an analysis of lexical cohesive devices in funtional food advertisements in english and vietnamese = phân tích các phương tiện liên kết từ vựng trong quảng cáo thực phẩm chức năng trong tiếng anh và tiếng việt

Detailed Analysis of Lexical Cohesive Devices in English and Vietnamese FFAs .... v LIST OF TABLES Page Table 2: The frequency of occurrence of lexical cohesive devices Table 3: The f

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CERTIFICATE OF ORGININALITY OF STUDY PROJECT REPORT i

ABSTRACT ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

LIST OF TABLES v

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale for the study 1

2 Aims of the study 2

3 Research questions of the study 2

4 Significance of the study 2

5 Scope of the study 3

6 Methodology 3

7 Design of the study 5

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

Chapter 1: Theoretical Background & Review of Related Literature 5

1.1 Discourse and discourse analysis 6

1.1.1 The concept of discourse 6

1.1.2 Spoken and Written Discourse 7

1.1.3 Discourse Analysis 8

1.1.4 Context in Discourse Analysis 8

1.2 Cohesion 9

1.2.1 The concept of cohesion 9

1.2.2 Classification of cohesion 11

Chapter 2: An overview of Functional Food and Functional Food Advertisements 16

2.1 The notion of Functional Food 16

2.2 Functional Food Advertisements 18

2.2.1 The functions of advertising 18

2.2.2 The strategies of advertising 19

2.2.3 The language of advertising 19

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2.2.4 General Description of Functional Food advertisements 19

2.2.4.1 Context of English and Vietnamese FFAs 19

2.2.4.2 The structure of an FFA 22

Chapter 3: An analysis of lexical cohesive devices in FFAs 24

3.1 An overview of Lexical Cohesive Devices in English and Vietnamese FFAs 24

3.2 Detailed Analysis of Lexical Cohesive Devices in English and Vietnamese FFAs 25

3.2.1 Reiteration 25

3.2.1.1 Repetition 26

3.2.1.2 Synonyms 29

3.2.1.3 Near Synonyms 31

3.2.1.4 Super-ordinates 34

3.2.2 Collocation 37

3.2.2.1 Lexical collocation 37

3.2.2.2 Grammatical collocation 38

Part C: CONCLUSION 42

REFERENCES 45 APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 III APPENDIX 3 V APPENDIX 4 VI APPENDIX 5 VII APPENDIX 6 X APPENDIX 7 XIII APPENDIX 8 XIV APPENDIX 9 XV

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LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 2: The frequency of occurrence of lexical cohesive devices

Table 3: The frequency of occurrence of reiteration in English

Table 4: The frequency of occurrence of repetition in English and

Table 5: The frequency of occurrence of collocation in English

Table 6: The frequency of occurrence of grammatical collocation

Table 7: Percentage of N-collocations and other types in English

Table 8: Percentage of N-collocations and other types in

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PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

Reasons for choosing functional food advertisements ( FFAs) for analysis

There is much greater recognition today that people can help themselves and their families to reduce the risk of illness and disease and to maintain their state of health and well being through a healthy lifestyle, including the diet The primary role of diet is to provide sufficient nutrients to meet the nutritional requirements of an individual Many traditional food products including fruits, vegetables, soya, whole grains and milk have been found to contain components with potential health benefits In addition to these foods, new foods are being developed to enhance or incorporate these beneficial components for their health benefits or desirable physiological effects As said before, consumer interest in the relationship between diet and health has increased substantially, thanks to an increase

in life quality accompanying an improved life expectancy In particular, there has been an explosion of consumer interest in the health enhancing role of specific foods or physiologically-active food components, so-called functional foods Functional foods are

an emerging field in food science due to their increasing popularity with health-conscious consumers With its easy use, ability to support good health with nutrients and improve the immune system, functional food is winning the hearts of more and more consumers As a matter of fact, functional foods seem to be sort of new to a large number of Vietnamese people There exist different ideas, even contrary ideas on this new kind of product The idea of investigating this kind of product to have a better understanding on it comes deeply

to my mind

As mentioned before, consumers‟ interest in functional foods has been increasing during the late twentieth century as people's interest in achieving and maintaining good health increased People‟s demand has increased; offering an opportunity for the age of advertising, advertising has been gaining its great popularity Different kinds of customers potentially demand different ways of presenting advertisements Advertisements are so available around

us that we cannot help taking notice of them They are informative and keep us in touch with the world We can see them in newspapers, magazines, radios, televisions, or public places It

is the fact that they play a remarkably important role in the socio-economy of any country For this reason, I decide to involve myself in the field of advertising

Reasons for investigating lexical cohesive devices

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During my attending discourse analysis lectures delivered by Professor Nguyen

Hoa, I was attracted by his talk explaining the two notion “cohesion” and “coherence”

clearly and understandably Referring back to my interest in the language of advertising, I combine these two to make a decision of analyzing lexical cohesion in advertising discourses It is noticeable that many researches on cohesive devices and particularly on lexical cohesive devices have been carried out in many discourses and genres Also, many studies of advertising discourse have focused on the language used in advertisements However, none has been done to functional food advertisements

In the light of discourse analysis, cohesion and coherence are among major aspects studied Basing on the theory of these two terms, I analyze the linguistic features in terms

of syntax of functional food advertisements in which I can see the frequency of occurrence

of lexical cohesive devices and then draw some noticeable findings

2 Aims of the study

The study serves four main aims:

- to give a brief overview on discourse and discourse analysis with the two related aspects: cohesion and coherence

- to give a general understanding of the notion “functional food” and the language

of advertising

- to investigate and describe the employment of lexical cohesive devices in this type of advertisement to work out their cohesive functions in particular, their roles in general in the creation of successful advertisements

- to make a comparative analysis of lexical cohesion between English and Vietnamese FFAs

3 Research questions of the study

In order to achieve the aims stated above, the study is meant to find out the answers

to 4 following research questions:

- What are the lexical cohesive devices used in English FFAs and Vietnamese ones?

- What are the frequencies of occurrence of these lexical cohesive devices?

- How do lexical cohesive devices contribute to the success of a functional food advertisement?

- What are the similarities and differences in the employment of lexical cohesive devices between English samples and Vietnamese ones?

4 Significance of the study

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This study contributes to verify the correctness and significance related to linguistic theories in discourse analysis by working on a certain kind of discourse (Functional Food Advertisements) Together with some previous studies on discourse analysis of advertising, the study covers another research on another type of advertising - Functional Food Advertisements It can be a useful analysis to understand the role and contribution of lexical cohesive devices to successful FFAs

Especially, this study is of great importance to me; it reflects my interest and concern about advertisement genre, this study is a valuable assertion on my effort to sort out the kinds of magazine and collect the advertisement samples More importantly, thanks

to this study, I could create a worthy opportunity for myself to have a true and deep understanding on a new and blooming kind of product in the world in general, in Vietnam

in particular, then it is my hope that this study can contribute to raising people‟s awareness

of functional foods and FFAs

Last but not least, this study can be a foundation for further studies on analysis of Function Food advertising in the light of other linguistic branches such as pragmatics, semantics

5 Scope of the study

Due to the limited time and knowledge, it is not my ambition to have a comprehensive analysis of FFAs I merely focus on the lexical cohesive devices in the advertisements for only one kind of products namely FFAs The investigation on one of two main aspects of cohesion, grammatical one, is beyond of the scope of this study, and this issue should be left for further study

The samples include 10 English FFAs and Vietnamese ones with equivalent number for the purpose of contrastive analysis All the data collected will be analyzed to explore their contribution to the creation of the cohesive and coherent text with precision, unambiguity, and tightness

6 Methodology

Description of data:

Subjects for this study are advertisements of functional foods, a large number of which can be found on televisions, on newspapers, on the internet, and so on However, this study focuses on samples of advertisements taken out from some magazines in both English and Vietnamese because magazines are one of written discourses in which the author can find it easier to explore lexical cohesive devices and their role and contribution

to the effective advertisements Moreover, FFAs are not frequently found in newspapers

Specifically, 10 English samples of FFAs are collected from some favorite and

famous magazines including Women‟s Weekly, Female, and Glamour Among a variety of magazines in Vietnamese, Tiếp thị và gia đình,Phụ nữ, Thế giới phụ nữ, and Truyền hình

are also chosen as the source of data In these, 10 advertisements for functional foods are picked up These magazines are chosen for data collection because of their common

characteristics Firstly, all of these magazines have the section “advertisements” which are

popular among customers who are able to afford to buy such kinds of products as functional foods Secondly, the target markets of all these magazines are mainly the women who can be reached by their care of their health and beauty Lastly, these female customers are clearly more eligible than male ones

All 10 samples in English language are for the products originated from speaking countries, whereas 8 samples in Vietnamese language are for products produced

English-in Vietnam, the three other ones English-in Thailand, Sweden and ChEnglish-ina For these, Vietnamese copywriters / advertisers either create advertisements for them or translate original advertisements into Vietnamese ones

Methods of the study:

- Deductive method: this is a study from discourse analysis approach, focusing on lexical cohesion, thus descriptions and interpretations undeniably base on the works of a few prominent authors and their contributions to related fields such as discourse analysis, cohesion Besides, a framework about the functional food products and language of advertising is set up

in order to find out the defining characteristics of functional foods and FFAs

- Inductive method: As introduced in the previous part, the study is aimed to explore the types of lexical cohesive devices used in FFAs Consequently; I will arrive at generalizations of explanations and form questions for further research

- Qualitative and quantitative methods: Qualitative method helps the study approach the advertising samples, then find out general features of these advertisements

7 Design of the study

Within the scope mentioned above, the thesis is structured as follows:

Part A: INTRODUCTION

This part introduces the rationale, aims, methods, scope, significance, and the design of the study

Part B: DEVELOPMENT

This part consists of three chapters:

Chapter 1: Theoretical Background & Review of Related Literature which covers some theoretical knowledge on discourse analysis in general, on cohesive devices in particular

Chapter 2: An overview on Functional Foods & Functional Food Advertisements This chapter deals firstly with the defining characteristics of FFs (Functional Foods) and then with advertising discourse together with general descriptions of FFAs

Chapter 3: An analysis of lexical cohesive devices in English and Vietnamese FFAs The third chapter in Part B, also the main one of the study, focused on the analysis

of the lexical cohesive devices employed

Part C: CONCLUSION: Firstly, I attempt to present recapitulation with some major findings Finally, some limitations and suggestions are mentioned

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

Chapter 1: Theoretical Background & Review of Related Literature

This chapter aims at dealing with theoretical framework of the study The chapter begins with a brief view on discourse and discourse analysis In this part, some important concepts in discourse analysis will be looked at, such as discourse and text, spoken and written discourse, and context in discourse analysis Then, the study investigates the notion

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“cohesion” which will be broken into the concept of cohesion, cohesion and coherence,

and classification of cohesion The writer of this study takes the view of Halliday and Hasan as the theoretical framework

1.1 Discourse and discourse analysis

1.1.1 The concept of discourse

There are different ways of understanding and defining “discourse” A number of definitions of discourse have been offered It is a fact that the term “discourse” is very ambiguous This notion should be investigated along with the notion “text”, which will be

presented below:

Discourse and Text

“Discourse” and “text” are two terms in discourse analysis which are in need of

research and clarification because they may cause confusion for teachers and students of discourse analysis, as well as researchers doing discourse analysis Some scholars identify discourse with text and they supposed that they can be used interchangeably; meanwhile, some other linguists consider text and discourse as two separate entities, and then have paid much attention to the distinction between a discourse and a text For some of them, text is used for writing and discourse is used for speech

Brown & Yule (1983:6) argue that text is the representation of discourse, and the

term “text” is used to refer to the verbal record of a communicative act Nunan (1993:7-8) affirms that the term “text” is used to “refer to any written record of a communicative event”, meanwhile the term “discourse” is reserved to refer to the interpretation of the communicative event in context.” Crystal (1992:25) says: “Discourse is a continuous stretch of language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon, argument, joke, or a narrative”

According to Halliday & Hasan (1976:2, Cohesion in English), “a text has texture and this is what distinguishes it from something that is not a text” The primary

determinant of whether a set of sentences do or do not constitute a text depends on

cohesive relationships within and between the sentences They also state “A text is a unit of language in use It is not a grammatical unit, like a clause or sentence” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:1) To emphasize the semantic role of text, they add “a text is best regarded

as a semantic unit: a unit not of form but of meaning A text does not consist of sentences;

it is REALIZED BY, or encoded in, sentences.”(Halliday & Hasan, 1976:2) Halliday

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(1985:290) states that “discourse itself is a process and the term text is usually taken as referring to the product”

Hoang Van Van (2006:15) argues that text and discourse could be used

interchangeably with the explanation that “text or discourse is analysis instance of language in use”, or “any attempt to distinguish text from discourse will result in complicating the problem” Nguyen Hoa (2000:20) states that “discourse is the communicative process while text is the verbal or physical records of this process”

To sum up, it is believed that discourse is a combination of sentences which are not arranged randomly but orderly to express a complete meaning That is the why a combination of some sentences well-formed but meaningless cannot be seen as a discourse

Actually, it is not easy to make a clear cut between text and discourse In this study,

I would like to take Brown & Yule‟s viewpoint on text and discourse as the base, “the text

is the representation of discourse”

1.1.2 Spoken and Written Discourse

DA (Discourse Analysis) is not only concerned with the description and analysis of

spoken interaction It is clear that we daily consume hundreds of written and printed words: newspapers, letters, emails, instructions, notices, leaflets, billboards, and advertisements We -the readers- of course, expect them to be coherent, meaningful communications in which the words and/ or sentences are linked to one another From that point, discourse analysts are equally interested in written interaction Therefore, the term

DA could be used to cover the study both spoken and written discourse

With written texts, the writer has usually had time to think about what to say and how to say it, and the sentences are usually well-formed in a way that the utterances of natural and spontaneous talk are not Compared with written texts in terms of grammar,

spoken texts are unedited Moreover, “the written discourse displays a much higher ratio

of lexical (content) words …to total running words” (Hoang Van Van, 2006:24) In terms

of demands on the listener and reader, spoken and written discourse also differ With written discourse, there are no shared situations The situation therefore should be inferred from the text The writer will be successful in creating a meaningful text if he / she could make assumptions about the reader‟s state of knowledge With spoken discourse, there is a face-to-face interaction in which the meaning of the words used can be conveyed by non-verbal behavior

1.1.3 Discourse Analysis

DA is concerned with the study of the relationship between language and the contexts in which it is used

In Vietnamese, discourse analysis has been attracting more and more attention from

a number of linguists According to Nguyen Hoa (2000:11), discourse analysis can be

considered as “a study of how and for what purposes language is used in certain of context

of situation and the linguistic means to carry out these purposes.” He makes it clear that the subject matter of discourse analysis is “language in use” Only by language in use, can

we recognize the message that advertisers wish to convey In this study, the writer would like to take this viewpoint as the base

1.1.4 Context in Discourse Analysis

The term “context” has been received various views from various scholars Simply, Nunan (1993:7) defines: “Context refers to the situation giving rise to the discourse, and within which the discourse is embedded” According to him, context consists of two types:

linguistic and non-linguistic Linguistic context is in fact referred to as co-text It surrounds

or accompanies the piece of discourse Non-linguistic context was first noticed by the

anthropologist Malinowski who created the terms “context of situation” and “context of culture” Lately, Halliday & Hasan (1976) focus on the context of situation With the

belief in the role of context to meaning, Halliday & Hasan (1989:12) suggest a component model of context: field (of discourse), tenor (of discourse), and mode (of discourse) The mode of context can be represented as follows:

three-a Field of discourse refers to what is happening, to the nature of the social action that is taking place

b Tenor of discourse refers to who is taking part, to the nature of the participants, their statuses, and roles It is the tenor that relays the relationship between the addressee and the addresser

c Mode of discourse refers to what part the language is playing, what is it that the participants are expecting the language to do for them in that situation

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For short, these three notions could be understood in the simplest way:

- Field of discourse relates to the subject matter of discourse/ what the speaker talks about

- Tenor of discourse relates to interpersonal relations between participants

- Mode of discourse relates to channels o ways by which discourse is conducted

In summary, field, mode, and tenor of discourse are in a dialectical relationship They collectively define the context of situation of a text They are contextual variables of what is called a register Register reflects the degree of formality of a particular text by using a characteristic set of lexical and grammatical features that are compatible with a

particular register Halliday & Hasan (1976:23) defines “register” as: “The register is the set of meanings, the configuration of semantic patterns that are typically drawn upon under the specific conditions, along with words and structures that are used in the realization of these meanings”

A lower register is represented by the use of everyday vocabulary and fewer complex grammatical forms, while a higher register requires the use of professional, academic lexical items along with denser grammatical structures

This study is concentrating on the concept of cohesion, which is usefully supplemented by that of register These two elements can be regarded together to effectively define a text

Discourse is studied not only from the perspective of register, but also from the

perspective of genre In recent years, the term “genre” has been a controversial topic for a

large number of linguists The group of systemic linguists put social context into context of culture and context of situation, or genre and registers respectively They believe that genres are realized through registers, and registers are in turn realized through language Meanwhile, the second group of scholars sees the relationship between context and language in quite different, in which genres are classified as smaller parts of registers

This study follows the point of view in which genre is considered as a sub-type of register, i.e a register may include different genres; for example, a story can be a myth, a legend, or a tale

1.2 Cohesion

1.2.1.The concept of cohesion

According to Halliday & Hasan (1976:7), cohesion refers to the “non-structural text-forming relations” They state that “the concept of cohesion is a semantic one; it refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text, and that define the text”

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“Cohesion occurs where the interpretation of one element in the discourse is dependent on that of another”.(Halliday & Hasan,1976:4) Vo Dai Quang (2006:27) and Nguyen Hoa (2000:23) cohesion could be simply understood as “formal links or relationship which exist between sentences that cause texts to cohere or stick together.”

Following is a brief introduction about Cohesion and text as the basement leading

to the analysis of cohesion

Cohesion and text

In the seminal work Cohesion in English,( 1976:292), Halliday & Hasan say that,

“a text, as a semantic unit, is REALIZED in the form of sentences the expression of the semantic unity of the text lies in the cohesion among the sentences of which it is composed.” They also state that in any text, every sentence except the first one has a cohesive relation with the preceding sentence Besides, they state that “a new text begins where a sentence shows no cohesion with those that have preceded.”

Cohesion is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the creation of a text What creates text is the textual, or the component of the linguistic system Cohesion is only one part in this system, and cohesion plays an important role in the creation of text with its role

of providing texture “Cohesion expresses the continuity that existed between one part of the text and another”(Halliday & Hasan, 1976:299) Cohesion provides the text the

continuity, which enables readers or listeners to supply all the missing pieces necessary to its interpretation

Cohesion and Coherence

Let‟s take one example to see how these two notions contribute to the creation of a text

Yesterday, I went to school with my friends at 11 am Then I came back home and had breakfast

From lexical and grammatical point of view, the example above is perfectly correct However, it is not logical, and coherent When reading it, everyone will find that it lacks coherence The reason is that the events in that utterance are not in logic order After 11

am, one cannot have his meal called breakfast All the clauses in the utterance are fine but the order in which the processes or events occur is not chronological In a nutshell, these two sentences cannot belong to a text or cannot create a meaningful text or discourse

In fact, cohesion is the network of different kinds of formal relationships that

provide links among various parts of a text, and “is expressed partly through grammar,

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and partly through vocabulary” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:5) Coherence, on the other

hand, is understood as the quality of being meaningful and unified of a text

There are interrelationships between cohesion and coherence If cohesion refers to the linguistic elements that make a discourse semantically coherent, then coherence involves with what makes it semantically meaningful If so, cohesion is seen as one of the ways of indicating coherence; in other words, cohesion is the realization of coherence, and coherence is something created by the readers while reading the text

In short, cohesion is mainly used to ensure or embody coherence by a system of cohesive devices They are essential elements that make a text or discourse different from random sentences or utterances

1.2.2 Classification of cohesion

It can be seen that a coherent text is a sequence of sentences or utterances which seems to be linked; it contains words or phrases that enable the writer or speaker to establish boundaries across sentences or utterances and help them to be tied together These words or phrases are considered cohesive devices These cohesive devices are all closely connected to create a coherent text Halliday and Hasan (1976:29) identify five main cohesive devices in English: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical

cohesion The four first types can be grouped under the name of grammatical cohesion Therefore, the notion “cohesion” can be examined under two subtypes, grammatical and

lexical cohesion According to Nguyen Hoa (2000:32), lexical cohesive devices are divided into 4 kinds: reiteration, synonyms, antonyms, association Here below indicates

subtypes of both grammatical and lexical cohesion from the viewpoint of Halliday and

Hasan( 1976:288, 1976:303-304) which will be taken as the classification basis of the study

Table 1: Types of cohesion

Endophoric - personal

synonym

Verbal substitution Collocation Noun + Noun

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Ellipsis

Conjunction

Preposition

Others The discourse with grammatical cohesion will not form a text unless the sentences

in that discourse are matched by cohesive relatives of lexical items As stated before, the scope of this study deals with only lexical cohesive devices or lexical cohesion which will

be discussed in details below

Lexical cohesion was first advanced in terms of collocation by Firth (1957) and

later developed by Halliday (1961, 1966) Halliday & Hasan (1976:303) provide a

comprehensive treatment of “lexical cohesion” They say “Lexical cohesion, as the name implies, lexical; it involves a kind of choice that is open-ended, the selection of a lexical item that is in some way related to one occurring previously” Lexical cohesion is categorized into two main phenomena termed reiteration and collocation They state “all lexical cohesion that is not covered by what we have called “reiteration” – and treat it under the general heading of COLLOCATION, or collocational cohesion…” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:287)

Reiteration not only involves the repetition of the same lexical items, but also the

occurrence of a related item and the use of a general word to refer back to a lexical item A lexical item could refer back to another related item by having a common referent According to Halliday and Hasan (1976:278), reiteration can be classified into four types, the same word, a synonym or near-synonym, a super-ordinate, and a general word

“Reiteration is a form of lexical cohesion which involves the repetition of a lexical item, at one end of the scale; the use of a general word to refer back to a lexical item, at the other end of the scale; and a number of things in between- the use of a synonym, near-synonym, or super- ordinate”

Halliday and Hasan (1976: 278)

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This classification can be illustrated by the following example which I took out

from the book namely “Cohesion in English” by the two authors, Halliday & Hasan

(1976:280)

There is a boy climbing the old elm

a That elm isn‟t very safe

b That tree isn‟t very safe

c That old thing isn‟t very safe

In (a), elm is repeated, (b) selects the super-ordinate tree, and (c) the general word thing is used

Here below is a brief overview of these subtypes of reiteration

Synonymy and Near- synonymy

As a matter of fact, for some certain words, repetition becomes more effective in emphasizing an issue while for some others, expressing their meanings in different ways is better Synonymy refers to the relation between different words bearing the same meaning The synonyms can be replaced each other in order to avoid repetition in case it is not necessary to repeat a word, and especially this can make the discourses flexible and help not to bore the readers Synonyms can be nouns, verbs, adjectives and both members of the pair are the same part of speech

There is a group in which words share the similar meanings but still cannot be considered synonyms These belong to another concept of lexical cohesion: near- synonyms

As just mentioned, near-synonymy refers to the relations between different words with nearly the same meaning

Synonym is defined as “a word or expression that has the same or nearly the same meaning as another in the same language” (Oxford Advanced Learners‟ Dictionary of

Current English, 2000, Oxford University Press) This definition proves that the boundary between synonyms and near-synonyms is by no means clear-cut

Super-ordinates

super-For instance, „vehicle” is a super-ordinate for “car”, “bus”, “train” in which

“car”, “bus”, and “train” are considered as branches of „vehicle” They are grouped namely “co-hyponyms” It is commonly accepted that among super-ordinate and co-

hyponyms exists the sense relation

General words

According to Halliday & Hasan, “Not all general words are used cohesively; in fact, only the nouns are…” (1976:281) They also state that “the class of general noun is a small set of nouns have generalized reference with the major noun classes, those such as

“human noun”: “place noun”, “fact noun” and the like.”

Examples are:

Person, people, man, girl, child (human)

Place (place)

Thing, object (object)

Question, idea (fact)

The class of “general noun” lies between grammatical and lexical cohesion A general noun in cohesive function is almost accompanied by the reference item “the” or a

demonstrative as an alternative These items are important sources when analyzing cohesion of any text

The following is an illustration of using general word with cohesive function:

They are fixing the house I lived in that place during my childhood

“That place” is the general word We can understand this word only if we refer back to find out what “that place” generalizes for We can also see the reference item

“that” before the word “place” which is the indication of cohesive relations between two

sentences

Collocation

It is safe to say that many instances of cohesion are purely lexical, and independent

on the relation of reference In other words, two lexical occurrences can be cohesive without having the same referent or without bearing any referential relations This is true with another type of lexical cohesion: Collocation With lexical reiteration, the nature of

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cohesive relation is relatedness of reference, whereas collocation occurs when lexical items related to each other in terms of the form

Collocation refers to lexical cohesion that is achieved through the association of lexical

items that regularly co-occur, these lexical items “tend to occur in similar environment” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:287) They illustrate collocation that “In general, any two lexical items having the similar patterns of collocations- that is, tending to appear in similar contexts – will generates a cohesive force if they occur in adjacent sentences”.(1976:286) From grammatical

point of view, lexical collocation occurs when two lexical items collocate in pairs directly Let‟s

take an example: “There was a heavy rain last night.”

In this example appear two lexical items, that is, “heavy” and “rain”, which are used together and collocated to make up an adjective- noun structure: heavy rain This phrase illustrates grammatical collocation

It is believed that collocation refers to the restrictions on how words can be used together, for example, which prepositions are used with particular verbs, or which verbs and nouns often occur together Collocation should not be confused with idioms

“Collocation is not only limited to a pair of words” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:286), but also occur among long cohesive chains, such as sky…sunshine…rain…cloudy In this

case, collocation is explicitly referred to as “lexical collocation.” Such patterns may either

occur within the same sentence or across the sentence boundaries

Here I would like to mention another way to classify collocation According to Hoang Van Van (2006:84-85), collocation can be classified into there subtypes: Resultative, modificational, and contextual

Resultative collocation includes the word items which represent a cause - effect

relation; for example, rain - wet, wind - blow

Modificational collocation refers to the relation holding between analysis item and

one of its inherent qualities E.g rain - heavy, eat - full, sing - beautifully

Contextual collocation differs from the other types of collocation in the sense that the word items are concerned with the process and the participants The lexical items in

this case are merely nouns and verbs E.g teacher learn student, house build, grow vegetables, raise - animals

-Collocation is, to some extent, problematic in doing discourse analysis In some cases, it is difficult to decide whether a cohesive relation exists or not between two lexical items in the discourse Also, there is no limit to the items that can be used to express

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collocation, which may lead to the difficulty in listing out regularly co-occurring words and phrases As a matter of fact, collocation patterns will only be perceived by someone who knows something about the subject at hand, as well as have the sensitive background knowledge

For short, when analyzing lexical cohesion reflected in a text, the most important thing is to use common sense, combined with the knowledge they have of the nature and structure of its vocabulary

Chapter 2: An overview of Functional Food and

Functional Food Advertisements

In the previous chapter, we have mentioned the theoretical background of the study with some key information on discourse and discourse analysis In order to complete the theoretical picture of this minor thesis, it is necessary to take into account also a brief

understanding on the controversial notion “Functional Foods” (FFs) in general and

“Functional Food Advertisements” (FFAs) in particular

2.1 The notion of Functional Food

The term “functional foods” was first introduced in Japan in the mid-1980s and

refers to processed foods containing ingredients that aid specific bodily functions in addition to being nhutritious Clearly, most foods are functional in some way What makes

a “functional food”, however, is its potential ability to positively affect health

Benefits of FFs

Those functional foods that have the potential to improve health and well-being, reduce the risk from, or delay the onset of, major diseases such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), cancer and osteoporosis Combined with a healthy lifestyle, FFs can make a positive contribution to health and well being In other words, FFs offer great potential to improve health and/or help prevent certain diseases when taken as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle FFs not only provide basic nutrients, but also prevent diseases and improve heath due to their anti-oxygen elements FFs may be categorized as whole foods, enriched foods, fortified foods or enhanced foods The general category of FFs includes processed food or

FF range from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, which are naturally high in phytochemicals, to products in which a specific ingredient is added, removed, increased, or decreased

Examples of functional foods include foods that contain specific minerals, vitamins, fatty acids or dietary fibre, foods with added biologically active substances such

as phytochemicals or other antioxidants and probiotics that have live beneficial cultures

Consumers of FFs

A functional food may be targeted at the whole population or for particular groups, which may be defined, for example, by age or by genetic constitution

Health claims of functional food products

Functional food products typically include health claims on their label touting their

benefits: for example: "Cereal is a significant source of fiber Studies have shown that an increased amount of fiber in one's diet can decrease the risk of certain types of cancer in individuals."

There are two types of health claims relevant to functional foods, which must always be valid in the context of the whole diet and must relate to the amount of foods

normally consumed: “Promote health” and “Reduce the risk of disease”

1 TYPE A: "Enhanced function” claims refer to specific physiological,

psychological functions and biological activities beyond their established role in growth, development and other normal functions of the body

2 TYPE B: "Reduction of disease-risk” claims relate to the consumption of a food

or food component that might help reduce the risk of a specific disease or condition because of specific nutrients or non-nutrients contained within it (e.g folate can reduce a woman's risk of having a child with neural tube defects, and sufficient calcium intake may help to reduce the risk of osteoporosis in later life)

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However, some claims will fall outside of the purview of the Food and Drug

Administration and be accompanied by the disclaimer: “This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease." Such a disclaimer typically accompanies

supplements rather than foods, but since the definition of functional food is still evolving and somewhat amorphous, a functional food may find itself bearing the warning

Although manufacturers may use health claims to market their products, the FDA's stated intention is that the purpose of health claims is to benefit consumers by providing information on healthful eating patterns that may help reduce the risk of disease such as heart disease and cancer

As far as I know, Vietnamese functional foods are realized with the health claim

usually labeled on the product, that is, “Thực phẩm này không phải là thuốc, không có tác dụng thay thế thuốc chữa bệnh” (This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.) In other words, FFs should not be considered to be a kind of

medicine which can cure disease or replace medicine

2.2 Functional Food Advertisements

In the previous part, I attempted to examine the notion “functional food” In this

part, I shall first have a brief look at the notion “advertising” with the functions, strategies, and languages investigated Then, Functional Food Advertisements will be taken into consideration in terms of the context and the structure

2.2.1 The functions of advertising

The informational and directive functions would dominate in advertising discourse Besides, another function of advertising is the establishment of multidimensional relationships, between individuals, companies, brands, products, services, and texts For example, there is always an immediately relationship between the reader of the advertisement (so-called the advertisee) and the text itself, and the relationship between the advertisee and advertiser

Last but not least, advertising is functioned to build consumers Advertisements should be flexible and adaptable to meet the consumers‟ changing demands The advertisers need to assume background knowledge about their advertisees in the process of creating an advertisement Basing on the consumers‟ characteristics, such as age, sex, income, desire, as well as life expectation, the advertisers try to produce impressive and informative advertisements For short, when advertising, the target audience is very important It changes the appearance and style of an advertisement to suit their lifestyle

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2.2.2 The strategies of advertising

Truly, it is challenging for advertisers to create an informative and persuasive advertisement To have such effective advertisements, they have to make full use of the two main strategies, verbal and non-verbal ones

Verbal strategies: Verbal strategies refer not only to lexical choices but syntax choices

as well Language choice plays a vital role in the success of an advertisement

Non-verbal strategies: Non-verbal strategies are known as advertisers‟ skills of using non-linguistic features such as pictures, sounds, forms of words, and so on Thanks

to the adding of pictures of products, the customers find it easier to recognize products

2.2.3 The language of advertising

Language of advertising is somehow different to normal, everyday language The text used in advertisements that have been printed, recorded, uploaded and so on, is there for a purpose The language of advertising is “block language”, which is structured in terms of single words or phrases rather than the more highly organized units of clauses or sentences This kind of language can be exploited for advertisements because it can help concentrate readers/ viewers‟ attention on intended essential information Another reason

to apply this kind of language in advertisements is for economic purposes Expenditure can

be cut down if advertisers can be able to express ideas and messages in brief For this, single words and short phrases are certain to be more suitable, favorable, and effective than long clauses or sentences

Advertising can be divided into two main types: Commercial and Non-commercial advertising

Non-commercial advertising is one whose main purpose is not to sell anything to make a profit for a company or specific individual It could be used for the charity work, politics activities, it can be the propaganda for stopping smoking, using drug, or stop family violence or being against HIV, AIDS

Commercial advertising much relates to commercial purposes It aims at selling goods, which requires the advertisers to bring products‟ information to customers in the most effective and clearest ways

FFAs belong to the second kind – commercial advertising because of the reason that the advertisers‟ purpose is urging readers to buy the products

2.2.4 General Description of Functional Food advertisements

2.2.4.1 Context of English and Vietnamese FFAs

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a Genre

A functional food advertisement belongs to commercial advertisement genre, one

of genres of discourse “magazines”

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b Register:

FFAs, certainly are advertisements in general, so they are registered by the language of advertising Therefore, they are certain to share some characteristics of advertisements, which are mentioned earlier

c Field

The field of FFAs is nothing more than the field of business These advertisements aim at introducing kinds of different functional foods to the consumers and then urging them indirectly to buy these products For this, language used in FFAs tends to be persuasive, informative, and nice

pronoun “you”, which covers anyone who reads the text, the text producer appears to address the reader directly Another example is the interesting use of “we” in which writers

includes the readers

e Mode: The mode of FFAs is in the form of written discourse FFAs are presented

in one popular kind of publication- magazines- which is a monologue discourse Language used in FFAs must be concrete and comprehensible so that the readers of every age and of all language competences can understand

Under “mode”, some grammatical features of FFAs are investigated as follows:

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introduce the product but also help the businessmen or companies minimize the money used in advertising that product

With the general look at all 20 samples selected for this study, I find out that most

of them are one page in length No advertisements go beyond the limitation of one page Some of them occupy just a half or a quarter of paper sheet, even just a small space on the corner of the paper

- Kinds of sentences

With the same purpose of saving money and impressing the readers, the writers of FFAs do not always use the full sentences, but frequently use words, or phrases for the reason that they are fully aware of the language of advertising – block language Thanks to this strategy, readers seem to catch information about the functional food advertised in a quicker way and then eager to read more and remember the product easier

- Mood and Voice

Through working on 20 chosen advertisements, it is realized that Representatives / Indicatives take up the highest occurrence in comparison with other moods It is easy understood because FFAs are mainly aimed at introducing and describing the products so that the readers know information about the products as much as possible All parts of advertisements should be informative, in other words, those parts should cover their function of supplying the information such as ingredients, origins, usages

It is realized that at the same time the writer use both passive and active voice in which the products are in the position of subject of the sentence with the purpose of driving the readers to the products

2.2.4.2 The structure of an FFA

It is necessary to mention hereafter FFAs‟ structure as an overview of cohesion before coming to the more detailed discussions on cohesive devices

Having an overall look at all the selected advertisements for the thesis, it is easy to notice that, a written discourse of FFAs, like many kinds of advertisements in general, consists of two elements: images and texts It is clear that images play an important part in both getting readers‟ attractions and introducing what should be advertised They often illustrate or supplement the text In all of the FFAs chosen, an image of the products and that of a person/ some people are attached to make the advertisements more persuasive and informative and clear However, it is not within the scope of this study to mention the use

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Chapter 3: An analysis of lexical cohesive devices in FFAs

In the previous chapter, we have discussed some prominent features of FFs as well

as FFAs This chapter deals with the use of lexical cohesive devices in FFAs in English and Vietnamese The analysis process is mainly based on the linguistic views of Halliday

& Hasan

3.1 An overview of Lexical Cohesive Devices in English and Vietnamese FFAs

Understanding comprehensively the uses and the functions of the lexical cohesive devices will help the writer create effectively cohesive and coherent texts Functional food advertisements are no exception As mentioned in the theoretical background of the

language of advertising, FFAs also take advantage of the strengths of “block language”,

particularly; words and phrases are frequently used instead of clauses and sentences However, those single words and phrases are not separate from one another They cohere together tightly to partly create the stable structure of each FFAs

Within the limit of the minor thesis, I only focus on investigating lexical cohesive devices which have a great contribution to effective and coherent texts in FFAs

After looking through all 20 FFAs (both in English and Vietnamese) selected and careful investigating the written discourse of those data, I can present an overall picture of the occurrence of lexical cohesive devices in Table 2 below:

Table 2: The frequency of occurrence of lexical cohesive devices

in English and Vietnamese FFAs

Types of lexical cohesive

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Among 10 Vietnamese FFAs studied, like English ones, collocation also occupies the first portion among the 6 kinds of lexical cohesive devices with the percentage up to 47.4 % The second rank belongs to repetition which reaches the number of 141 among the total of

477 Near- synonyms are of a little higher percentage than other kinds including synonyms, super-ordinates, and general words with 10.5 % compared with 3.4 %, 6.6% and 2.5 % respectively The least common type of lexical cohesive devices lies with general words with 2.5 % which are of little higher in comparison withEnglish general words

The table above reveals some similarities in the frequency of occurrence of lexical cohesive devices in English and Vietnamese FFAs In both English and Vietnamese FFAs chosen, collocation is employed at the highest rate, 35.9 % compared with 29.6 % Repetition comes next among 6 types of lexical cohesive devices Near-synonyms in Vietnamese FFAs takes up the over double percentage compared with those in English ones, which is 10.5 % and 3.7 % respectively It is clearly seen that near- synonyms are more frequently used in Vietnamese FFAs than in English ones One more thing is that

“general words” type appears with the very low frequency

3.2 Detailed Analysis of Lexical Cohesive Devices in English and Vietnamese FFAs

In this part, the thesis shall go deeper into presenting statistical results of frequency

of lexical cohesive devices appeared in both English and Vietnamese FFAs as well as showing examples to demonstrate lexical cohesive devices in use in order to work out the cohesive effects gained through the selection of vocabulary

3.2.1 Reiteration

Here below is the analysis of elements of reiteration in turns to work out their frequencies as well as understand the cohesive functions in FFAs First and foremost, the overall picture of the occurrence of reiteration is shown in the table below

Table 3: The frequency of occurrence of reiteration in English and Vietnamese FFAs

Types of reiteration Frequency of occurrence

in English FFAs (%) Frequency of occurrence in Vietnamese FFAs (%)

Synonyms and Near-

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English FFAs, 56.2 % for Vietnamese ones) Synonyms and Near- synonyms come next with the percentage of 17.1 % (English) and of 26.3 % (Vietnamese) Rank the third among 4 types of reiteration is Super-ordinates with the percentage of 8.9 % among English FFAs and 12.7 % among Vietnamese ones The last type of reiteration -General words- are of extremely small portions with only 4 % in English FFAs and 4.8 % in Vietnamese ones

Below, the types of reiteration are investigated in turns to find out their role and contribution in making the FFAs cohesive and coherent

3.2.1.1 Repetition

Looking at the Appendix 1 & 2, we can easily recognize the frequencies of word repetition in FFAs When a word is exploited some times in the same advertisement, it is the intention of advertiser to emphasize something, or to direct readers‟ attention to something Hence, this word can convey key information of the advertisement

The following table shows the detailed frequency of occurrence of 4 types of Repetition

Table 4: The frequency of occurrence of repetition in English and Vietnamese FFAs

Types of Repetition Frequency of occurrence

The Appendix 1 and 2 show the highest frequencies of nouns repetition Some of the nouns are not only used many times in the same advertisement but also repeated in other different ones It can be explained that the writer wants the readers to focus on the product by introducing its usages and its positive effects on human being, particularly on human being‟s heath and well-being Then, the information will go into the readers‟ mind

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naturally and quickly It is also the core and direct purpose of creating the functional food advertisements

Some most popular nouns used can be named in the table below:

Nouns ( English) No of occurrence Nouns

Some illustrations of the employment of repeated nouns are as follows:

The immune system is the body‟s first line of defence Taking care of your immune system

is therefore important A weaker immune system has an increased risk to infectious and

degenerative diseases

(E.9)

In this advertisement, the copywriter intends to direct the readers‟ attraction to his most desired information: This functional food seems to be helpful and outstanding with the beneficial ingredients that can enhance immune system

( )Veta Tinh Chất Mận California Cô Đặc là sản phẩm dinh dưỡng làm từ những quả

mận California tươi ngon, chín mọng giàu chất dưỡng chất cho một vẻ đẹp tự nhiên hoàn hảo( ).Bạn sẽ rất tự hào về vẻ đẹp tươi trẻ được tỏa sáng từ bên trong cùng với một cơ thể khỏe khoắn

và làn da căng mịn hồng hào tràn đầy sức sống

of females, the copywriter uses the word “vẻ đẹp” many times As a result, by using this

word, the copywriter seems to be successful

A group of nouns – proper names of the functional foods – appears to be employed purposely and effectively The repetition of proper names occurs at the approximately similar rate of 20.3 % in English samples and 19.9 % in Vietnamese ones The reason is that the writer‟s intention is to make the readers got hooked and attracted to the name of the product By putting the name at different and various positions in the advertisement, the writer can successfully make the name of the product come directly into the readers‟ mind, and then to some extent, they will remember that name easily and passively

Below is analysis example of using the name of the product repeatedly:

For over 30 years, Sunspirit has blended ancient wisdom with modern science to create a

unique aromatherapy range using 10% natural oils for emotional and physical healing Make

Sunspirit’s rejuvenating, aromatic oils part of your day….Sunspirit products provide relief for a

range of everyday health concerns, from Headache( Lavender oil), Bruising ( Arnica Ointment), Arthritic Pain ( Joint Relief) and Cold Sores ( Bergamot Oil) to Stress ( Less Stress), and Fine

Lines & Wrinkles ( Rose Hip) You‟ll be amazed at just how many applications Sunspirit products have Ask for Sunspirit in your pharmacy or health food care

(E.7)

Để góp phần hỗ trợ cải thiện sức khỏe cho cộng đồng ,công ty TNHH Hoàng Hương đã

cho ra đời viên nang dầu gấc mang thương hiệu Hoapharm

Viên nang Dầu gấc Hoapharm có chứa dầu gấc nguyên chất,(…)

Viên nang Dầu gấc Hoapharm có tác dụng tốt cho ( )

Dầu gấc Hoapharm hoàn toàn không độc hại và tác dụng phụ(…)

(V.1)

Explanation for this phenomenon can be traced to the intention and habit of the copywriter Specifically, it is the intention of the copywriter to emphasize the name of the product and then remind the readers of what they are reading and make them remember

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that name easily and unconsciously On the other hand, we must accept the truth that, in some cases, even though the advertisers seem to try best to avoid repeating the name of the product two many times, they cannot but use and reuse that name This seems to be a habit

of saying when they are aiming at introducing the products to customers and having these aims in their mind at that time

Regardless of nouns repetition, the repetition of verbs occupies the bigger preference than other types of speech with 20.7 % among English FFAs and 24.1 % among Vietnamese ones With these verbs repeated, the readers seem to be impressed by the prominent benefits or usages of the product

These advertisements put a great emphasis on the usages of products – which can

be seen as the main direct purpose of writers when creating advertisements

It is worth mentioning hereby that adjectives repetition is employed more preferably in Vietnamese FFAs than in English ones; particularly in Vietnamese FFAs, adjectives repetition enjoys the nearly double percentage ( 21.2 % and 11.3 % respectively) Explanation for this phenomenon can be traced to Vietnamese habit of using adjectives to clarify the subject they are talking about

Above is the analysis of all types of repetition employed to create cohesion and coherence in both English FFAs and Vietnamese ones

In the case that lexical repetition are overused in texts, the readers themselves tend

to feel a bit “unpleasant” and bored on reading Hence, it is necessary for the writers to know how to use repetition wisely and how to combine it with other lexical devices

3.2.1.2 Synonyms

One thing that makes FFAs coherent and cohesive is employing the synonyms of words The use of synonyms also serves the purpose of avoiding too much repetition which sometimes leads to the boredom of the readers

As stated in Appendix 8 and the Table 1, synonyms are used with the low frequency; it reaches the number of 30 in the total of 590 English lexical cohesive devices (5.1 %) and only 16 cases of synonyms can be found among the total of 477 Vietnamese lexical cohesive devices (3.4 %)

Therefore, I can list out the common synonyms found in English FFAs as follows:

 Reduce – lose- cut ( E 4)

 Lose- reduce- cut down on (E.6)