A discourse analysis of english economics reports from VOA = phân tích diễn ngôn các bản báo cáo kinh tế từ VOA

Vinh university Foreign language department ***** -Nguyễn văn sỹ A discourse analysis of English economics reports from VOA (Ph©n tÝch diễn ngôn báo cáo kinh tế từ VOA) Graduation thesis Field: linguistics Vinh, 2009 Acknowledgements For the completion of the thesis, I have been fortunate to receive invaluable contributions from many people First, I would like to express my greatest gratitude to M.A Nguyen Thi Van Lam, my supervisor for her excellent suggestions, valuable materials, and correction that help me to fulfill this study I am grateful to my teachers in the Department of Foreign Languages for their helpful suggestions and encouragements that help me overcome difficulties in the process of my study My warmest thanks to my loved family and my good friends who are willing to help me and always by my side, encourage me to complete my work Vinh, summer, 2009 Nguyễn văn sỹ Table of contents Acknowledgement ……………………………………………………….i Table of Contents ……………………………………………………….ii Part A: Introduction ………………………………………….1 Rationale of the Study ……………………………………………… Aims and of Objects of the Study ……………………………………2 Scope of the study ……………………………………………………2 Research Methods ……………………………………………………2 Design of the Study ………………………………………………… Part B: Development……………………………………………4 chapter I: theoretical background……………………4 1.1 Discourse and Text ……………………………………………… 1.2 Coherence and Cohesion …………………………………………5 1.3 Cohesive Devices ……………………………………………… 1.3.1 Grammatical Cohesion ………………………………………… 1.3.1.1 Reference …………………………………………………….7 1.3.1.2 Substitution ………………………………………………… 1.3.1.3 Ellipsis ……………………………………………………….10 1.3.1.4 Conjunction ………………………………………………….11 1.3.2 Lexical Cohesion ……………………………………………12 1.3.2.1 Repetition ……………………………………………………13 1.3.2.2 Synonymy ………………………………………………… 13 1.3.2.3 Antonymy……………………………………………………14 1.3.2.4 Hyponymy ………………………………………………… 14 1.4 General Information about VOA Special English ……………… 14 1.5 The Concept of an Economic Report …………………………… 15 1.6 Some Major Characteristics of an Economics Report …………….15 1.6.1 Information on Finance Ministries ………………………………15 1.6.2 Union Budget ……………………………………………………16 1.6.3 Statistics and Data ……………………………………………….16 1.6.4 Specialized Economics Reports …………………………………16 chapterII: A Discourse analysis of English economics report from VOA …………………………… 17 2.1 General Information about Material Selected …………………… 17 2.2 Cohesive Devices ………………………………………………….17 2.3 Grammatical Cohesive Devices ……………………………………18 2.3.1 Reference ……………………………………………………… 18 2.3.2 Substitution ………………………………………………………20 2.3.3 Ellipsis ………………………………………………………… 21 2.3.4 Conjunction …………………………………………………… 22 2.4 Lexical Cohesive Devices …………………………………………24 2.4.1 Repetition ……………………………………………………… 24 2.4.2 Synonymy ……………………………………………………… 25 2.4.3 Antonymy ……………………………………………………… 26 2.4.4 Hyponymy ……………………………………………………….26 2.5 The Frequency of Occurrences of Cohesive Devices in English Economics Reports from VOA …………………………………………27 Chapter III: findings and applications of the study ………………………………………………………………………… 29 3.1 Discussion …………………………………………………… 29 3.2 Applications of the Study……………………………………… 30 3.2.1 Application of Discourse Analysis to Teaching Grammar…… 31 3.2.2 Application of Discourse Analysis to Teaching Vocabulary…… 33 3.2.3 Application of Discourse Analysis to Teaching Text Interpretation ……………………………………………………………………37 Part C: conclusion…………………………………………… 38 Recapitulation…………………………………………………… 38 Suggestion for Further Study…………………………………….38 References appendix Part A: Introduction Rationale of the study Nowadays, English becomes the international language for most fields in our life, especially economy The amount of material related to economy comes from so many companies all over the world, mainly English reports Therefore, they will be necessary for all people, who want to open company or to business In fact, less information from our partners lead to the breakdown or failure after a short time we are doing our business In addition, during the time we carry out this research, we found that English Economics Reports are said to be a useful and typical demonstration of grammatical as well as lexical cohesion usage Therefore, in the processes of producing and receiving in learning English, learners are usually guided to pay their attention on the logicality of the text In other words, they should be taught how to recognize or create coherence of the text Textual coherence can be obtained by various cohesive devices that consist of both grammatical cohesive devices and lexical ones Each of them has its own role in creating complexity and unity the text Grammatical cohesion usually involves closed systems, but lexical one involves a kind of choice that is open-ended They are considered the most common and contribute most to textual coherence Finally, English economics reports contain a lot of cohesive devices that make us difficult to understand, so it is necessary to study how English economics reports are built and how meaning of the author as well as cohesive devices are used in them Economic report has become one of the most popular and powerful means of communication and plays a displaceable part in man’s life It not only provides information but also from VOA, it is a place for us to learn and to enrich our knowledge We hope that the choice of the study would help businessmen and all people who are interested in doing business get more knowledge and understand more about the importance of English Economics Reports in general and especially from VOA For all reasons above, the author decides to choose to study on “A Discourse Analysis of English Economics Reports from VOA” Aims of the study Originating from all reasons above, the aims of the study are: - To emphasize the importance in English reports to business - To clarify some special features of language used in them - To give some statistics and descriptions of Cohesive Devices used in English Economics Reports from VOA - To suggest some implications for English Economics Report writers in creating an effective English Economics Report and students in learning cohesive devices Scope of the study Due to the time and resource limitation, this study only focuses on the analysis of ten English Economics Reports from VOA The grammatical and lexical cohesion provided by Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) description are used as the framework for data analysis The data in this thesis come from VOA Special English Economics Reports, written by Mario Ritter in order to show the state of economy in many countries over the world for the large number of readers, mainly businessmen Methods of the study To achieve the mentioned aims, the following methods are used: - The descriptive method: to describe and investigate data through the study - The analytical method: to analyze English Economics Reports Design of the study This study consists of three parts: Part A is the introduction In this part the rationale of the study, aims of the study, scope of the study, methods and design of the study are presented Part B is the development This part is divided into three chapters: + Chapter I Theoretical background + Chapter II A discourse analysis of English Economics Reports from VOA + Chapter III Discussion and Implication Part C is the conclusion In this part, it summarizes what is discussed in chapter I, II, and III of the study Some suggestions for further study are provided in this part This study ends up with References and Appendix Part B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter I: theoretical background 1.1 Discourse and text Discourse and text are still difficult for students to solve because of some similarities Sentences are linked in sequences, which may be called ‘discourses’ These units have a semantic representation, a “discourse representation structure”, in terms of Kamp and Reyle (1993: 59), which is incremental, according to Kamp (1995: 254): “in order to make sense of a discourse-internal sentence the interpreter must connect it with the interpretation he has assigned to the sentences preceding it” In turn, discourses are organized into larger structures, up to texts Texts are not defined in terms of coherence or relevance, but by the connection existing between their component discourses Similarly, a discourse is not defined in terms of contextual information, but it is the result of connecting its component sentences In order for this connection to take place, additional information must be included This happens whenever a unit is connected to others Connection is the general process that accounts for syntactic structure itself In every complex unit, there is information that is not represented by the component units, but rather added to them so that the result is the complex unit itself Frequently this additional information is added as default, but it may also originate in preceding units Thus, words are linked to each other into phrases, phrases into clauses, clauses into sentences, sentences into discourses, and discourses into texts Text types, or genres, account for the way discourses are connected; styles, or discourse types, organize in general ways the connection between sentences within discourses Also basing on a number of differences between them that some linguists have ever defined Crystal (1992), for example, consider that discourse is “ a continuous stretch of spoken language especially larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit, such as a sermon, argument, joke or narrative”; meanwhile, text is “a piece of 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” According to Cook (1989): discourse is “stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified and purposive” Text is “a stretch of language interpreted formally, without context” In a short word, the term text is used to refer to any written record of a communicative event The event itself may involve oral language or written language The term discourse refers to the interpretation of the communicative event in context 1.2 Coherence and cohesion Nunan (1993:116) clearly indicates the difference between cohesion and coherence: “coherence is the extent to which discourse is perceived to hang together rather than a set of unrelated sentences or utterances and cohesion is formal links showing the relationships among clause and sentences in discourse” Cohesion can be thought as all the grammatical and lexical links that tie one part of a text to another This includes use of synonyms, lexical sets, pronouns, verb tenses, time references, grammatical reference, etc For example, 'it', 'neither' and 'this' all refer to an idea previously mentioned 'First of all', 'then' and 'after that' help to sequence a text 'However', 'in addition' and 'for instance' link ideas and arguments in a text Coherence can be thought as how meanings and sequences of ideas relate to each other Coherence helps the text make sense as a whole at an idea level, and cohesion as rather more mechanical links at a language level You can imagine that it is possible for a piece of writing to contain plenty of cohesion yet little coherence Cohesion is the glue that holds a piece of writing together In other words, if a paper is cohesive, it sticks together from sentence to sentence and from paragraph to paragraph Cohesive devices certainly include transitional words and phrases, such as therefore, furthermore, or for instance, that clarify for readers the relationships among ideas in a piece of 10 - A study on signal of larger textual patterns in the English Economic Reports from VOA References Brown, G and Yule (1983), discourse analysis, Cambridge University Press Cook, G (1989) Discourse Oxford University Press Crystal, D (1992) Introducing Linguistics London : Penguin 44 Halliday, M.A.K & Hasan, R (1976) Cohesion in English London : Longman Halliday, M.A.K (1985) An Introduction to Functional Grammar London : Arnold Kamp, H and Reyle, U (1993) From discourse to logic, Dordrecht, Kluwer Kamp, Hans, (1995) Discourse representation theory, in Verschueren et al., 253-257 McCarthy, M (1991) Discourse analysis for language teachers Cambridge University Press Nunan, D (1995) Discourse Analysis Penguin 10 Nunan, D (1993) Introducing Discourse Analysis Lodon : Penguin 11 Nguyen Manh Hung and Le Quoc Hanh (2006) English Lexicology Hanoi University Press Websites : http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/about_special_english.cfm http://www.economywatch.com/economic-report/ http://www.google.com.vn/search? q=voa+special+english+economic+report&hl=vi&sa=2 Appendix High Fuel Prices Drive Manufacturing Closer to Home Written by Mario Ritter 2008-8-28 This is the VOA Special English Economics Report 45 In the last thirty years, American businesses have increasingly used suppliers in China and all over the world This helped fuel a current account deficit of seven hundred thirty-one billion dollars last year The current account is a measure of the difference between a country's income and its current spending Even so, many companies profited by importing goods from foreign suppliers as world trade barriers fell and oil prices were low But wage costs have risen in China And now, with oil so costly, many economists wonder how wise it is to make products far from home markets A recent report by Jeff Rubin and Benjamin Tal at the Canadian bank CIBC said shipping inflation is taking the place of the old trade tariffs For example, in the year two thousand, the cost to send a twelve-meter shipping container from Shanghai to the American East Coast was three thousand dollars Now the cost has risen to eight thousand dollars High transportation costs have already affected China's foreign trade The rate of export growth decreased from about twenty-seven percent a year ago to twenty-two percent in the first half of this year To cut transportation costs, some companies are opening factories in countries where they sell their products Sweden's Ikea, the world's largest seller of home furniture, just opened its first factory in the United States in Virginia Countries like the United States that have lost manufacturing jobs to foreign competition could see some of those jobs return But a new report says American businesses are also looking at other ways to deal with high fuel prices The report is from a transportation research company based in London, Eyefortransport It says that for years the industry has tried to reduce costs by moving goods through the supply chain as quickly as possible Now, high fuel costs are 46 making some companies restructure their operations Fewer but larger loads are being shipped And companies are moving more goods by rail and by water, along coasts and inland waterways Not only does that save fuel, the report says, it also helps shippers and carriers improve their "green" image With these changes, it says, American manufacturers are looking for lowcost countries closer to home known as near shoring At the same time, there appears to be a common belief in the industry that some carriers are raising fuel charges just to increase profits Too Big to Fail, the Next Step: US Seizes Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Written by Mario Ritter 11 September 2008 This week, the government took control of America's two biggest housing finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are under conservatorship This process of supervision will continue until the new Federal Housing Finance Agency decides they are back in financial health Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, left, speaks during a news conference with Federal Housing Finance Agency Director James Lockhart in Washington on SundayIn July, Congress gave the Treasury new powers to save them, using as much money as needed At first, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said he had no plans to use those powers But on Sunday he announced that new findings about the condition of the companies forced action He said a failure of either would shake financial markets at home and around the world Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy loans from lenders to provide more money for housing finance They own or guarantee five trillion dollars in 47 debt and securities They keep some loans but resell others as mortgagebacked securities These are held by central banks and other investors worldwide As the housing and credit crisis deepened, Fannie and Freddie have had trouble raising capital to cover bad loans The government saw a risk to the financial system As part of the rescue, the Treasury plans to buy at least five billion dollars of their mortgage-backed securities And it plans to buy up to one hundred billion dollars of preferred stock in each company The Federal Reserve will also lend money as needed Critics say taxpayers could lose a lot But Treasury officials say the plan should save money in the long term, and might even bring a profit Each company will give the Treasury one billion dollars in stock that pays at least ten percent a year And the Treasury could buy up to eighty percent of their common stock if it chooses Under the takeover, existing owners of common stock will lose most of their investment Mortgage interest rates dropped this week following the takeover Marc Savitt, president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, called it a good sign for the housing market Yet Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac still face a conflict between serving a public interest and a private one Congress created them so more Americans could buy houses Then Congress made them into shareholder-owned companies 48 Some people say, nationalize them Others say, break them up into new companies without any government support, or sell them to other businesses Credit and the Crisis of Confidence By Mario Ritter 2008-10-2 This is the VOA Special English Economics Report Wednesday night, the United States Senate passed a rescue bill for the financial industry A wide majority sent the bill for debate in the House of Representatives The House rejected its own version on Monday Video image of the final 74-25 vote in the Senate on the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008Like the earlier bill, the new one approves up to seven hundred billion dollars to buy troubled assets The government would aim to resell them later, maybe even at a profit But the Senate added so-called sweeteners for the House These include tax breaks for businesses and individuals and a temporary increase in federal insurance for bank deposits Yet general elections are in a month Members of Congress know that many Americans hate the idea of what they call a "bailout for Wall Street." Public opinion takers find greater support, however, when the plan is described as a "rescue." Supporters say it is needed to rescue Main Street, meaning average Americans Businesses large and small are finding it harder to get credit a bad sign for an already weak economy 49 One thing is clear: credit demands trust, and there is a lack of it in the financial system This loss of confidence has led to a flight from risk Yields on short-term Treasury debt recently fell to almost zero Investors were willing to accept almost no interest because they were more interested in safety Another recent sign of worry: the LIBOR, the widely used London Interbank Offered Rate The LIBOR for overnight loans between banks rose above six percent Banks are holding onto money in case they need it for a sudden increase in withdrawals Another part of the problem is suspicion about the assets that other banks might use to secure a loan Many financial companies invested in pieces of complex securities based on mortgages and other debt Spreading the risk this way meant high returns with little danger Or so they thought Then the housing market began to collapse in two thousand six, followed by these securities No one knows how to value them now The financial industry has had to report billions in losses because of accounting rules One rule is called mark-to-market Companies must mark the value of their assets as the price they would receive if they tried to sell them But what if the market has collapsed? Some experts call for a suspension of this rule In any case, experts say the problem of toxic assets must be solved before credit markets will unfreeze Financial Crisis Summit Set for November 15 in Washington Written by Mario Ritter 2008-10-23 This is the VOA Special English Economics Report 50 Credit markets showed signs of some improvement this week Interest rates for short-term loans between banks fell, in a sign that banks may be more willing to lend But stock markets fell on new concerns about company profits President Bush invited leaders of the Group of Twenty countries to Washington on November fifteenth to discuss the financial crisis The group includes leading industrial economies and large developing ones like China and India A White House spokeswoman said the leaders will seek a common set of ideas for reform of the world's financial system The summit is meant to be the first in a series of talks This week, the Federal Reserve announced a program to lend up to five hundred forty billion dollars to money market mutual funds And Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson detailed his department's new capital purchase program The Treasury will buy two hundred fifty billion dollars worth of nonvoting preferred stock in healthy banks HENRY PAULSON: "This is an investment, not an expenditure, and there is no reason to believe that this program will cost taxpayers anything They will not only own shares that should be paid back with a reasonable return, but also will receive warrants for common shares in participating institutions." In return, the banks have to restrict pay for top officials The nation's nine largest banks have already agreed to accept half the money The money will come from the financial rescue plan passed by Congress The aim is to increase lending, but experts predict banks may also use the new capital to buy smaller banks Also in Washington, government officials considered new measures to help struggling homeowners And a congressional committee held a hearing on credit rating agencies and their part in the financial crisis They 51 underestimated the risk of complex securities based on mortgage loans for people with poor credit histories Issuers of securities pay the rating agencies to estimate the risk for investors The heads of the three major agencies said the failures were honest mistakes, and that they are working to regain trust But a former official at Standard & Poor's said, "Profits were running the show." The committee released an instant message exchange in which two Standard & Poor's employees discussed a deal last year The first wrote: "we should not be rating it." The second answered: "we rate every deal it could be structured by cows and we would rate it." Obama Faces Difficult Financial Choices By Mario Ritter 2008-11-6 This is the VOA Special English Economics Report Barack Obama defeated John McCain Tuesday in the longest and most costly presidential campaign in American history The Center for Responsive Politics estimates that the two candidates spent more than one billion dollars Mister Obama alone is estimated to have raised about seven hundred million dollars from donors The election results were widely seen as a strong statement by voters on the economy A public opinion study reported by the Wall Street Journal found that about sixty percent of voters considered the economy the top issue President-elect Obama faces the deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression of the nineteen thirties The Dow Jones Industrial Average of leading stocks has lost nearly thirty percent of its value this year In September, the government seized the nation's two largest home financing companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac It also took control of the huge insurance company, A.I.G And, the government is now a shareholder in nine of the country's largest banks That will expand to smaller banks, too The amount spent on these rescue plans has been close to one trillion dollars That amount could increase 52 Another problem facing the new administration is the record budget deficit Some experts estimate the deficit for next year's budget could be close to one trillion dollars Some observers predict that the deficit will restrict spending on economic programs the new president may want Barack Obama has promised a tax cut for middle income Americans He is seeking fifty billion dollars in aid for states and job creation programs Mister Obama has proposed a health care reform plan that costs fifty to sixty-five billion dollars He says this will be paid for by ending tax cuts for people earning over two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year Mister Obama is also seeking to spend one hundred fifty billion dollars on new energy technologies over the next ten years In addition, the president-elect has been discussing a program worth one hundred billion dollars It includes spending on public works projects and aid to American states, cities and citizens Congress Delays Action on Auto Industry Loans By Mario Ritter 2008-11-20 This is the VOA Special English Economics Report Congress faced a big question this week, but the answer will have to wait The heads of the Big Three American automakers came to Washington to ask for money on their private jets, critics noted The chiefs of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler asked for twenty-five billion dollars in new loans Congress already approved twenty-five billion in September to help the industry develop fuel-efficient vehicles Democratic leaders in Congress proposed to offer the additional loans with money from the financial rescue program approved last month But Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson objected He says the seven hundred billion dollars is just for investing to strengthen the financial system On Thursday, a group of Senate Democrats and Republicans announced agreement on a compromise It would let the companies temporarily use the fuel-efficiency loans to pay for daily operations G.M and Chrysler both say they could be out of money by early next year 53 But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says there are currently not enough votes in Congress to pass any bailout plan for automakers He says they failed to make their case that this appeal will be the last The companies now have until December second to explain how they would use the loans as part of long-term plans to save their businesses Congress is prepared to consider the plans the week of December eighth Peter Morici, a professor of international business at the University of Maryland, is among economists who oppose a bailout He appeared at this week's hearings He says the Big Three should be permitted to fail If they seek bankruptcy protection, he says, they will be able to cut costs, reorganize and become competitive again But General Motors chief executive Rick Wagoner warned that the economy could lose three million jobs in the first year if the Big Three fail They employ a total of about two hundred forty thousand people But that does not include dealers or suppliers or the auto parts industry Auto sales, though sharply reduced now, usually represent about four percent of the economy The industry chiefs blamed the credit crisis for keeping people from getting car loans But lawmakers said poor business decisions have hurt the Big Three Autodata Corporation says fifty-three percent of new cars and light trucks sold in the United States in the first ten months of this year were imported US Automakers Ask Congress for 34 Billion in Aid By Mario Ritter 2008-12-4 This is the VOA Special English Economics Report The United States is already one year into a recession That was the news this week from the National Bureau of Economic Research The downturn is the longest since a recession that began in nineteen eighty-one and lasted sixteen months Economists generally wait for production to shrink for six months in a row before they declare a recession But the bureau, a private group, uses a wider set of information to measure the economy The news only confirmed what many people already knew: that the world's largest economy is weak and may not recover soon 54 Worsening conditions have led to a big drop in spending, especially on costly products like new cars Even Japanese automaker Toyota saw its sales fall thirty-four percent in the United States in November from a year ago The heads of Chrysler, Ford and General Motors returned to Congress this week to again ask for federal aid Congressional leaders denounced them two weeks ago after they came in private jets with no clear plans for saving their industry This time, the chiefs drove to Washington in fuel-saving hybrid vehicles And their companies presented detailed restructuring plans The request for aid has risen from twenty-five billion dollars two weeks ago to thirty-four billion in loans and credit lines G.M wants almost half of that, and says it needs four billion dollars this month It warned that without support it cannot continue to operate Ford is in a better position But the sharing of suppliers means it could be affected if G.M or Chrysler fails Ford is asking for a nine billion dollar credit line in case it needs it Chrysler is the smallest and most trUS Automakers Ask Congress for $34 Billion in Aidoubled of America's Big Three It says it needs a seven billion dollar loan by the end of the month Two days of congressional hearings began Thursday in the Senate Banking Committee The chairman, Democrat Chris Dodd, said he would support helping the automakers for the good of the economy But the committee's top Republican, Richard Shelby, continued to express opposition to a bailout A main root of the world financial crisis is the weak housing market in the United States The Treasury Department has been under pressure to help troubled homeowners Now comes news that the department is developing a plan aimed at reducing interest rates on mortgage loans for some buyers of homes That could be good for homeowners trying to sell Tribune, a Big US Media Group, Goes Bankrupt By Mario Ritter 2008-12-11 This is the VOA Special English Economics Report One of America's largest media companies has sought protection from its creditors in bankruptcy court The Tribune Company owns the Los Angeles 55 Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun and other newspapers It also owns twenty-three television stations and the Chicago Cubs baseball team Sam Zell, one of the nation's biggest property owners, took control a year ago He led a stock buyout for eight billion dollars He borrowed almost all of it Many buyouts in recent years were heavily financed with debt But Tribune was struggling with thirteen billion dollars of debt in a recession It lost more than one hundred twenty million dollars between July and September Tribune sought protection Monday under Chapter Eleven of the bankruptcy laws Chapter Eleven lets a business continue to operate while it seeks to restructure its debt Sam Zell blamed what he called a "perfect storm" of economic conditions including a credit crisis But critics say he simply borrowed too much Tribune is the country's first major newspaper group to declare bankruptcy since the rise of the Internet in the middle of the nineteen nineties Profits have been shrinking as newspapers lose readers and advertisers to competition from new media The Christian Science Monitor, for example, plans to publish only online by April Newspapers have, in fact, been losing readers since the eighties But things are a lot worse now Circulation in the six months ending in September was down almost five percent from the year before Some papers fell more than ten percent The two largest newspapers, however, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal, reported little change The New York Times is third; its was down about four percent But Executive Editor Bill Keller says the Times is still profitable and had a billion page views on its Web site in October "Good journalism does not come cheap," he says "And, therefore, you're not going to find a lot of blogs or nonprofit Web sites that are going to build a Baghdad bureau." He spoke recently on National Public Radio NPR says it just had a year of near-record audience levels on the radio and online, as other journalism investments decreased But over the next year, the nonprofit network predicts a big deficit because of less giving by companies in the downturn So this week it cut seven percent of its jobs and canceled two programs 56 The Growing Credit Crisis Forces Many Companies to Seek Government Help By Mario Ritter 01 January 2009 This is the VOA Special English Economics Report Lehman Brothers world headquarters in New York on the day the company sought bankruptcy protectionThis week, we continue our look back at the major economic stories of the year On September fifteenth, Lehman Brothers, a one hundred fifty-eight year-old investment bank, sought legal protection from its creditors It had failed to find a buyer after months of searching With over six hundred billion dollars in debt, Lehman's failure was the largest bankruptcy in United States history At the same time, the nation's biggest insurance company, American International Group, had gotten into trouble selling credit default swaps These are contracts similar to insurance that protect the holder against credit risk Credit rating agencies downgraded A.I.G because of concerns it could not honor its contracts Unable to get new loans, A.I.G asked for government help The Federal Reserve agreed to loan A.I.G eighty-five billion dollars in return for eighty percent of the company But it was not enough By November, the government had extended a total of about one hundred fifty billion dollars in aid to A.I.G ¡ª the most to any single company during the crisis Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson explaining efforts to ease the credit crisis in September As banks refused to lend, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson 57 proposed a plan to loosen credit markets by buying risky assets Congress approved the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of Two Thousand Eight on October third The bill provided seven hundred billion dollars to buy hard-to-value securities from banks But within weeks, the government changed plans The Treasury moved to invest two hundred fifty billion dollars directly in banks to help them lend money again Lack of credit not only hurt banks but manufacturers, too Falling car sales threatened America's carmakers The big three automakers General Motors, Ford and Chrysler told Congress that they needed loans or they faced bankruptcy In December, President Bush offered G.M and Chrysler over seventeen billion dollars in loans As the year ended, the Federal Reserve tried to support economic growth by lowering its main interest rate to nearly zero for the first time But there was one more bad surprise New York money manager Bernard Madoff admitted he had cheated investors out of fifty billion dollars The news only added to the sense that two thousand eight was the worst economic year since the nineteen thirties 10 Obama: 'If Nothing Is Done, This Recession Could Linger for Years' By Mario Ritter 08 January 2009 This is the VOA Special English Economics Report 58 ... in teaching and learning English 3.2.1 Application of Discourse Analysis to Teaching Grammar To enable teaching more naturally the usage of the target language as well as source language, discourse. .. form an integral part of that particular industry Chapter II: A Discourse analysis economics reports from VOA 2.1 General Information about Material Selected 21 of English As the title of the... superordinate of “China and India” In contrast, China and India are hyponym of Country 1.4 General Information about VOA Special English VOA Special English communicates in clear and simple English