An analysis of lexical cohesion of english and vietnamese economic news discourse

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN THỊ TUYẾT AN ANALYIS OF LEXICAL COHESION OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC NEWS DISCOURSE Phân tích phương tiện liên kết từ vựng diễn ngôn tin kinh tế Tiếng Anh Tiếng Việt M.A MINOR THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60.22.15 HA NOI - 2010 TABLE OF CONTENTS PART A: INTRODUCTION I Rationale of the study II Scope of the study III Aims of the study IV Research questions V Research Methods VI Organization of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND I.1 Discourse and discourse analysis I.1.1 Discourse Analysis I.1.2 Discourse and Text I.1.3 Spoken and written discourse I.2 Discourse Context I.2.1 Context I.2.2 Context of situation I.3 Cohesion & Coherence I.3.1 Cohesion vs Coherence I.3.2 Cohesive devices I.3.2.1 Grammatical cohesion I.3.2.2 Lexical cohesion I.4 Register and genre I.4.1 Register I.4.1.1 Field I.4.1.2 Mode I.4.1.3 Tenor I.4.2 Genre I.5 Economic news discourse CHAPTER II: A COMPARISON OF LEXICAL COHESION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC NEWS DISCOURSE II.1 Frequency of occurrence of two major types of lexical cohesion II.2 Reiteration II.2.1 Repetition II.2.2 Synonym II.2.3 Antonym II.2.4 Superordinate/ Meronymy II.2.4.1 Superordinate II.2.4.2 Meronymy II.3 Collocation PART C: CONCLUSIONS I Conclusions II Limitations of the study III Implications for teachers and EFL learners III.1 Implications for teaching and learning ESP III.2 Implications for teaching and learning translation IV Recommendations for further studies REFERENCES APPENDICES LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Frequency of occurrence and percentage of contribution of two major types of lexical cohesion in English and Vietnamese economic news Table 2: Frequency of occurrence and percentage of contribution of sub-categories of reiteration in English and Vietnamese economic news Table 3: Frequency of occurrence and percentage of contribution of sub- categories of repetition……… Table 4: Frequency of occurrence and percentage of contribution of subtypes of antonym ……………………………………………………… Table 5: Frequency of occurrence and percentage of contribution of subtypes of lexical collocation………………………………………… PART I: INTRODUCTION I Rationale of the study Nowadays, the need of international communication has been increasing rapidly and English is regarded as a predominant means of international communication, particularly in transferring written information Most of magazines, newspapers, internet sites, etc of both English speaking countries and non-English speaking countries are published, exchanged in English Vietnam is not an exception Lexical competence is indispensable part of communicative competence because it indicates the ability to use language in different contexts Lexis helps to make texts coherent and cohesive by establishing grammatical and lexico-grammatical relations Actually, knowing how to select appropriate vocabulary to deal with specific topics in specific genres means knowing how to create coherent and cohesive texts This can be achieved by utilizing lexical cohesive devices Hoey (1991) claims that ―lexical cohesion is the single most important form of cohesion, accounting for something like forty percent of cohesion ties in text‖[28] and that ―various lexical relationships between the different sentences making up a text provide a measure of the cohesiveness of the text The centrality and importance to the text of any particular sentence within the text will be determined by the number of lexical connections that sentences have to other sentences in the text‖ [31] As a learner, a teacher, and a beginning researcher of English, the author would like to choose An analysis of lexical cohesion of English and Vietnamese Economic news discourse as the topic of this study with the hope to deeply understand how lexical cohesion is achieved in economic news discourse and the importance of lexical cohesion in English and Vietnamese in general and in economic news discourse in particular Studying and analyzing economic news discourse is of the author‘s high interest because (i) economic news is widely available and easily accessible data that provide rich sources for research, studying, teaching and learning (ii) economic news discourse not only represents speech communities' use of and attitudes towards languages but also influences them (iii) economic news helps us to understand a lot about social meanings and stereotypes embedded in, produced and reproduced through discourse and communication Through reading economic news we can also learn more about other nations in cultural side (iv) coherence and cohesion in general and lexical cohesion in particular play such an important role in understanding economic news discourse because of their function of binding texts together by creating sequences of meaning II Scope of the study Within the framework of a minor M.A thesis, the present study will not take up all items involved in cohesion The writer will focus only on lexical cohesion of English and Vietnamese Economic News discourse taken from some mainstream newspapers The comparison between lexical cohesion in English and Vietnamese economic news discourse will reveal the similarities and differences between these two languages It is hoped that this study will help the teachers and students to gain an insight into the use of lexical cohesive devices in English and Vietnamese economic news III Aims of the study The inter-related aims of this thesis are: (i) to make comparative analysis of lexical cohesion between English and Vietnamese economic news discourse to help readers surmount difficulties in using and understanding the lexical cohesive devices (ii) to figure out how these cohesive devices are used in English and Vietnamese economic news discourse (iii) to give a systematic and comprehensive description of lexical cohesion features in English and Vietnamese (iv) to help the teachers and students to gain an insight into the use of lexical cohesive devices in English and Vietnamese economic news IV Research questions In order to analyse lexical cohesion of English and Vietnamese in economic news the thesis raises a question “What are the similarities and differences between the use of lexical cohesive devices in English and Vietnamese economic news discourse?” This research question will be clarified by three other sub-questions as follows: (i) How is lexical cohesion via lexical devices realized in English and Vietnamese economic news discourses? (ii) What are the most frequently used lexical cohesive devices in English and Vietnamese economic news discourses? (iii)What are the overall features of English and Vietnamese economic news discourse in terms of lexical cohesion? V Research Methods Research methods of description, analysis and statistics in linguistics have been used to fulfill the objectives of the study Specifically, document analysis is the primary research method used in this study, which focuses on analysis of lexical cohesion in the economic news Halliday and Hasan‘s(1976) model is mainly adopted to identify lexical cohesive ties in the data Yet, the definition and classification of lexical cohesive ties are carefully explained and illustrated The data for the present analysis have been selected from mainstream newspapers written in English including Economics, Real Life Economics, The Times, Times online, The Sunday Times, The Wall Street Journal… and Vietnamese such as Thời Báo Kinh Tế Việt Nam, Tiền Phong, Người Lao Động, Thanh niên, Kinh tế Tài Thị trường Chứng khoán, … The study aims at collecting ten pieces of English economic news and ten pieces of Vietnamese ones written by different journalists All lexical cohesive ties in these news discourses are picked up, the type of lexical cohesive devices are noted However, only outstanding examples are used to illustrate, the percentages of various type of lexical cohesion in each language are calculated and the results are compared and contrasted within and between text groups of the same genre in both English and Vietnamese VI Organization of the study The thesis consists of three parts, references and appendices PART I: INTRODUCTION This part presents rationale, scope, and objectives of the study Research methods, research questions and organization of the thesis are also given clearly in this part PART II: DEVELOPMENT This is the focus of the study which consists of two chapters CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND This chapter provides fundamental and theoretical concepts related to the purpose of the study It deals with theories of discourse, discourse analysis, coherence and cohesion, register and discourse genre CHAPTER II: A COMPARISON OF LEXICAL COHESION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC NEWS DISCOURSE This chapter not only investigates lexical items but also presents the description and exemplification of lexical cohesion in English and Vietnamese economic news to find out the similarities and differences between these two languages Main features of lexical cohesive devices in English and Vietnamese economic news are also indicated in this chapter PART III: CONCLUSIONS This final part gives the overall answers for the research questions of the study, implications for teaching and learning, and some suggestions for further studies PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND I.1 Discourse and Discourse Analysis I.1.1 Discourse Analysis In his book An introduction to Discourse Analysis, Nguyen Hoa (2000) defined discourse analysis as ―a study of how and for what purposes language is used in a certain context of situation.‖ Yule (1996: 139) stated: "In the study of language, some of the most interesting questions arise in connection with the way language is 'used', rather than what its components ( ) We were, in effect, asking how it is that language-users interpret what other language users intend to convey When we carry this investigation further and ask how it is that as language-users, make sense of what we read in texts, understand what speakers mean despite what they say, recognize connected as opposed to jumbled or incoherent discourse and successfully take part in that complex activity called conversation, we are undertaking what is known as discourse analysis." It is clear that discourse analysis is the examination of language used by members of a speech community It involves looking at both language form and language function and includes the study of both spoken interaction and written texts It identifies linguistic features that characterize different genres as well as social and cultural factors that aid in our interpretation and understanding of different texts and types of talk A discourse analysis of written texts might include a study of topic development and cohesion across the sentences, while an analysis of spoken language might focus on these aspects plus turn-taking practices, opening and closing sequences of social encounters, or narrative structure The study of discourse has developed in a variety of disciplines— sociolinguistics, anthropology, sociology, and social psychology Thus, discourse analysis takes different theoretical perspectives and analytic approaches: speech act theory, interactional sociolinguistics, ethnography of communication, pragmatics, conversation analysis, and variation analysis (Schiffrin, 1994) Although each approach emphasizes different aspects of language use, they all view language as social interaction A significant contribution to the evolution of discourse analysis has been made by British and American scholars British discourse analysis has been mainly influenced by M.A.K Halliday's functional approach to language Halliday's framework emphasized the social function of language and the thematic and informational structure of speech and writing De Beaugrande (1980), Halliday and Hasan (1976), Van Dijk (1972) as well as Prague School of linguists have made a significant contribution to this branch of linguistics by indicating the connection of grammar and discourse On the other hand, the American discourse analysis has produced a large number of descriptions of discourse types along with social limitations of politeness and thorough description of facepreserving acts in speech I.1.2 Discourse and text Different linguists have different ways to define discourse Brown and Yule (1983:18) pointed out that ―discourse is language material, either spoken or written, in actual uses by speakers (and writers) of the language.‖ Cook (1989:156) considered discourse as "stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified, and purposive" Crystal (1992: 72) had a similar perspective of discourse when he defined discourse as "a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon, argument, joke, or narrative.‖ So far, many linguists share the same view that the term discourse and text can be used interchangeably Halliday & Hasan (1976:1) found no distinction between them when they stated ―a text may be spoken or written, pose or verse, dialogue or monologue.‖ For them, the term ―text‖ is referred to as a ―semantic unit‖ characterized by cohesion They stated: ―A text is a passage of discourse which is coherent in two regards: It is coherent with respect to the context of situation, and therefore consistent in register; and it is coherent with respect to itself, and therefore cohesive‖ (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:23) For some other linguists, ―discourse‖ is different from ―text‖ Brown and Yule (1983:6) argued that ―discourse is language material, either spoken or written, in actual uses by speakers (and writers) of the language.‖ while text is ―the representation of discourse and the verbal record of communicative act.‖ In Widdowson‘s viewpoint (1984) ―Discourse is a communicative process by means of interaction Its situational outcome is a change in a state of affairs: information is conveyed, intension made clear, its linguistic product is text.‖ (quoted in Nguyen Hoa, 2000: 14) According to Cook (1989: 156), discourse is considered as ―stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified, and purposive‖ whereas text is ―a stretch of language interpreted formally, without context.‖ Crystal (1992:72) considered discourse as "a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language - Among the four subtypes of antonym, complementary relation is hardly used in both English and Vietnamese economic news The last and also the different characteristic between English and Vietnamese economic news is that in English the role of reference item, typically ‗the‘ or the demonstratives ‗this‘, ‗that‘, ‗these‘, ‗those‘ are emphasized Whereas, in Vietnamese, sometimes these reference items can be omitted without losing the cohesive force II Limitations of the study This study has been relatively limited within its scope and objectives Due to the limited time and resources, the author was not able to carry out empirical investigation on the different aspects of cohesion Actually this research initially concentrated on the utilization of different types of lexical cohesive ties -without considering the grammatical cohesive devices, which results in a shortcoming in the thorough comprehension of cohesion in English and Vietnamese economic news discourse In addition, there was a limitation regarding to the data collection of this study- only ten pieces of economic news in each language were respectively selected and analyzed due to the constraint of time and the minor framework III Implications for teachers and EFL learners This study would suggest that the high proportion of similarities in lexical cohesive ties use between English and Vietnamese economic news are elements to be positively exploited Actually, largely the same semantic links are made in the two languages should facilitate reading comprehension, whereas the different lexical realizations and collocations ought not to cause the reader problems III.1 Implications for teaching and learning ESP With the primary aim to equip students with academic knowledge and social knowledge, the designing and developing of ESP reading material is a very essential task for every ESP teacher Using economic news as teaching and learning materials for ESP teachers and learners is a good idea to help both ESP teachers and learners to improve their own skills For teachers, economic news gives a big possibility to self-develop and enrich the existing course book with additional materials When using economic news as additional resources for teaching, teachers not only improve their reading comprehension skill but also widen their knowledge of the world economic Moreover, such economic news with update information in the world can help to motivate students to study effectively For students, economic news gives them a great opportunity to develop their reading skills, to improve their vocabulary, to understand different cultures, and especially to be up-to-date to the current trends in the world Here are some suggestions of using economic news as additional ESP reading materials: - It is necessary for the teacher to choose well- structured economic news as supplementary materials The news selected should be up to date and cover all economic fields - Teachers should collect economic texts that not make heavy demands in students‘ respects; for example, background knowledge, vocabulary…Students should only apply the reading strategies they have learned to the texts they will work on - Teachers should use a model reading comprehension instruction that consists of specific strategies to help students with their reading tasks - Teachers should design more activities related to awareness of lexical cohesion in economic news as these will help their learners realize important role of lexical cohesive ties in making economic news cohesive and coherent III.2 Implications for teaching and learning translation Of the lexical cohesive devices employed in both English and Vietnamese economic news, collocations should receive the central attention in translation Obviously, collocations occur quite often in English and Vietnamese economic news However, learning collocations is not an easy task as it is such a diverse subject The learner‘s task is then to recognize the possibility of certain words which tend to occur together It is advisable for the learners to raise their awareness of collocations in translating This will enable them to avoid word-for-word translation and foster their awareness of the linguistic convention of collocations Also, it is important for the L2 learners to identify the typical or most frequently occurring collocations as well as the similarities and differences between the source language (English) and the target language (Vietnamese), or the culture bias when encountering collocations Additionally, collocations should be treated as single units since word elements in a collocation are semantically dependent on each other This awareness of the semantic dependence will help avoid mistranslation of the whole collocation As a result, when translating or interpreting a source text, the translator should take account of the collocation meaning rather than individual words with their dictionary equivalents From all mentioned above, it is necessary for the teachers to design more tasks and exercises focusing on collocations which usually appear in economic news For instance, putting forward the collocations in the source language and asking for equivalents in the target language This kind of exercise will highlight noticeable collocations in the source text One advantage if this kind of exercise is that it focuses on collocations within a particular topic Moreover, the teachers should encourage the students to use dictionaries of collocations when translating or suggest them to note down collocations and expressions when they work on reading texts in English everyday IV Recommendations for further studies This present study has attempted to provide a representative account of cohesive forces in the use of different types of lexical cohesive ties in English and Vietnamese economic news in particular From both the successes and limitations of this present study, a number of suggestions for future research in this area are as follows: - Further research in this field should extend the analysis of lexical cohesion into a wider range of economic genres such as the ESP textbook, research articles, and publications, for example, the Economist - Other discourse features of economic news such as metaphor, grammatical cohesive ties, topical and logical cohesive devices …should be considered in the future studies - Another line of extension could investigate the implications of economic news in teaching ESP In conclusion, this paper is only its author‘s first attempt at studying economic news discourse but it is hoped that this could assist the author, other teachers and students in their teaching and learning of economic news discourse Due to the limited time and knowledge, shortcomings are unavoidable in the study so the author wishes to receive suggestions and comments from teachers, students and all of those who are concerned REFERENCES In English Benson, et.al, (1986) The BBI Combinatory Dictionary of English Amsterdam: John Benjamins Bhatia, V.K (1998) Analyzing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings London: Longman Group Limited Brown, G and Yule, G (1983) Discourse Analysis Cambridge: CUP Cook, G (1989) Discourse Oxford: Oxford University Press Crystal, D (1992) Introducing Linguistics London: penguin De Beaugrande, R (1980) Text, Discourse and Process London: Longman Dong, Nguyen Thi Van (2001) A Study of Socio-Cultural Headlines in English Press Unpublished M.A thesis Hanoi Eggins, S (1994) An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics London – Continuum Firth, J.R (1957) Papers in Linguistics Oxford University Press 10 Halliday, M.A.K & Hasan, R (1976) Cohesion in English London: Longman 11 Halliday M.A.K, (1985) An Introduction to Functional Grammar London: Arnold 12 Hasan, R (1984) Coherence and Cohesive Harmony London: Longman 13 Hatim, B and Mason, I (1990) Discourse and the Translator London: Longman 14 Hill, J and Lewis.M, (1997) LTP Dictionary of Selected Collocations Hove: Language Teaching Publications 15 Hoa, Nguyen (2000) An introduction to Discourse Analysis Nxb Đại học Quốc gia Hà nội 16 Press Hoey, M (1991) Patterns of Lexis in Text Oxford: Oxford University Lewis, M., (2000) Language in the lexical approach In: Lewis, M.,eds Teaching 17 Collocation: further developments in the lexical approach Language Teaching Publications 18 McCarthy, M (1992) Discourse analysis for language teachers New York: Cambridge University Press 19 Nunan, D (1993) Introducing Discourse Analysis London: Penguin Group 20 Richards et.al (1992) Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics London: Longman 21 Schiffrin, D (1994) Approaches to discourse Oxford: Blackwell 22 Press Swales, J.M (1990) Genre Analysis Cambridge: Cambridge University 23 Truong ,Hoang Tat (1993) Basic English Lexicology Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ Đại học Quốc gia Hà nội 24 Van, Hoang Van (2006) Introducing discourse analysis Nxb Giáo Dục 25 Widdowson, H.G (1978) Explorations in Applied Linguistics Oxford: Oxford University Press 26 Widdowson, H.G (1984) Explorations in Applied Linguistics Oxford: Oxford University Press 27 Press Yule, G (1996) The Study of Language Oxford: Oxford University In Vietnamese Ban, Diep Quang (1990) Văn liên kết Tiếng Việt (Tái lần thứ nhất) Nxb Giáo Dục Ban, Diep Quang (2000) Ngữ Pháp tiếng Việt Hà Nội: Nxb Giáo Dục Them, Tran Ngoc (1985) Hệ thống Liên kết Văn Tiếng Việt Hà Nội: Nxb Khoa học Xã hội APPENDIX I CODING SYSTEM OF LEXICAL COHESIVE DEVICES IN THE STUDY Type Rep Rep Syn Ant Ant Ant Ant Sup/Mer Co1 Co Co APPENDIX II English economic news sample with analysis of lexical reiteration Barclays raises contactless card limit (1) (The Times March 4, 2010) Barclays is increasing the value of transactions customers can make using its contactless payment cards to £15, the bank announced today (2) Contactless cards enable customers to make purchases in shops without the need to enter a pin or insert the card into a terminal (3) Instead, the contactless card is "tapped" on to a symbol on the front of a terminal for a couple of seconds (4) The group said it had decided to raise the existing £10 limit following demand from customers and retailers (5) Barclays, which introduced the first contactless payment card in the UK through its Barclaycard subsidiary in 2007, has over six million contactless enabled cards in issue in the UK (6) Since March last year it has been giving contactless payment cards to its current account holders as standard (7) For other types of payment the cards still operate as normal debit and credit cards with chip and pin security (8) Brian Cunnington, head of debit cards for Barclays, said: ―Contactless technology is undoubtedly the future of payments and we are seeing it grow hugely in popularity.‖ (9) More than two years after the first customers were issued with contactless cards, it is the right time for the industry limit to increase to £15, in line with demand from customers and retailers alike (10) The new higher limit gives customers the flexibility of paying for even more transactions quickly, securely and conveniently via a contactless payment card and will lead to more retailers implementing the technology (11) People can now use contactless payment cards at more than 20,000 payment terminals across the UK, including at Pret A Manger, Caffè Nero and Krispy Kreme, as well as at thousands of independent retailers (12) However, contactless payment cards have not been welcomed by everyone (13) 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 12 12 12 12 12 13 13 APPENDIX III Vietnamese economic news sample with analysis of lexical reiteration Trung Quốc thâm hụt thương mại lần đầu năm (1) ….(Thời Báo Kinh Tế Việt Nam, ngày 15 tháng 3, 2010) Cán cân thương mại Trung Quốc đảo chiều tháng 3/2010 (2) Đây thâm hụt thương mại theo tháng nước vòng năm qua, Tổng cục Hải quan Trung Quốc cho biết hôm 9/4 (3) Tân Hoa xã dẫn báo cáo Tổng cục Hải quan Trung Quốc cho biết, thâm hụt thương mại tháng nước 7,24 tỷ USD (4) Cụ thể, kim ngạch xuất hàng hóa dịch vụ Trung Quốc tháng báo cáo tăng 24,3% so với kỳ năm 2009, lên 112,11 tỷ USD (5) Trong khi, nhập lại tăng tới 66%, lên 119,35 tỷ USD (6) Tính chung tháng đầu năm, Trung Quốc đạt thặng dư thương mại 14,49 tỷ USD (7) Tuy nhiên, so với quý 1/2009, thặng dư thương mại quốc gia giảm mạnh tới 76,7% (8) Thặng dư thương mại Trung Quốc thu hẹp vài tháng qua nhu cầu nội địa tăng mạnh khiến nhập tăng trưởng nhanh xuất (9) Tổng kim ngạch xuất nhập Trung Quốc quý 1/2010 617,85 tỷ USD, tăng 44,1% so với kỳ năm 2009 (10) Riêng tháng 3, xuất nhập nước 231,46 tỷ USD, tăng 42,8% (11) Trước đó, hơm 23/3, báo chí Trung Quốc dẫn lời Thủ tướng Ôn Gia Bảo cho hay, thâm hụt thương mại nước tỷ USD (12) 4 5 6 7 8 8 8 9 9 9 10 10 10 APPENDIX IV Number of occurrence of lexical collocation in English economic news Text number Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text 10 Total APPENDIX V Number of occurrence of lexical collocation in Vietnamese economic news Text number Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text Text 10 Total ... to deeply understand how lexical cohesion is achieved in economic news discourse and the importance of lexical cohesion in English and Vietnamese in general and in economic news discourse in particular... theories of discourse, discourse analysis, coherence and cohesion, register and discourse genre CHAPTER II: A COMPARISON OF LEXICAL COHESION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC NEWS DISCOURSE. .. learner, a teacher, and a beginning researcher of English, the author would like to choose An analysis of lexical cohesion of English and Vietnamese Economic news discourse as the topic of this study