Interpretable implicatures in the vietnamese prime minister nguyen tan dungs speech at the 62nd un general assembly session

i VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES - o0o - TRẦN THANH TÚ INTERPRETABLE IMPLICATURES IN THE VIETNAMESE PRIME MINISTER NGUYỄN TẤN DŨNG'S SPEECH AT THE 62ND UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY SESSION (Những hàm ý thuyết giải phát biểu Thủ tướng Việt Nam Nguyễn Tấn Dũng kỳ họp lần thứ 62 Đại hội đồng Liên hợp quốc) M.A Minor Program Thesis Field: English linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Hanoi – 2010 ii VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES - o0o - TRẦN THANH TÚ INTERPRETABLE IMPLICATURES IN THE VIETNAMESE PRIME MINISTER NGUYỄN TẤN DŨNG'S SPEECH AT THE 62ND UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY SESSION (Những hàm ý thuyết giải phát biểu Thủ tướng Việt Nam Nguyễn Tấn Dũng kỳ họp lần thứ 62 Đại hội đồng Liên hợp quốc) M.A Minor Program Thesis Field: English linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Supervisor: ASSOC PROF DR NGƠ ĐÌNH PHƯƠNG Hanoi - 2010 vi ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS APEC: Asian Pacific Economic Co-operation ASEAN: Association of Southeast Asian Nations e.g : For example i.e : That is to say ibid : Ibidem (in the same book or piece of writing as the one has just been mentioned) MDGs: Millennium Development Goals PM: Prime Minister UN : WTO: United Nations World Trade Organization +> : marks implicatures >> : marks presuppositions vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration i Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii Abbreviations and symbols iv Table of contents v PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study Aims of the study…… Scope of the study… Methods of the study…… Analysis procedure Design of the study…… PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Literature Review and Background information of the data 1.1 Literature Review 1.1.1 Theory of Discourse 1.1.1.1 Concept of Discourse 1.1.1.2 Discourse and Text 1.1.1.3 Discourse analysis and Text analysis 1.1.1.4 Spoken discourse versus Written discourse 1.1.1.5 Discourse context 1.1.2 Discursive strategies 1.1.2.1 Lexicalization 1.1.2.2 Repetition 1.1.2.2.1 Lexical repetition 1.1.2.2.2 Grammatical repetition 1.1.2.3 Pronoun choice 1.1.2.4 Modality viii 1.1.3 Inferencing 1.1.4 The Co-operative Principle 10 1.1.5 Presupposition 11 1.1.5.1 Definition 11 1.1.5.2 Types of presuppositions 12 1.1.6 Implicatures 13 1.1.6.1 Conversational implicatures 14 1.1.6.2 Conventional implicatures 15 1.2 Background information of the data 16 Chapter 2: Interpretable implicatures in the Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng's Speech at the 62nd UN General Assembly Session 18 2.1 The establishment of the rapport to the audience 18 2.2 The world problems' statement and the appeal to the UN and countries for taking more actions to promote the sustainable development 20 2.3 The construction of a positive image of Việt Nam 24 2.3.1 The presentation of Việt Nam's achievements for over past 30 years as a member of the United Nations 25 2.3.2 The desire to make further contribution to the international community 28 2.4 Revealed-implicature-type discussion 32 PART C: CONCLUSION 37 Conclusions 37 Limitation of the study 38 Suggestions for further study 38 REFERENCES APPENDIX PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study Many people, including many linguists, assume that the primary purpose of language is to communicate information Language, in fact, serves a great many functions Linguists, over a good many years, have attempted to understand how language works in a fully integrated way as simultaneously a mental, social, cultural, institutional and political phenomenon Language has been seen now as not only a practice but also reflection of reality People also have witnessed a rise in the awareness of language and its power, especially how it helps people gain power over the others through ideology, which is underlying assumptions in the language This is obviously the case of politics, where language is the tool of authority holders to gain and to realize power Besides, political speech is also the place where the political actor conveys his political ideologies Work on persuasive speeches in general, and political speeches in particular suggests that speakers adopt a range of rhetorical devices and strategies to appeal to their hearers; there are interesting implicatures in their speeches, as well as political actions achieved by linguistic means The data analyzed in this study is the Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng‟s speech delivered at the 62nd United Nations General Assembly Session on September 27, 2007 This 1,700–word speech was retrieved from the Việt Nam Government‟s website at: http://www.chinhphu.vn This speech became tremendously important as it appeared two days before the election for non–permanent seat of the United Nations Security Council, in which Việt Nam is one of the candidates If elected, the role of Việt Nam in the international stage will be advanced Because of this significance, the speech turned out to be a good opportunity for Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng to highlight the positive image of his country Aims of the study The aims of this study are: - To uncover the implicatures conveyed in the speech under study - To study the discursive strategies employed by the speaker to build the implicatures - To study types of the revealed implicatures Scope of the study The interpretable implicatures in the Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng‟s Speech at the 62nd UN General Assembly Session will be the focus of this study, including the establishment of the rapport to the audience; the world problems' presentation, the appeal to the UN and nations for actions; and the construction of a positive image of Việt Nam This study is purely conducted in terms of linguistic research with a hope for better understanding of how linguistic means are employed to achieve certain communicative purposes No attempts of taking an insight into or judgments on the political science are made Besides, the data is the English translated version of the Prime Minister‟s speech And the study will entirely focus on dealing with the English version, ignoring any linguistic features related to the Vietnamese one and proposing no comparisons between the two versions The text is broken up into sentences and numbered in order to be easily followed Methods of the study - The study is done basing on Discourse analysis approach - Quantitative method is used for a sufficient theoretical background, in combination with qualitative method to study the data for uncovering the implicatures Analysis procedure The study is carried out relying on the following procedure: - The data speech–Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng‟s Speech at the 62nd UN General Assembly Session, many other newspaper articles and news analysis are collected - Collecting materials for literature review and describing theoretical background (to the problem under investigation) - General textual analysis and description of the speech are made, in terms of discourse properties and pragmatics towards the finding of interpretable implicatures in the speech Intonation, posture, and all non-verbal aspects are excluded from the analysis procedure though the author is fully aware that they have some role in the success of the speech-maker Design of the study Except for declaration, acknowledgements, table of contents, references and appendix, this paper consists of three main parts: Part A: Introduction states the rationale of the study, its aims, its scope, methods, analysis procedure and design Part B: Development consists of two chapters: Chapter 1: Literature review and Background information of the data This chapter aims at discussing the theoretical background, in which we will have a look at the theories related to the study, including the theory of discourse and text, discourse context, discursive strategies, inferencing, the cooperative principle, presupposition and implicatures, and providing information of the data under study Chapter 2: Interpretable implicatures in the Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng's Speech at the 62nd UN General Assembly Session This is the main part of the study which includes the interpretable implicatures and the discussion of their types Part C: Conclusion reviews major findings of the study, states limitation of the study and gives suggestions for further study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION OF THE DATA 1.1 LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1.1 Theory of Discourse 1.1.1.1 Concept of Discourse Operating within the language theories of the Bloomfielddian and Chomskian schools, traditional linguists have concentrated on phonological, lexical, syntactical features which are considered the basis of foreign language knowledge Today‟s view, however, is concerned with understanding the stretches of language which can only be obtained if they are considered "in their full textual, social and psychological context" (Cook, 1989:1) Context-free sentences not help to achieve successful communication since the language in use does not exist in isolation from its user and the context in which it is being used Therefore, it is of necessity that when communicating, we must go beyond the formal structure of language as a context-free system of usage and use the language which is contextsensitive This language, the knowledge of which, as Widdowson (1977) explains, can not be automatically followed from the knowledge of sentence, is known as discourse Though the concept of discourse is still discussed, discourse can be defined as a stretch of language consisting of several sentences which are perceived as being related in some way, in terms of the ideas they share and in terms of the jobs they perform within discourse – that is, their functions (Nunan 1993, cited in Discourse Analysis, Vinh University-Foreign Language Department, 2006:3) Basically, it may be defined as “the language in use for communication” The study of discourse is often referred to as Discourse analysis And as McCarthy (1993:10) states, Discourse analysis is fundamentally concerned with the relationship between language and the contexts in which it is used, that is, it involves the study of language in use As far as the scope of discourse is concerned, discourse refers not only to spoken interactions, interviews, but also to written and printed works such as newspapers, articles, letters, stories, recipes, instructions, notices, comics, billboards, etc (see McCarthy 1993) 1.1.1.2 Discourse and Text So far, the term “discourse” and “text” have been used as though they are synonyms and there have been many ways of viewing the terms discourse and text Crystal (1992:72) distinguishes that “text” should be reserved only for writing and “discourse” for speech Discourse is “a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit, such as sermon, argument, joke or narrative” (ibid.), while “text” is “a piece natural occurring spoken, written, or signed discourse identified for purposes of analysis It is often a language unit with a definable communicative function, such as a conversation, a poster” (ibid.) Cook (1989:158) considers “text” as „a stretch of language interpreted formally, without context”, whereas “discourse” is “stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified and purposive” Halliday and Hasan (1976:1), however, use these two notions interchangeably They use “text” to actually refer to “discourse” for they say that “a text is unit of language in use” and “it may be spoken or written, prose or verse, dialogue or monologue” Brown & Yule (1983:6) point out that texts are the representations of discourse and the verbal record of a communicative act: “we shall use text as a technical term, to refer to the verbal record of a communicative act” In short, we can understand “text” as the term used to refer to any written record of a communicative event, while the term “discourse” refers to the interpretation of the communicative event in context Although discourse and text are different, they are related to each other The difference and interrelationship between discourse and text is best captured by Widdowson‟s claim: “Discourse is a communicative process by means of interaction Its situational outcome is a change in a state of affairs: information is conveyed, intentions made clear, its linguistic product is Text” (Widdowson, 1984:100) 32 Việt Nam will always be an active, constructive, cooperative and responsible member of the international community, living up to the expectations of all member states (62).” The statement “We will whatever we can to fulfill this important mission” is an explicit promise expressing the capability as well as responsibility of Việt Nam In this part, the most significant discursive strategy used is the exclusive pronoun “we” referring to Việt Nam and its people The exclusive “we” indicates the solidarity of Việt Nam as a united country having enough strength and determination to fulfill the heavy duties as this country becomes a member of the Security Council Additionally, the repetition of “Việt Nam” shows the initiative in performing the important role of this country As a result, the highly positive image of Việt Nam has been fortified It is a really meaningful and valuable conclusion It is obvious that the time when this speech is delivered is a turning point for the speaker‟s country Việt Nam is standing closely to the opportunity of becoming a member in the most important body of the most significant organization The interpretable implicatures above are the ones of the Vietnamese Prime Minister that we can draw in this speech Via the exploitation of various strategies, Việt Nam is represented as an active, constructive, cooperative and responsible country, thus being a reliable partner and right member of the UN Security Council 2.4 Revealed-implicature-type discussion It should be noted that the data studied is a political speech Therefore, by comparison between kinds of implicatures discussed in literature review and the implicatures in the Prime Minister's speech, we can easily see that hardly any belongs to kinds of conversational implicatures Rather, most of them are conventional implicatures However, this part of the study is done with the aim at finding out what are the other types of implicatures that are used in the speech Details are shown as follow In order that the implicature of the establishment of the rapport to the audience is revealed, the word use of the Prime Minister is considered Within four sentences of the opening of the speech, the speaker uses phrases such as: warmest congratulations (1), 33 immense competence (2), highly commend (3), distinguished delegates, greetings of friendship (4) Needless to say, all those phrases serve to express the high respect to the President, the Secretary General and the other representatives And it is the study of utilized words and phrases that helps us to draw the implicature Hence, this is obviously a conventional implicature The second implicature uncovered is what the speaker means by giving the next parts of the speech, from sentence (5) to sentence (27) This implicature is also a conventional one because the PM implicates to state the problems in all over the world and appeal to the UN and countries for taking more actions via the purposive utilization of words and structures Firstly, in order to state the world problems, Mr Dũng uses a lot of words and phrases, such as: adversities and challenges (6), local wars and conflicts, international terrorism, arms race (8), poverty (11), epidemics, environmental pollution, climate change (12), tense confrontation, acts of unilateral imposition, violations of national independence and sovereignty (14), etc They obviously serve to suggest what the Vietnamese PM wants to say Secondly, having full acknowledgement of the global issues, the speaker would imply the appeal to the UN and countries for taking more actions to promote the sustainable development Once again, certain phrases help to express this, including: make greater efforts (15), intensify efforts (17), play a more active role (20), and so on Being quite different from the first implicature revealed in 2.1, the second one is uncovered by studying a large number of sentences Especially, considering those sentences, we find out that there are other kinds of implicatures used in some sentences which helped us to recognize the implicature in 2.2 At first, let have a look at the cases for scalar implicatures There are some scalar implicatures via the use of certain forms in the scale of quantity with "all, many", scale of obligation with "should", and scale of approximation with "nearly" Examples are shown as follows: 34 we all wishes for a more peaceful world (5) (+> not some) there have emerged many pressing global issues (12) (+> not a few) the reforms should ensure the broad participation of all member states (26) (+> not must) Nearly one decade has elapsed (6) (+> not exactly) Nearly one billion people are still living in extreme poverty (11) (+> not exactly) the reforms should ensure the broad participation of all member states and should be carried out in a transparent manner (26) (+> not must) Besides, to express the implicature of stating the contrary between what the world has gained and the problems remain, or the contrary to expectation, the speaker uses words such as: however and yet They are the obvious examples for the kind of conventional implicatures: humankind has not experienced any more world wars (7) However, local wars and conflicts ( ) remain daunting threats to our world today (8) (+> contrast) the human living conditions have been improved continuously (9) However, there remains a bitter reality that (10) (+> contrast) the world is yet to be free from tense confrontation (14) (+> contrary to expectation) As we can see from what is discussed in 2.3, the speaker has the implicature of creating a positive image of Việt Nam by presenting Việt Nam's achievements since the day this country became an official member of the UN and its desire to make further contribution to the international community This implicature is also a conventional one because the hearers get it from the speaker by meanings of certain words and phrases The achievements of Việt Nam are stated by the use of phrases such as: worked actively for peace, stability, cooperation and development in the world (31), made significant contributions (32), support efforts towards peaceful settlement of conflicts, upholding national 35 independence, promoting development programs, tackling global issues (33), fulfil a number of MDGs ahead schedule (40), etc And the phrases as follows serve to express Việt Nam's desire to make further contributions to the world development: the desire to make further contribution to the work of the international community (45), utmost to cooperate with other members (49), welcomes and is willing to participate in mechanisms (53), and so on Notably, in the sentences studied for the third implicature of the speech to be made, there is the use of scalar implicatures and conventional implicatures Some scalar implicatures can be inferred from some sentences: established diplomatic relations with 174 countries and economic and trade ties with almost all countries and territories in the world (35) (+> not all, on the scale of quantity) elected to the governing positions of many UN bodies (38) (+> not all) participated in a number of UN activities in some countries (55) (+> not all) this body should be further reformed (57) (+> not must, on the scale of obligation) enjoy full support from all member states (60) (+> not only some) will always be an active (62) (+> not sometimes, on the scale of frequency) living up to the expectations of all member states (62) (+> not only some) Besides, there are cases for conventional implicatures which can be found out in: Regrettably, it was not until 1977 when Việt Nam (30) (+> pity for what should have been done) Despite being poor country, we participated actively in (43) (+> contrast) To conclude, three major interpretable implicatures that can be interpreted in Mr Dũng's speech all belong to conventional implicatures However, having a detailed look at the sentences studied for each implicature, we can come to a conclusion that there are cases where 36 scalar implicatures and some other conventional implicatures are used Interestingly, there is no place for the other kinds of implicatures 37 PART C: CONCLUSION Conclusions Studies concerning with political material would be beneficial in case it can relate the political actions with the use of language, particularly with linguistic means which are utilized to fulfill the goals of political actors In this study of the Vietnamese Prime Minister‟s speech, three significant interpretable implicatures, also three prominent political actions are revealed accompanying by relevant linguistic strategies Firstly, the speaker would like to establish the rapport to the audience via the acknowledgements which express the feeling towards the hearer and portray the audience with high number of positive descriptives Besides, adverbs for emphasis are used to underscore the positive image of the hearer as well as to shows the esteem of the speaker towards the hearer In addition, pronouns “I” and “you” are use purposely in which “I” refers to the speaker, also the representative of the country and “you” refers to the audience who are addressed and emphasized with a highly positive image Secondly, the Prime Minister states the problems that the world is facing and appeals to the UN as well as countries to take more actions to promote the sustainable development This implicature is revealed by linguistic strategies, such as: a typical pattern is used repeatedly to convey a pair of counter-ideas; the repetition of negative lexicalization underscores the issues that humankind is having; verb phrases create in the hearer‟s mind an awareness of the urgent demand for taking actions and hurry every nation to carry out this duty as soon as possible; lexical terms indicate the important tasks that the UN is now responsible for; the inclusive “we” expresses the solidarity between Việt Nam and all other countries, while exclusive “we” is used to indicate the solidarity between Việt Nam and its people Thirdly, the representative of Việt Nam would like to construct a positive image of his country by referring to achievements of Việt Nam for over past 30 years as a member of the UN and expressing the desire to make further contributions to the international community The achievements are stated via the use of lexical words to reveal the increasing significant position of Việt Nam in the international stage; repetition utilization to underscore series of 38 achievements, including ones in foreign affairs in recent years Besides, to express the desire of his country to make further contributions to the international community, Mr Dũng utilized quotation to give the objective opinion, to seek for the agreement and support from the others and to emphasize the desire which has been emerged for a long time and will be the priority in foreign affair policies in the future In addition, adverbs of emphasis are used for various purposes, such as to show gratefulness and to establish the solidarity with other nations, to express the determination and the awareness of the “important task” that Việt Nam will fulfill Structure of passivization “Elected…” gives the hearers a strong feeling and indicates the selfconfidence of Việt Nam for success in the election Exclusive “we” indicates the solidarity of Việt Nam, shows the intention and determination to fulfill the duty with high responsibility if the country becomes a member of the Security Council Three major implicatures revealed in this study are the conventional implicatures Besides, there are few sentences in which scalar implicatures are used Limitation of the study The factor limiting my study comes from the fact that the speech analyzed is the English translated version Hence, although the Prime Minister's implicatures in the speech are unchanged, some scalar and conventional implicatures that are uncovered via the use of certain words may not exactly be utilized by the speaker's Suggestions for further study It would be recommended that studies in the future should focus on linguistic means used in the speeches by political actors in order to fulfill their goals Besides, more research should be done to uncover ideologies in political speeches or political articles in press In addition, the research can be continued by taking into account both Vietnamese and English version to find out further implicatures or to reveal the presuppositions in those speeches 39 REFERENCES ENGLISH Brown, G and Yule, G (1983), Discourse Analysis, Cambridge University Press, U.K Cook, G (1989) Discourse Oxford University Press, London Crystal, D (1992), Introducing linguistics, Penguin, London Cummings, L (2005), Pragmatics: A Multidisciplinary Perspective, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh Department of Foreign Languages, (2006), Discourse Analysis, Vinh University, Vinh Fairclough, N (2001), Language and power, (second edition), Pearson Education Limited Georgakopoulo, A & Goutsos, D (1997), Discourse Analysis-An introduction, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh Green, G M (1989), Pragmatics and natural language understanding, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers, USA Grice, P (1989), Studies in the Way of Words, Harvard University Press, Massachusetts 10 Grundy, P (2000), Doing Pragmatics, Arnold Publisher, London 11 Halliday, M.A.K & Hasan, R (1976), Cohesion in English, Longman, London 12 Hillier, H (2004), Analyzing Real Text, Palgrave Macmillan, New York 13 Levinson, S (1983), Pragmatics, Cambridge University Press, U.K 14 McCarthy, M (1993), Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers, Cambridge University Press, U.K 15 Nguyễn Hòa (2000), An introduction to Discourse Analysis, Vietnam National University, Hanoi 16 Nunan, D (1995), Discourse Analysis, Penguin, London 17 Peccei, J.S (1999), Pragmatics, Routledge: London 18 Verschueren, J (1999), Understanding Pragmatics, Arnold Publisher, London 19 Widdowson, H.G (1977), Explorations in Applied Linguistics, Oxford University Press, London 20 Widdowson, H.G (1984), Explorations in Applied Linguistics 2, Oxford University Press, London 40 21 Yule, G (1996), Pragmatics, Oxford University Press, London VIETNAMESE 22 Nguyễn Đức Dân (2000), Ngữ dụng học, (tập một), Nhà xuất Giáo dục, Hà Nội 23 Nguyễn Thiện Giáp (2000), Dụng học Việt ngữ, Nhà xuất Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội 24 Đỗ Thị Kim Liên (2005), Giáo trình Ngữ dụng học, Nhà xuất Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội 25 Nhóm biên dịch (2000), Dụng học, (Dịch từ in lần thứ 3, Pragmatics, Yule, G.), Hanoi WEBSITES 26 http://www.un.org 27 http://www.chinhphu.vn I APPENDIX Speech by Mr Nguyễn Tấn Dũng, Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Việt Nam at the General Debate of the sixty-second Session of the United Nations General Assembly th New York, September 27 , 2007 Mr President, At the outset, permit me to extend to you my warmest congratulations on your election as President of the 62nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly (1) I believe that with your immense competence, you will lead this Session to a successful conclusion (2) I highly commend H.E Mr Ban Kim Moon for his important contributions in his capacity as the Secretary General of the United Nations (3) I respectfully convey to all distinguished delegates, and through you, to the people of all UN member countries the greetings of friendship from the Vietnamese people (4) Mr President, When humankind entered the new Millennium, we all wished for a more peaceful world, more friendly international relations and a better life (5) Nearly one decade has elapsed, but that wish has not come true as we are still living in a world blessed with numerous opportunities and at the same time beset with adversities and challenges (6) It is a blessing that, since the establishment of the United Nations, humankind has not experienced any more world wars (7) However, local wars and conflicts, international terrorism and the continued arms race, including the nuclear arms race, remain daunting threats to our world today (8) Thanks to the miraculous scientific and technological achievements, the human living conditions have been improved continuously (9) However, there remains a bitter reality that the gap in living standards between nations and population groups is increasingly widened (10) Nearly one billion people are still living in extreme poverty (11) At the same time, there II have emerged many pressing global issues of which epidemics, environmental pollution and climate change have proved to be serious threats to human life (12) We can note with satisfaction the rapid proliferation of regional and global cooperation arrangements (13) In the meantime, the world is yet to be free from tense confrontation, acts of unilateral imposition, violations of national independence and sovereignty, inequality and unfair treatment in international relations (14) All these require that we together make greater efforts to maintain peace and stability in all parts of the world, promote equal cooperative relations between and among states, and ensure an international environment conducive to the development of each and every nation (15) Mr President, In face of enormous challenges in the new Millennium, world peoples had high expectations in the United Nations and, in this connection, Việt Nam fully associates itself with the orientations charted by the UN Summits in 2000 and 2005 for the work of the Organization in consolidating peace, security, cooperation and development (16) We hope that the United Nations will together with member states intensify efforts to establish long-lasting peace in the Middle East, including those aimed at an appropriate solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, put an end to conflicts and violence in a number of African countries, restore stability in Iraq and Afghanistan, and control and prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons (17) Việt Nam supports the settlement of the Korean Peninsula issues through dialogue, in conformity with international law and shares the Korean people‟s desire for peaceful reunification (18) The UN‟s Millennium Declaration in 2000 and its policy of promoting sustainable development and ensuring the harmonious combination of economic growth with social equit y and environmental protection have elicited practical response from member states (19) Việt Nam hopes that the United Nations plays a more active role in this process to create further opportunities for underdeveloped countries to escape poverty and advance with the mainstream of the world (20) In that light, Việt Nam wishes that the Doha Round will be concluded soon to facilitate a fair international trading system (21) III Việt Nam strongly supports development cooperation between countries and the establishment of equal international relations in economic, financial and trade areas with special attention paid to the needs of developing and least-developed countries, including the removal of imposed economic blockades and embargoes (22) We hope that the United Nations will have more resources for development cooperation, with priority given to the implementation of program of actions on poverty reduction, women‟s advancement, child care, population planning, and HIV/AIDS prevention (23) Việt Nam strongly supports common efforts, especially the efforts of the UN, to protect the environment and better respond to climate change (24) For the United Nations to fulfil its noble mandate in a vastly changed world, the question of United Nations reform has been raised and keenly discussed (25) Việt Nam holds that the process of reforms should be intensified and goes along with the common understanding that the reforms should ensure the broad participation of all member states and should be carried out in a transparent manner (26) It should also build upon the past experiences and, at the same, have a comprehensive forward-looking vision (27) Mr President, In 1945, the United Nations was founded right at a time when the Vietnamese people had just gained their independence (28) Stemming from the belief in the purposes and principles of the United Nations and the desire to contribute to the work of this new international organization, as early as in January 1946, President Hồ Chí Minh, the founder of the new Vietnamese State, wrote to the First Session of the UN General Assembly, stating clearly “Our nation has gained independence and earnestly requests that you recognize our independence and admit our nation into the United Nations (29).” Regrettably, it was not until 1977 when Việt Nam became a full member of the United Nations (30) Over past 30 years, in its capacity as a UN member, Việt Nam has always worked actively for peace, stability, cooperation and development in the world (31) Viet Nam has made significant contributions to turning South-East Asia from a war-divided and confrontation IV region into one of peace, friendship and cooperation, which is now moving towards an ASEAN Community based on the three political and security, economic, and cultural and social pillars (32) It is our consistent position to support efforts towards peaceful settlement of conflicts, upholding national independence and state sovereignty, promoting development programs, tackling global social issues and establishing equal international political and economic relations for mutual benefits (33) Việt Nam will continue with the policy of being a friend and reliable partner of all countries, striving for peace, independence, cooperation and development (34) We have established diplomatic relations with 174 countries and economic and trade ties with almost all countries and territories in the world (35) Việt Nam is an active member of many other regional and global organizations and fora (36) Most recently, Việt Nam has joined the World Trade Organization as the 150th member (37) Việt Nam has been elected to the governing positions of many UN bodies and is now working closely with UN development organizations to implement the “One UN” Initiative in Việt Nam as a pilot country (38) We highly appreciate the assistance and support extended by UN organizations to Việt Nam (39) Our significant achievements in socio-economic development have enabled Việt Nam to fulfil a number of MDGs ahead of schedule, especially in poverty reduction (40) This is also attributable to the support of the international community (41) We attach importance to the promotion of South-South cooperation (42) Despite being a poor country, we participated actively in the tri-partite cooperation arrangement between Việt Nam and a UN agency to support African countries in the agricultural sector (43) So far, this programme has produced encouraging results (44) Mr President, With the desire to make further contributions to the work of the international community, in 1997 Việt Nam decided to run for a non-permanent seat of the Security Council for the 20082009 term (45) V I take this opportunity to sincerely thank the Asian group for endorsing Việt Nam as the only one candidate of the continent (46) We are also grateful to other member states for their broad support (47) Việt Nam is fully aware of the great honour and heavy responsibility for being a nonpermanent member of the Security Council, a body entrusted with primary mission in maintaining international peace and security (48) Elected, Việt Nam will fully adhere to the purposes and principles enshrined in the UN Charter and we will our utmost to cooperate with other members to fulfil this important task (49) Việt Nam will work closely with other countries to reduce tension, prevent and peacefully settle conflicts in different parts of the world (50) Việt Nam will fulfil its obligations as a party to all major international conventions and treaties on non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (51) We condemn and also undertake to eliminate international terrorism under any forms and in accordance with international law (52) Việt Nam welcomes and is willing to participate in mechanisms, both within or outside the Security Council, to increase assistance for national reconstruction and development of conflict-ridden countries (53) As a nation, which has gone through a reconstruction period after the wars and recorded important achievements on its development path, Việt Nam also wishes to share its experiences with other countries in the world (54) Recognizing the active role played by the UN peace keeping operations, Việt Nam has made financial contributions to and participated in a number of UN activities in restoring peace in some countries (55) Việt Nam is completing the preparatory process for its effective participation in UN peace keeping operations in accordance with our conditions and capacity (56) For the UN Security Council to work more effectively, we share the views that this body should be further reformed on the basis of broader representativeness and greater democracy in its working methodology (57) We also support the strengthening of relationship between the Security Council and regional organizations (58) It is therefore encouraging that, at this session, ASEAN and UN have just signed a cooperation agreement (59) VI I believe that, with an open and constructive foreign policy as well as its active contributions to international peace and security and development cooperation, Việt Nam will enjoy full support from all member states for its candidature for a non-permanent seat in the Security Council for the 2008-2009 term (60) We will whatever we can to fulfil this important mission (61) Việt Nam will always be an active, constructive, cooperative and responsible member of the international community, living up to the expectations of all member states (62) On behalf of the Vietnamese Government and people, I sincerely wish the 62nd session of the General Assembly will be successful, living up to the expectations of peoples around the world for the sake of peace, security, cooperation and development (63) Thank you for your attention ... Chapter 2: Interpretable implicatures in the Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng's Speech at the 62nd UN General Assembly Session This is the main part of the study which includes the interpretable. .. Scope of the study The interpretable implicatures in the Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng‟s Speech at the 62nd UN General Assembly Session will be the focus of this study, including the establishment... Background information of the data 16 Chapter 2: Interpretable implicatures in the Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng's Speech at the 62nd UN General Assembly Session 18 2.1 The