Comparative method is used to analyze conceptual ‘Simile’ to explore the

Vietnamese using equivalence, hence pointing out syntactic and semantic feature which cause difficulties for Vietnamese learners and suggesting some implications for teaching at Academy of Journalism and Communication

Survey questionnaire in the form of a written test is used as one of data collection methods to evaluate participants’ ability in understanding conceptual

‘Simile’ in terms of syntactic and semantic features Then, the statistic method is

applied to present quantitative descriptions in a manageable form to simplify large amounts of data in a sensible way

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

It is hoped that the overall findings of the present study will be useful to everyone involved in language, teaching, learning of headlines in Vietnamese because language teachers and learners in particular will be made more aware of the importance of this language feature for a more effective and efficient communication

The first, Theoretical significance

The study of syntax is the investigation of the rules, principles, and processes which determine the structure of sentences in human languages Syntax can be seen as

of generative grammar developed by Noam Chomsky and others

It is this traditional of syntactic inquiry which is continued in our department Faculty and students are trained and work in Chomsky a syntax, using the framework

of the Minimalist Program This approach to syntax is intriguing and challenging because it seeks to reduce the theoretical apparatus to the bare minimum Essentially, syntax is constrained only by the lexicon (the repository of words) as well as the meaning and sound form of sentences

Semantics consists of the study of the relationships between symbols or signs such words, phrases, sentences, and discourses, and what these elements mean or stand in for:— their denotations and senses

The second, practical significance

In teaching English, syntactic and semantic features are an essential part of English communication and they are important for the students to know and understand

conceptual ‘Simile’ is commonly used at the office, in the household and in everyday

conversation They have become the beans and rice of English, so make sure the

students have more than conceptual ‘Simile’ in their English vocabulary

In learning English, when they watch movie, cartoon without translating into Vietnamese they sometimes do not understand whole the contents so students are most

likely using conceptual ‘Simile’ to understand, talk, share their ideas, put forward

opinions and learn different perspectives using English They all want to be exceptional English communicators

The research study could provide information on the issues of journalist Further, this study would also be a review on Academy of journalism and communication One

of my students showed me her journal on Live Journal and I noticed that many other of our students also had journal there Students are developing a whole community through school that is outside of ‘school’ Can some of that community be harnessed for ‘school’? Maybe it’s because I’m relatively new to teaching, but I am fascinated by what the students are doing- and learning

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1.7 DESIGN OF THE STUDY

According to the format of thesis It will be divided into 5 chapters:

- Chapter 1: Introduction – gives the reason why this topic has been chosen for the research as well as its aims and objectives, the scope, the significance and organizational structure of the thesis

- Chapter 2: Literature review – presents the previous studies relating to the research area and theoretical background employed for conducting the thesis

- Chapter 3: Syntactic and semantic features of English sports newspaper headlines and Vietnamese equivalents

Show syntactic and semantic features in English and compare similarities and

differences of conceptual ‘Simile’ in English sports newspaper headlines and their

Vietnamese equivalents

- Chapter 4: Common errors made by students at Academy of Journalism and

Communication (AJC) for gifted students when using conceptual ‘Simile’ in English

sports newspaper headlines

Shows the research implications for teaching and learning English and common errors made by students as a foreign language can be found as the last part of this chapter

- Chapter 5: Conclusion - makes a brief summary of the whole thesis, points out some limitations and give recommendation as well as suggestions for a further study

- References come at the end of the study

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CHAPTER 2 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 semantics, syntax, collocation, lexical unit

and approach, verb and structures with the conceptual ‘Simile’ in sports newspaper

headlines These later would further highlight the features conducted of the study as well as suggest an array of possible implications for teaching the English in general and teaching them to Vietnamese students at Academy of Journalism and Communication (AJC) in particular

2.1 Review of previous study

In this Chapter, review of related literature and theoretical background including the syntactic and semantic features of sports newspaper headlines in English and their Vietnamese equivalents will be provided

Headlines are obviously one of the striking features of modern newspapers Therefore it is not surprising that they have been studied quite extensively not only by journalists but also by linguists Some of the few existing linguistic studies of headlines will be reviewed below

The headline is the text at the top of a newspaper article, indicating the nature of the article below it (Wikipedia)

The complexity of headlines has been investigated by Brisau (1969) He measured complexity in terms of clauses, which were thus singled out from other units

as a gauge of complexity In 3,000 headlines, Brisau (1969) finds 264 examples of headlines containing two or more clauses, which is less than 10% of the total number Brisau (1969) concludes that more complex structures than two very simple clauses linked together rarely occur in headlines He mentions, however, that the linguistic makeup of the headline could vary widely from one newspaper to another

Mardh (1980) offers an exhaustive study of the characteristic features of the headlines of a range of English newspapers She identifies the following linguistic features as typical of headlines in English newspapers: the omission of articles; the omission of verbs and of auxiliaries (the verb "to be" for example); nominalizations;

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the frequent use of complex noun phrases in subject position (in theme position); adverbial headings, with the omission of both verb and subject; the use of short words ("bid" instead of "attempt"); the widespread use of puns, word play and alliteration; the importance of word order, with the most important items placed first, even, in some cases, a verb; and independent "wh" constructions not linked to a main clause (an

example: Why the French don't give a damn), a form not found in standard English

Van Dijk (1988) analyzed a five-decker from the New York Times He sees the journalistic process as beginning with a headline and working through lead to body copy He analyzes over 400 headlines in the Dutch press reporting the 1985 Tamil panic, an occasion of racial tensions between the Dutch and immigrant groups He finds that the authorities dominate first position in the headline, with active verbs When the disadvantaged Tamils are mentioned first, the verb tends to be passive

Mouillaud and Tetu, analyzing Le Monde, suggest the following features as typical of headlines: the suppression of spatial and particularly temporal markers; the use of the present tense of verbs (where they are used) as opposed to in place of any other tenses; the replacement of verbs by nominalizations; the suppression of declarative verbs and the disappearance of signs of speech (quotation marks; personal

pronouns)

In Vietnam, the researchers have some of the regards to the syntactic and semantic

features as well as the headlines or headlines in the newspaper and sports

In the Ph Dr Nguyễn Thị Vân Đông (2007) She analyzes the language structures

of English and Vietnamese headlines in order to find whether they are equivalent between the two languages In English, syntactically she concentrates on verbal, nominal, adverbial, simple, compound and complex headlines In Vietnamese, her focus is on one-word, phrasal; and sentence headlines However, her aim is at translation However, her aim is at translation Therefore, more studies on comparing the characteristics of English and Vietnamese news headlines are necessary This study intends to investigate the application of syntactic and semantic features of sports newspaper headlines in English with reference to the Vietnamese equivalence in order

to uncover to what extent the two languages are compatible in these domains

In the M.A Diệp Quang Ban (2005) in “Ngữ Pháp Tiếng Việt” mentions some

different syntactic and semantic features of them in Vietnamese

Up to now, although a number of research topics about syntactic and semantic features of English headlines with their Vietnamese equivalents have been done In this paper, I am especially interested in researching about the syntactic and semantic

features of the conceptual ‘Simile’ because ‘Simile’ is one of common newspaper

headlines It is not easy for learners to understand deeply and clearly The manifold

using of the conceptual ‘Simile’ is showed the using in English This research will be

effective for us to teach English to Vietnamese learners as a second language as well

2.2 Overview of syntax and semantic theory

2.2.1 Theory of syntax

Within traditional grammar, the syntax of a language is described in term of a taxonomy of the range of different types of syntactic structures found in the language The central assumption underpinning syntactic analysis in traditional grammar is that phrases and sentences are built up of a series of constituents, each of which belongs to

a specific grammatical category and serves a specific grammatical function

Syntax is a set of rules in language It dictates how words from different parts of speech are put together in order to convey a complete thought According to R.M.W Dixon (1991), syntax deals with the way in which words are combined together Verbs have different grammatical properties from language to language but there is always a major class verb, which includes word referring to motion, rest, attention, giving and speaking Syntax is understood to be the theory of the structure of sentences in a language This view has its direct antecedents in the theory of immediate constituents,

in which the function of syntax is to mediate between the observed forms of a sentence and its meaning

Syntax is now the study of the principles and rules that govern the ways in which words are combined to form phrases, clauses and sentences in a language Syntax, which is a subfield of grammar, focuses on the word order of a language and the relationships between words In other words, morphology deals with word formation

Theory of syntax is a source of studying syntactic features in general and Attention verb group in particular

2.2.2 Theory of semantics

Semantics (as the study of meaning) is central to the study of communication and

as communication becomes more and more a crucial factor in social organization, the need to understand it becomes more and more pressing Semantics is also at the Centre

of the study of the human mind – thought processes, cognition, conceptualization – all these are intricately bound up with the way in which we classify and convey our experience of the world through language

Because it is, in these two ways, a focal point in man’s study of man, semantics has been the meeting place of various cross-currents of thinking and various disciplines

of the study Philosophy, psychology, and linguistics all claim a deep interest in the subject Semantics has often seemed baffling because there are many different approaches to it, and the ways in which they are related to one another are rarely clear even to writers on the subject Leech (1990)

Semantics is a branch of linguistics, which deals with meaning or the content of communication According to Hurford and Heasley (1983:1), “semantics is the study of meaning in language” Language is a means of communication, and people use language to communicate with others by making conversations, giving information, and other things to make social relationship Human beings have been given the capacity to talk, to communicate with each other, to make meaningful utterances, so that they are understood by other human beings They communicate about the world in

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which they live, about themselves, about their thought and feeling, about what has happened, about what might happen or what they would like to happen, and a lot more Hurford and Heasley (1983:5) state, “the giving of information is itself an act of courtesy, performed to strengthen social relationships” This is also part of communication There are some linguists that try to define semantics Moreover, as quoted by Lyons (1977) at first defines semantics as the study of the relations of signs

to the objects to which the signs are applicable And then he revises his definition, saying that, semantics is that portion of semiotic which deals with the signification of sign in all modes of signifying

David Crystal (1992:347) defines that “semantics is the study of meaning in language” Structural semantics applied the principles of structural linguistics to the study of meaning through the notion of semantic relations (also called sense relation), such as synonymy and antonyms In generative grammar, the semantic component is a major area of the grammar’s organization, assigning a semantic representation to sentences, and analyzing lexical terms of semantic features The theory of semantic field views vocabulary as organized into areas, within which words (lexical items) interrelate and define each other

These semantics features of conceptual ‘Simile’ are the basis of analyzing the semantic features of conceptual ‘Simile’ in English headlines and Vietnamese in

is only limited space provided for each headline and the problem of fitting the best

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words may occur Then the rule of a sentence may be broken, only minor sentences are used, and such a headline can be rather difficult to understand Sometimes this happens for a good reason, as space, but more often this happens on purpose to make the headline somehow special with the aim to attract the reader's attention to the report or even to buy the newspaper at all In that case, readers are mystified, confused and in the end, after reading the report they can feel disappointed as it did not fulfil their expectations

A headline is an important element in a print newspaper and electric newspaper,

according to Oxford Advanced Dictionary – 8th edition (2010) [110], “A headline is a title printed at the top of a page or at the beginning of a section of a book.”

According to Peters (1995), the headings are short sentences located at the top of

an article aimed at attracting the attention of the reader

Danuta’s (1998:121) opinion about a headline is that is a unique type of text It has a ranger of functions that specifically dictate its shape, content, and structure and it operates within a range of restrictions that limited the freedom of the writer In other words, headline should encapsulate the story in minimum words, attract readers to the story

According to Ungerer (2000:48), “a headline describes the essence of a complicated news story in a few words It informs quickly and accurately and arouses the reader’s curiosity”

In brief, headline is the title given to a news item or an article It is a condensed form of writing It is in fact a part of a whole The specific functional and linguistic traits of the headline provides sufficient ground for isolating and analyzing it in a specific “genre” of journalism

Let’s see the following examples:

“Johanna Konta’s struggles on clay continued as a final – set slump saw her

close to Laura in the first round of the Marid Open.”

“80% wage of each player will be paid less than last month.”

[Retrieved Sunday, 18th March 2012, mirror.co.uk]

The use of the conceptual ‘Similes’ in the above examples are: ‘as, than’

2.3.2 Classification of headlines

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For the last few years, text mining has been gaining significant importance Since knowledge is now available to users through variety of sources For example: electronic media, digital media, print media and many more Due to huge availability

of text in numerous forms, a lot of unstructured data has been recorded by researchers and have found numerous ways in literature to convert this scattered text into defined structured volume, commonly known as text classification Focus on full text classification For example: full news, huge documents, long length text etc is more prominent as compared to the short length text In this paper, we have discussed text classification process, classifiers and numerous feature extraction methodology but all

in context of short texts For example: news classification based on their headlines Existing classifiers and their working methodologies are being compared and results are presented effectively

2.4 Overview of conceptual ‘Simile’

Similes are used in literature to make writing more vivid and powerful In everyday speech they can be used to convey meaning quickly and effectively, as many

commonly used expressions are similes For example, when someone says:

“To prepare for the league football, they have to be as busy as a bee.”

It means the team are working hard, as bees are known to be extremely busy

If someone says: "They are as snug as a bug in a rug after the match.”

It means that they feel very comfortable and cozy or are tucked up tight in bed

[Retrieved Sunday, 18th March 2012, mirror.co.uk] Similes can make our language more descriptive and enjoyable Writers make use

of similes often to add depth and emphasize what they are trying to convey to the reader or listener Similes can be funny, serious, mean, or creative Similes are a great tool to use in creative language and are fun to come up with They not only make what you are writing or saying more interesting, but they can often intrigue the reader as well When creating your own similes, watch out for clichés though and try to go beyond the obvious comparisons

2.4.1 Definition of conceptual ‘Simile’

A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two things Simile explicitly

use connecting words (such as like, as, so than, or various verbs such as resemble),

though these specific words are not always necessary While similes are mainly used in

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forms of sports that compare the inanimate and the living, there are also terms in which similes and personifications are used for humorous purpose and comparison

Let see the following example:

“Sally Jenkins began her second stint at The Washington Post in 2000 after

spending the previous decade working as a book author and as a magazine writer.”

It means that Sally Jenkins is compared a magazine writer who writes books

[Retrieved nie.washingtonpost.com/node/283] The other examples:

“Leo also played college basketball very badly for Hawaii Pacific.”

It means that Leo played kinds of sports badly ‘Also’ is used stress in the sentence

[Retrieved nie.washingtonpost.com/node/283]

2.4.2 Classification of conceptual ‘Simile’

In English, a glance at their Latin and Greek roots offers a simple way of

telling these two closely-related figures of speech apart ‘Simile’ comes from the Latin word ‘similis’ (meaning “similar, like”), which seems fitting, since the comparison indicated by a ‘simile’ will typically contain the words

‘as or like’

Let see the example:

“My love with football is like a red, red rose” is a simile

[Retrieved from Scientific Research Publishing]

Different scholars give different classifications from their perspectives In

accordance with the differences in source domain, conceptual ‘Similes’ can generally be only classified into ‘Rhyming Similes’

In Vietnamese, Thuy Nga Nguyen and Ghil'ad Zuckermann (2012) classify

Vietnamese similes into two types: ‘Meaning Similes and Rhyming Similes.’

The following is an example:

‘Can đảm như con sư tử’

"Courage as a lion" whereas the above Vietnamese example is of a rhyming simile,

the English simile “(as) timid as a mouse” is only a semantic simile

“Khỏe như trâu”

“Strong as a buffalo” whereas the above Vietnamese example is of a rhyming simile,

the English simile “(as) strong as a horse” is only a semantic simile

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2.5 Summary

In this chapter, the Literature Review includes previous studies, review of theoretical background In the previous studies, the studies of authors in oversea and in Vietnam are given In the theory of syntax and semantics are analyzed thoroughly in order to use for background of analyzing the syntactic and semantic features of

conceptual ‘Simile’ in English headlines Moreover, these definitions are pointed out in

details Finally, theoretical background is given briefly reviewing what has been found and discussed the related studies by describing their approaches and key findings But then identify weaknesses in the approach and limitation in the findings

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

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CHAPTER 3 SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH SPORTS NEWSPAPER HEADLINES AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS

In this chapter, the syntactic and semantic features of conceptual ‘Simile’ in

English sports newspaper headlines as well as in Vietnamese headlines which are mentioned separately in Vietnamese

3.1 Syntactic and semantic features of English sports newspaper headlines

3.1.1 In terms of syntactic features

3.1.1.1 Sentential headlines

Sentential headlines are all headlines that have a regular sentence structure, i.e all headlines with a subject and a finite verb phrase which is characterized as a phrase “in which the first or only word is a finite verb, the rest of the verb phrase (if any) consisting of non-finite verbs” (Quirk 1985:149) As far as sentence structure is concerned, there are two main types of sentence: simple and multiple sentences (Crystal, 2006:216) The most natural sentence structure is the simple sentence: it is the first kind which children learn to speak, and it remains by far the most common sentence in the spoken language of people of all ages In written work, simple sentences can be very effective for grabbing a reader’s attention or for summing up an

argument as they are simply understandable

(i) Simple sentence

After studying the background, it is found out that sports newspaper headlines in English is divided into six sentence patterns according to their syntactic features: SVO, SVC, SVA, SVOC, SVOA and SVOO

+ SVO type:

In this pattern, the verb is a transitive verb The verbs always occur with direct

objects The direct object may be a noun, noun phrase, pronoun or that-clause, finite clause/ non-finite clause The conjunction that can sometimes be omitted The direct object is a finite or non-finite clause beginning with either (i) A ‘wh-element’, which can be a pronoun (who(m), whose, which, what), a determiner + noun (what time, which tutors, etc) or an adverb (why (finite clauses only), when, where, how); or (ii) One of the conjunctions if (finite clauses only) or whether

Let se the following example:

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+ SVO type:

“They could see (that) Suma owned the Redskins.” (identified as a that clause)

“Everyone recognized him to Liverpool team.” (Identified as non-finite clause)

“His laziness showed in his competition results.” (identified as a noun phrase)

“Totty passed the ball to Tommy.” (Identified as a prepositional phrase)

“Safari experts share the tips.” (Identified as a noun)

“He looked at opponents and smile.” (Identified as a pronoun)

(Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary) + SVC type:

In this pattern, the verb is intransitive verb, the complement is an adjective or adjective phrase which describe some quality or feature of the subject Let see the following example:

“World Cup 2012 will be interesting.” (identified as an adjective)

S V C

(Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary) + SVA type:

Let see the following example:

“Beckam is transferring under the fullback.”

“Referee gives players opportunity.” (Identified as non- finite clause)

S V O O

(Albert Sydney Hornby, 1993: 842) + SVOC type:

In this pattern, the object complement tell us how the direct object is regarded, etc,

or what he, she or it is chosen to act or serve as

Let see the following example:

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“Crowd seemed Johnson as a good player.” (Identified as noun phrase)

S V O C

(Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary)

“They watched the match broken into without doing anything.”

S V O C (Identified as non- finite clause)

(Tran Huu Manh, 2008: 62)

+ SVOA type:

“Players put a ball in danger.”

S V O A

(A grammar of English language)

Different adverbials can be freely added into any of these types Apart from the above mentioned types of simple sentence, compound sentence and complex sentence must be considered as well

(ii) Compound sentence:

As Bibber (1999:227) points out, “there are three major coordinators in and, or, but” These coordinators do not only link clauses, but also words or phrases Sometimes, no coordinator is present and clauses are linked by a comma

English-Let see the following example:

Eng: “Europe stews on Greece, and Markets sweat out the wait.”

Viet: “Baggie đang chạy sau Ronaldo nhưng sẽ không vượt anh ấy.”

(Baggie is running Ronaldo but will not overcome him)

As it was already said, compound sentences contain two or more clauses, and the important thing is that all clauses in such a sentence are at the same level In other words, they can stand on their own independently, which is not true for complex sentences

(iii) Complex sentence:

Individual clauses of a complex sentence are linked by subordinators, such as since, although or when, etc and can be further classified as the main clause and one or more subordinate clauses For example:

Eng: “Tournament tests say Lindbergh fathered three players in Germany”

Viet: “Những cầu thủ sẽ làm gì khi không có thể lực tốt?”

(What will players do when they do not have good physical strength?)

- non-finite clause: * Eng: “Beckam helps his team fight the first round.”

It is necessary to consider the non-sentential units as they are characteristic for the language of newspaper headlines and they form a great deal of the materials analyzed for the purpose of this paper

3.1.1.2 Non-sentential sports newspaper headlines

The structure of such headlines is lower than a regular sentence, they are constructed in an irregular way Crystal (2006) calls such structures mirrored sentences Although independent sentences are the main building blocks or texts or conversation, non-sentential structures are also frequent None-sentential headlines can

be divided accordingly whether they do or do not contain a verb phrase Structures with

a verb phrase are non-finite clauses (with the exception of verbless clauses) whereas structured without a verb phrase are just phrases, which will be further described respectively

(i) Non-finite clauses:

According to Bibber (1999:259, 262), non-finite clauses are usually dependent clauses, i.e they appear in a sentence together with a man clause In some circumstances, however, dependent clauses can be used separately

Leech (2006:71) describes these clauses as clauses which have a non-finite verb phrase and subdivides them into three categories: infinitive clauses

* ‘- ing’ clauses: Example: “Finding valuable player Around Premier League.”

* ‘- ed’ clauses: Example: “One sent off for a foul.”

All three types have a varied range of syntactic roles, which means that they can stand on positions of different clause elements, such as subject, direct object, or complement Moreover, apart from the three above mentioned types, Bibber

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(1999:261) describes the fourth type of non-finite clauses, so called verbless clauses For these clauses, he says, ellipsis of the verb of the verb, “be” and the subject is typical

(Factory Growth Fastest in 20 Years) (ii) Phrases

'A phrase may consist of a single word or a group of words’ (Bibber, 1999:38) In other words, phrases are built up from words and they usually consist of a head and modifiers which are not necessary present Under the head we understand a word in the phrase “around which the other components cluster and which dictates concord and other kinds of congruence with the rest of the sentence outside the phrase” (Quirk, 1985:1238) The head is essential for categorizing phrases The phrase types are following: noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, adverb phrases, and prepositional phrases (Bibber, 1999:41)

Individual phrases function as clause elements, i.e they built up a clause Usually, the most important element of a clause is verb phrase which was focused previously as finite and non-finite So now a greater interest will be put up on noun phrases, as they often stand on their own headlines

+ Noun phrases

Noun phrases have a noun as the head which can be preceded by determiners and accompanied by modifiers-either, pre-modifiers or post-modifier (Bibber, 1999:41-42) Sometimes an adjective can be the head of a noun phrase Martha, who devoted her time to the analysis of headline, denotes the headlines consisting of a noun phrase and not containing a verb as nominal In order to examine syntactic variation within the noun phrases across the two languages, the structural types of nominal headlines were analyzed according to

pre-modification and post-modification

+ Pre-modification: A pre-modifier is a modifier that precedes the head of noun phrase (Quirk, 1985)

Example: “He is an excellent player.”

+ Post-modification: A post-modifier is a modifier that follows the word or phrase it limits or qualifies

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Example: “The player who is standing beside the referee over there scored 5 goals for his team.”

(+) Verb phrases

Verb phrases may have a number of auxiliary verbs but the main verb is always

the head word

Example: “Ronaldo became the most expensive footballer in history in 2009.”

(Lexical verb)

The head lexical verb in a verb phrase may, however, be modified by the addition

of auxiliary verbs

In addition to the primary auxiliary verbs, recall that there is also a small set

of modal auxiliaries These indicate the mood or attitude of the speaker and include

items such as can, could, should, must and may Again, returning to our main example,

this could be modified as follows

Example: “Messy should have gone to the club today.”

(Modal auxiliary) (Main verb)

(Main auxiliary)

(+) Adjective phrases

- Adjective phrases have an adjective as the head word

Example: “The football match was interesting.”

(Adjective)

Like noun phrases, the head adjective in an adjective phrase can also receive modification through the use of an intensifying adverb

(+) Adverb phrases

- The head word of an adverb phrase is always an adverb

Example: “Home team hugged visiting team gently.”

(Adverb)

As with noun phrases and adjective phrases, the head word (usually just referred

to as the ‘head’) of an adverb phrase can also be pre-modified by the use of

an intensifying adverb

3.1.1.3 Word

In the corpus, the headlines with words appear very limitedly Over all, this kind

of headline appears 25 times and accounts for 5% of the total

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‘Important’ is an adjective which is used to appeal the readers to read the decisive

moment of a great football match This simple word really show the significance of the game

‘Important’ → Adjective → Word → Sentence

[Retrieved Saturday, 3rd March 2012] When it comes to writing a sport headline, brevity is a virtue

Example: “Great! Or Excellent!”

[Retrieved Thursday, 27th December 2012, football.co.uk] 3.1.1.4 Phrase

Phrase appears 200 times and accounts for 40% of the total structures Phrase appears in the form of a N.P, V.P, Adj.P or a Prep.P Let’s see the following example:

“The seemingly impossible dreams” is a N.P which consists of a definite article:

‘the’, an Adverb, an Adjective and the main Noun

We can see that the Phrase in English sport headlines appears in all range It can

be a N.P, V.P, Adv.P, Adj.P or Prep.P

3.1.1.5 Clause

In the English sport headlines, Clauses seem not to appear a lot and account for 10% of the total Let’s see the following sentence:

“When it rained heavily, all team still kept on playing enthusiastically.”

[Retrieved Sunday, 18th March 2012, mirror.co.uk] 3.1.1.6 Sentence

Sentence is the most favorite used in the English sport headlines With 450 times

of appearance, the sentence accounts for 90% of the total Sentence appears in all rank form simple sentence, compound and complex sentence

The headline consists of a simple sentence with a N.P and a V.P In the headline appears in the form of a compound sentence Let’s see the following example:

“MU were lucky, they were careful”

[Retrieved Sunday, 18th March 2012, mirror.co.uk]

This kind of structure appears in the first position in the total list The sentence

may be a statement, a question, an exclamation or an imperative

Let’s see the following example: