Đặc điểm ngôn ngữ giới tính trong hát phường vải nghệ tĩnh tóm tắt bản tiếng anh

In Vietnam, researchers have applied common theory on communication in exploringcultural characteristics related to the gender of communication’s roles, mainly focusing on daily communic

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Vinh UNIVERSITY

NguyEn ThI Mai Hoa

GENDERED LANGUAGE CHARACTERISTICS

IN NGHE TINH PHUONG VAI SINGING

Specialization: Linguistic theory

CODE: 62.22.01.01

SYNOPSIS OF Ph.D THESIS in IN LINGUISTICS

Vinh - 2010

This thesis has been completed at: Vinh University

Supervisors:

1 Prof Dr Diep Quang Ban

2 Prof Dr Nguyen Nha Ban

Opponent 1: Associate Pfro Nguyen Thai Hoa

Opponent 2: Prof Dr Hoang Trong Phien.

Opponent 3: Associate Pfro Pham Hung Viet

The thesis has been defended before the council of examining theses of national lelel atVinh University at 8 am of 18 December, 2010

This thesis can be accessed to at the National Library, Library of Vinh University, Library of Nghe An Province

PREAMBLE

1 Rationale

Nghe Tinh fork songs Phuong Vai (hát Phường Vải) is a type of special fork poetry

of Nghe Tinh Land which is closely attached to performance environment The roles ofcommunication in Phuong Vai are male & female In this connection, the genderedlanguage characteristics have direct influence on the contents and forms of the turns.The study on the gender factors in the Phuong Vai singing will contribute to specify theluaguage, cultural and human characteristics of the Nghe Tinh Land Phuong Vaisinging used to be studied by the reseachers from the cultural aspects while lessattention is paid to the linguistics aspects There has not been any research workfocussing on the gendered language characteristics in the Phuong Vai The importance,the newness and attractiveness of the gender factors in the Phuong Vai serve as a basisfor us to choose the topic “Gendered language characteristics in Nghe Tinh Phuong VaiSinging”

2 Background

The findings of studies on gender in the area of linguistics have shown thesignificance and importance of gender factors in various aspects such as phonetics,vocabulary, grammar and language style (E Sapir, R Lakoff, W Labov, P.Trudgill )

In Vietnam, researchers have applied common theory on communication in exploringcultural characteristics related to the gender of communication’s roles, mainly focusing

on daily communication in several aspects: gender discrimination expressed in thegendered language and language styles (Nguyen Van Khang, Vu thi Thanh Huong ).These research works play a role in suggesting and providing theories for specificstudies, particularly the theory on gendered language in Nghe Tinh Phuong VaiSinging for this study

3 Study object, scope and sources of references

The object of this thesis is gendered language characteristics expressed in the turns ofthe male/female roles in Nghe Tinh Phuong Vai singing with the source of materials of

1,745 turns The study scope is to look into, describe, compare the languagecharacteristics of male/female communication roles in Phuong Vai singing in severalaspects like vocative words, speech acts in some singing steps, the usage of words, thefigures of speech

4 Study goal and objectives

The goal of the study is to identify gendered language characteristics in Nghe TinhPhuong Vai singing, thereby to illustrate and clarify several theoretical issues oncommunication language and gender, on the culture and people of Nghe Tinh Land

In order to realize the above goal, specific objectives are set as follows:

- survey, describe, analyse the Phuong Vai’s turns that are sex-dissagregated to detectthe expressions of gendered language characteristics of communication roles via thevocative words, speech acts, in some singing steps, the usage of words, the rhetoricalfigures

- identify similarities and differences in the gendered language characteristics ofPhuong Vai singing;

- adding materials for studing and teaching fork poetry

5 Study methodology

Key methods used in this study are statistical, descriptive, analitical, inductive,comparative

6 Contribution of the thesis

This thesis touches upon a new topic (gendered language) on a classic object withspecial characteristics (the Phuong Vai singing), therefore, its contents carry thenewness, not repeating other research works

- Affirming and adding remarks & comments on the gendered cultural characteristics

of Nghe Tinh Land and its people

7 Structure of the study:

Apart from the preamble and conclusions, the thesis is consisted of 4 chapters: Chapter 1: Theoretical basis and several issues on Nghe Tinh Phuong Vai singing Chapter 2: Gendered communication roles expressed via the vocative words in PhuongVai singing

Chapter 3: Gendered language expressed via some speech acts in Phuong Vai singingChapter 4: Gendered communication roles expressed via the wording methods in

Phuong Vai singing

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BASIS AND SOME ISSUES

ON NGHE TINH PHUONG VAI SINGING 1.1 Communication and conversation

1.1.1 Communication and verbal communication

Communication is exchange of information between at least 2 persons with verbalmessages in a certain context aiming at self-expression (in terms of attitude,sentiments, emotions, thoughts, view points…) In communication, language handles 2main functions: transactional and interpersonal functions In this thesis, interpersonalfunction is a basis for showing the relationship between male/female roles ofcommunication

When engaged in communication, the communication actors can exchange theirpositions in order to take the roles of asking or challenging/responding, thus creating

the system of turns with asking or challenging/responding adjacency pairsin terms ofcontents and forms In the scope of this thesis, the roles of communication are lookedinto in verbal conversation via asking or challenging - responding interactions

1.1.2 Conversation movement and interaction

The concept of conversation to be examined in this thesis is mainly understood asdialogue Each singing phrase in the Phuong Vai is equivalent to one participant to theconversation, mostly occuring in the form of solo phrase (of 1 participant) or exchange(of 2 participants) According to Yule (1997), based on the floor (right to speak), theconversation participants may have turns and have opportunity of turn-taking which isgoverned by the local management system The process of regulating the opportunities

of turn-taking by the local management system between the conversation participants isvery the process of the conversation including 3 factors: first taking floor, theexchange, and the interaction between Sp1 (speaker) and Sp2 (listener) which isarranged in the sequence of alternate asking or challenging/responding phrasesbetween the conversation participants, so called the coordination of the turns

The interaction must observe certain regulations & rules According to Grice (1975),the cooperative principle of the conversation is specified into 4 principles of lowerlevel, called the maxims of conversation including the maxim of quantity, the maxim

of quality, the maxim of relation, the maxim of manner When the speaker intentionallybreaks a maxim of conversation, it means that the speaker informs an implicit meaning

by implicature and the listener should be able to interprete this implicature

The Phuong Vai is love exchange singing, therefore, most of the Phuong Vai’s turnsaccoomodate conversational implicature In this connection, the issues related to thelanguage of the communication roles are looked into based on the conversationalimplicature

1.2 Speech acts

Speech acts are those undertaken with utterance (appology/excuse, complaint, guide,agreement, warning ) According to Searle, in order to undertake speech acts, 4preconditions are needed: contents condition, preparatory condition, sincerity

condition, essential condition; 5 levels of speech acts are associated with 5 overallfunctions of speech acts: declaratives, representatives, expressives, directives,commissives The speech acts touched upon in this thesis are based on Searle’s system

of categorization

1.3 Language and sex/gender

Sex is a concept to show the physical (biological) differences between men and women; gender is a concept to show the social relations, the social status correlation between men and women in specific social context Sex shows natural functions, mostly unchanged while the factors related to gender change when the conditions prescribing them change.

Sex factors have influence on language, creating differences between male and femalelanguages in 3 aspects: the pronunciation of each sex, language about each sex and thelanguage style Those differences are shaped due to many causes: natural cause – thehuman body structure, social cause with many factors such as culture, the powerdistribution and social status, the labor division and social experiences of each sex sexed language characteristics due to the natual causes are mostly ‘unchanged’ whilethe gendered language characteristics due to social causes tend to change fordevelopment and adaptation

1 4 Language and culture

According to F.d Saussure (1973), both culture and language are ‘social insitutions’;language as well as cultural activities belong to spiritual activities E Sapir (2000)affirms that language and culture are so closely related that people can hardly haveproper understanding about one of them without good knowledge of the other InVietnamese fork poetry this relationship is clearly expressed: community culture ofVietnamese people is the basis for the formation of the fork poetry; and on its turn, forkpoetry has significance in reflecting & recording the process of formation anddevelopment of the community culture

1.5 Social dialects

Being created based on the geographical, social features, historical characteristics,dialects are normally looked into from 2 aspects: regional dialects (showinggeographical variant of the language) and social dialects (showing social variant of thelanguage) In this thesis, only social dialects are touched upon In Phuong Vai singing,the signs of social dialects are looked at in many aspects: the word usage (system ofNghe Tinh local words, particularly the vocative words, words indicating space, time,work ); the art of paronomasia/word-play/pun (slang, homonym, synonym )

1.6 Nghe Tinh Phuong Vai singing and the study on gendered language characteristics

The own geographical, climate, living practices, linguistic features have formedrelatively consistent Nghe Tinh style, particularly human style, which is expressed inthe aspects like low voice, rigid & conservative thinking, strong actions; behaviors infavor of rustic simplicity; village community relationships defined based on thecohesiveness of the community

The Phuong Vai singing together with ‘hát ví đò đưa’/ barcarolle is considered as 1

of the 2 types of most typical and popular fork songs of Nghe Tinh land that haverelatively strict procedures In order to look at the sex of the communication roles, thematerials on the Phuong Vai singing have been categorized into 3 groups of turns 1)Group of turns in which the sex of the speech owner can be defined; 2) group of turns

in which the sex of the speech owner can hardly be defined; 3) group of turns in whichthe sex of the speech owner cannot be defined The group 3) is not looked into in thisthesis since the sex of the communication roles is not defined The total number ofsurveyed turns in this thesis is 1,745 including 767 male turns and 978 female turns

1.7 Summary of chapter I

Communication in Phuong Vai singing has performance characteristics, thereby, thelinguistics functions of the Phuong Vai singing are mainly interpersonal functions Inthe Phuong Vai singing, communication roles are looked at in their interactions via theform of asking or challenging/responding of the singing conversation The choice ofthe language of communication roles in the Phuong Vai is influenced with the factors

related to social attributes of the roles such as sex, age, occupation, personalbackground, educational level etc

In the conversation, each singing phrase (solo or pair of exchange) is considered as aturn which is undertaken in the alternate roles procedure This is the basis for definingthe concept of conversation mainly understood in this thesis as dialogue between 2main communication roles: male (male camp) and female (female camp) On the otherhand, given the constraints, the thesis only studies the language of the Phuong Vai viathe system of turns in the text form, not in the performance context, therefore, it doesnot look at the non-verbal factors, that are very important for fork cultural activities &practices like the Phuong Vai

CHAPTER 2: GENDER OF THE COMMUNICATION ROLES EXPRESSED

THROUGH THE VOCATIVE WORDS

IN THE PHUONG VAI SINGING

2.1 Communication roles in the Phuong Vai singing

2.1.1 Identifying the communication roles

Loking at the roles, the participants to a Phuong Vai performance include the singer,the facilitator, the listener In terms of relationship in communication, the above-mentioned participants are to be placed in three communication roles: the host, theguest and the facilitator In terms of gender relations, the participants are to be placed

in male and female roles There are 978/1,745 female turns accounting for 56%, and767/1,745 male turns accounting for 44% (Table 2.1)

Table 2.1 Classification/categorization of Phuong Vai turns by roles of communicationthrough the singing stages

Stage Single

maleturns

Singlefemaleturns

Male turns in theexchange

Female turns in theexchange

Total

Male askingor

Maleresponding

Femaleasking or

Femaleresponding

Looking at the social power, the male/female roles are distinguished in three aspects:

occupations and social status, the appreciation of social position is given only to male

roles; in terms of age, female roles are usually placed in a lower positions, moremodest in the relationship with the male roles (which is clearly reflected though the

vocative words); in terms of gender stereotypes, the speeches of male or female roles

refer to specific relationships: female roles are often associated with familyrelationships while the male roles are often associated with social relations

Looking at the social distance, the relationship between the male / female roles haveadjustments in the level of intimacy or distance If social relations between the roles ofcommunication are almost unchanged/constant throughout the performance, then interms of the social distance, throughout the sequence of singing performance steps, theemotion of the roles is advancing positively: from being strangers to being close &intimate

2.2 Gender expression via the system of vocative words in Phuong Vai

2.2.1 Briefing about the vocative words

The participants involved in communication are classified into 3 persons (singular andplural): the 1st person indicates the speaker, the 2nd person indicates the listener and the

3rd person indicates another one being refered to/talked about However, whencommunication occurrs, only the first and second persons have vocative words,therefore they are real vocative persons

Looking at the relationships in communication, the original personal pronouns inVietnamese language do not indicate gender, i.e there does not exist the gendercategory gramatically as well as biologically The temporary personal pronouns may ormay not indicate sex Thus, for Vietnamese language, the determination of the sex(male or female) of the actors indicated by the personal pronouns depends upon thecontext, text or logical judgements

2.2.2 Vocative words in the Phuong Vai:

The system of diverse vocative words makes the repartees in the Phuong Vai to havescholarly and fork characteristics at the same time

Besides, in the Phuong Vai, there exists the system of turns in which the vocativewords are absent in either 1st or 2nd persons or in both persons including 452/767 maleturns (58.9%), 589/978 female turns (60.2%) As a language of the communication art,

the phenomenon of the vocative words absence in the Phuong Vai is popular and is notconsidered impolite

2.2.3 Some vocative patterns in reference to gender of the roles of communication

According to the survey findings, male roles use 23 vocative words, wordscombinations at the 1st person; 47 vocative words, words combinations at the 2nd

person The female roles use 21 vocative words, words combinations at the 1st person,

37 vocative words, words combinations at 2nd person There is also a system ofcommon vocative words including group of truly personal words: tôi, ta (I), đôi ta (weboth) ; group of words which are not truly personal, to be used as temporarilyvocative words: mình (I), ai (who), cố nhân (old friend), tri âm (soul mate), bạn(friend), người (person)… The survey results show that the vocative words in maleturns are more diverse and flexible than in female turns However, if comparing them

in terms of the standards of communication, the vocative words of female roles aremore standards-oriented than the male roles

2.2.4 Vocative pairs in the interaction of the communication roles

With four aspects of the relationships between the roles of communication: equalpower/ peer relationships with distances, equal power relationship and solidarity,unequal power relationships with distance, unequal power relationship and solidarity,this thesis examines the interactions between the roles of communication in twogroups: system of lexical words in function of personal pronouns with 319/771 (*)1

turns in male turns (41.4%), 393/982 (**) 2 turns in female turns (40%) and the system

of absent vocative words with 452/771 turns in male turns (58.6%) and 589/982 turns

in female turns (60%)

The results of the survey on the pairs of lexical words in function of personal pronounsshow: (1) With simple, rustic vocative words, the vocative way of men is generally infavor of solidarity relationship; the vocative way of women, with formal, standardvocative words, inclines to power relationship (2) Through their vocative ways, menwant to narrow down the distance, while women want to keep it

The results of survey on the vocative words with absent persons show that: (1) thephenomenon of absence of vocative word at 1st person is more popular than at the 2nd

person and it is not the even for the 2 roles of communication: the vocative wordaddressing one-self are more often absent for women while vocative words addressingothers are more often absent for men (2) For the vocative words with suffiencientpersons, the absence of vocative words is mainly found in solidarity relationships than

in power relationships

2.2.5 Culture of Nghe Tinh people expressed via their vocative ways

In the Phuong Vai, Nghe Tinh people express their cultural identity through theformation of the "I/self” which is harmonized with the "we", at the same time showingpersonal characteristics through the vocative way Specifically: (1) Using vocativewords at the first person, singular at a high rate to show the singer's courage; (2) Usingindicative vocative words which contributes to define & speficy the roles ofcommunication in the Phuong Vai without mixing them with the community &collective, at the same time to demonstrate the capacity of the Phuong Vai’sparticipants in responding flexibly; (3) Incoporating personal names of the roles ofcommunication in the turns for the sake of provdiing information on identity, andshowing the capacity of flexible response of the participants as well as theattractiveness of the unpredictability of the performance

2.3 Summary of chapter II

In the Phuong Vai, the roles of communication are taken by two camps: female (ashosts) and male (as guests) The gender of the communication roles is best expressedvia the vocative words With a system of rich, diverse and relatively flexible vocativewords that are free of pattern, the Phuong Vai has distinctive features as compared with

other types of fork songs of Nghe Tinh like hát ví, hát dặm3…, as well as folk songsfrom other regions Also, the vocative way also reflects the ego of the communicationroles: being smart, witty, self-confident & courageous

The inter-personal relationship between the roles of communication in the Phuong Vai

is also expressed in two axes: the axis of power and axis of distance However, it tends

to express the equality, solidarity to narrow down the gap/distance between women andmen This is clearly shown in several aspects: using vocative words, expression ofideas, thoughts, emotions through the stages and steps of a singing performance Especially, as hosts, the female role is usually in proactive position, being relativelyconfident in communication, while the male role, as guests, is put into passive position,lacking self-confidence and sometimes proved to be confused & embarrassed It can besaid that the equality and the attitude of women promotion are the fundamentaldifference between the language of communication in Phuong Vai and the language ofconventional communication

CHAPTER 3: GENDERED LANGUAGE EXPRESSED VIA SOME SPEECH ACTS IN THE PHUONG VAI

3.1 Introduction

Based on the combination of the classification criteria of JR Searle and the

communication objective set for each singing step, this thesis categorizes speech acts for Phuong Vai turns into 4 groups: (1) representatives, occupying pretty large

proportion: 62.3% for male turns, 33% for female turns (2) expressives, 13.5% for female turns and 8.9% for male turns (3) directives, occupying relatively high

proportion with 41.3% for female turns and 17.6% for male turns (4) commissives, occupying low percentage with 118 turns (6.8%) (in which the female role has 83 turnsaccounting for 70%, male role has 35 turns accounting for 30%)

3.2 Speech acts in some singing steps of the Phuong Vai singing performance

- The act of presentation in ‘hát dạo’ (prelude) step includes two 2 contents:

self-introduction, explaining the background and purpose of communication (mainly formale roles with 62/71 turns, accounting for 87.3%); acknowleging the presence of theguests through the signals that are perceived by the senses or through observation,receiving information (mainly for female roles with 26/32 turns, accounting for81.3%)